A social licence for the sharing economy

Abstract

The emergence of community concerns around a range of sharing economy platforms have led to calls for more research into the so-called “dark side” of the sharing economy, including the development and application of analytical frameworks. In this article, we present one such framework based around social licence to operate (SLO), a concept that has been applied most extensively in the mining, forestry and energy sectors. We argue that, despite requiring some adaptations and refinements for application to the sharing economy context, social licence is a relevant and suitable concept for analysing community acceptance of sharing economy platforms and provides an opportunity for mutual learning between different sectors. We present a Sharing Economy SLO Framework and outline a research agenda that includes defining communities of interest and place that are affected by sharing economy practices, analysing the complex relationships between social acceptance and regulatory requirements, identifying and measuring key variables that determine SLO, and developing strategies for building and maintaining SLO for sharing economy practices.