Digital Disruption beyond Uber and Airbnb – tracking the long tail of the sharing economy
Journal article, 2020

The sharing economy can be regarded as a discontinuous innovation that creates increased abundance throughout society. Extant literature on the sharing economy has been predominantly concerned with Uber and Airbnb. As little is known about where the sharing economy is gaining momentum beyond transportation and accommodation, the purpose of this paper is to map in what sectors of the economy it is perceived to gain traction. Drawing on data from social and traditional media in Sweden, we identify a long tail of 17 sectors and 47 subsectors in which a total of 165 unique sharing-economy actors operate, including sectors such as on-demand services, fashion and clothing, and food delivery. Our findings therefore point at the expanding scope of the sharing economy and relatedly, we derive a set of implications for firms.

Uber

Airbnb

Social media analytics

Long tail

Sharing economy

Digital disruption

Author

Andrea Geissinger

Örebro University

The Ratio Institute

Christofer Laurell

Jönköping International Business School

Stockholm School of Economics

Christian Sandström

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Science, Technology and Society

The Ratio Institute

Jönköping International Business School

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

0040-1625 (ISSN)

Vol. 155 119323

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Philosophy

Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.techfore.2018.06.012

More information

Latest update

9/4/2020 6