Exploring the influencing factors of sharing economy sustainability based on a two-mode social network analysis

Abstract

The sharing economy has extended to all fields during the last decade, indicating a rapid development. However, many sharing economy firms are facing operational difficulties even bankruptcy, leading to more and more attention have been paid on the sustainability of the sharing economy. Scholars have realized that the collaboration of stakeholders is a potential way to promote the sustainable development of sharing economy. The basis and key rest with understanding the influencing factors of the sharing economy and clarifying the relationships between stakeholders and factors. Only in this way we can put forward specific and practical suggestions based on the research results. Existing studies lack such thinking. Therefore, this paper firstly establishes the value net model of the sharing economy to identify the stakeholders and corresponding influencing factors of the sharing economy. Then a two-mode social network method is used to solve the problems of relationship analysis among different types of elements (stakeholders and factors). The results show that individual suppliers, firm suppliers, and sharing economy platforms are the most influential stakeholders in the sharing economy. The security mechanism, economic benefits, and social motivation are the key factors affecting the sustainability of the sharing economy. Core stakeholders should actively lead and coordinate other stakeholders to establish collaborative relationships and formulate sustainable development strategies based on these key factors.