Understanding the Sharing Economy

Abstract

Understanding the sharing economy requires a knowledge of the definitions, concepts, and theories that help us to understand how they work. ‘Sharing economy’, ‘peer-to-peer economy’, ‘collaborative consumption’, ‘gig economy’, and ‘collaborative economy’ are among the terms used in the academic and business world to name a new economic and socio-cultural phenomenon (Dolnicar, 2021, Aloni, 2016: 1398). Some others emphasise that it is an ‘access economy’ in which companies act as intermediaries between customers (Buhalis et al., 2020), rather than a form of ‘sharing’, which is social exchange between people who know each other (Eckhardt & Bardhi, 2015). Controversy continues about this matter, and academics are still discussing which name is more appropriate. For example, there are some differences between a collaborative economy, introduced by Botsman and Rogers (2011), and sharing economy. ‘Collaboration’ implies a more communal framework, whereas ‘sharing’ implies relying on solidarity. Ravenelle (2017) stated that it is not ‘sharing’, but it ‘selling’. These terms are used for the phenomenon in the literature (Gül and Zeki, 2017: 2), and the ‘sharing economy’ is one of the most common among them. This chapter follows Sundararajan (2016: 27) and continues with the term ‘sharing economy’ to maximize the number of people who are familiar with our topic.