Toward born sharing: The sharing economy evolution enabled by the digital ecosystems

Abstract

Recent years have seen the prosperity of the sharing economy and the emergence of new sharing models. Our study aims to examine how the sharing economy evolves with digitalization and how digital ecosystems enable the emergence and evolution of the sharing economy. By conducting an inductive case study of the sharing economy in China from 2014 to 2022, we identify that the sharing economy is expanding from adapted sharing via digital sharing platforms to born sharing via product-service systems, and from downstream consumption field to upstream production field. This evolution is enabled by digital ecosystems composed of the digital infrastructure pool and the digital enablement pool. Digital technologies and infrastructure reduce transaction and access costs, and enable new organizing models of the sharing economy through digital enablement mechanisms of integration and value appropriation, renewal and moderation, and updating and upgrading. By exploring the evolution of the sharing economy, we contribute to sharing economy literature by identifying the born sharing model and highlighting the on-demand access economy supported by digital technologies as the locus of the sharing economy. We also provide a dynamic framework of digital ecosystems for future research to advance the understanding of the digital economy.