To Örebro University

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 ondemand 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.

The sharing economy has evolved and spread to various sectors of the economy. Its early idea linked to the creation of more sustainable uses of resources. Since then, the development of the sharing economy has included a professionalization with self-employed suppliers rather than peers, and the question is whether the platforms following this development maintain the focus on sustainability. This paper describes and classifies the sustainability connotation of sharing economy platforms. It analyses 121 platforms derived through social media analytics to figure out whether they describe themselves as sustainable. The findings suggest that the sustainability connotation closely connects to specific sectors such as fashion, on-demand services and logistics. Meanwhile, the dominant role model platforms do not communicate about being sustainable. These findings contribute to previous research through (1) giving a systematic empirical account on the way various sharing economy platforms describe themselves in terms of sustainability, (2) pointing out the differences among the platforms, and (3) indicating the diversity in sustainability connotation among various sectors of the economy.

This conceptual paper aims to continue the debate initiated by Vince (2019) to deepen the understanding of institutional logic by further bringing psychoanalytical concepts into organizational and institutional scholarship. The paper argues the (re)enactment of institutional logics is based on the crucial dialectic between conscious manifestations and the unconscious ones. Institutional illogics as the hidden 'other' side of institutional logics may be a missing piece in the puzzle of understanding how institutions are (re-)enacted in institutionalization and institutional change processes. The conceptual arguments this paper illustrates review and analyze the contemporary phenomenon of the platform-mediated sharing economy. Based on the previous academic and public discourse, the sharing economy's institutionalization process can be described as having become a sharing fantasy where collectively structured fantasies unfold due to hidden and unseen patterns. By framing sharing as a structured fantasy, three institutional illogics emerge dehumanizing illogic, as-if illogic, and illogic of unconscious guilt. By combining micro-level analysis of the market society, such as psychoanalytical decision-making processes, with macro-level perspectives of institutions, we can understand how the (re)enactment of dominant (il)logics as collective fantasies jeopardize fundamental institutional change.

Purpose: This article explores the various stakeholders' perceptions of the ways digital work is organised within the sharing economy and the social implications of the transformation of work.

Design/methodology/approach: Applying social media analytics (SMA) concerning the sharing economy platform Foodora, a total of 3,251 user-generated content was collected and organised throughout the social media landscape in Sweden over 12 months, and 18 stakeholder groups were identified, discussing digital work within seven thematic categories.

Findings: The results show that the stakeholder groups in the Swedish context primarily expressed negative views of Foodora's way of organising digital work. The social media posts outlined the distributive and procedural justice related to the working conditions, boycott and protests and critical incidents, as well as the collective bargaining of Foodora.

Originality/value: By utilising a novel SMA method, this study contributes to the extant literature on the sharing economy by providing a systematic assessment concerning the impact of the sharing economy platform on the transformation of work and the associated social consequences.

As the emergence of sharing economy firms changes existing institutional structures and bring forth increasing institutional complexity for firms, regulators and users alike, this paper aims to analyze how the public adhere to institutional orders in resolving emerging controversies associated with the sharing economy. By analyzing four cases of societal controversies concerning the accommodation sharing platform Airbnb in the Swedish market during 12 months between the years 2015-2016, we illustrate the ways in which the public adhered to three main institutional orders of state, market and community in resolving four identified controversies related to prostitution, racism, failure to pay taxes and housing shortage allegedly caused by the firm. In perspective to the ways in which extant literature emphasize state and market as fundamental institutional orders for resolving institutional complexity, our results highlights the role of community as a key institutional order situated in the intersection between the state and the market in the setting of the sharing economy.