Article
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Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
From User to Provider: Switching over in the Collaborative Economy
Version 1
: Received: 21 April 2021 / Approved: 23 April 2021 / Online: 23 April 2021 (12:05:17 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Ertz, M.; Deschênes, J.; Sarigöllü, E. From User to Provider: Switching Over in the Collaborative Economy. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5662. Ertz, M.; Deschênes, J.; Sarigöllü, E. From User to Provider: Switching Over in the Collaborative Economy. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5662.
Abstract
The collaborative economy comprises resource circulation systems where consumers can act as both obtainers and providers of products and services. Despite considerable research on collaborative economies, there is a dearth of understanding of how individuals switch from being an obtainer to a provider. We address this void by drawing on 31 in-depth semi-structured interviews with collaborative economy obtainers. The findings suggest that personal values, learning experience, social benefits, mutuality, and peer influence drive obtainers to become providers. In contrast, distrusting strangers, a sense of intimacy, a lack of resources to share, and a lack of skills inhibit the switchover process. Our findings contextualize the drivers and inhibitors idiosyncratically to convert obtainers into providers, offer important implications for managers, contribute to the collaborative economy and sharing economy literature, and suggest compelling avenues for future research.
Keywords
collaborative economy; sharing economy; switchover; obtainer; provider; values; learning; mutuality; exploratory research
Subject
Business, Economics and Management, Accounting and Taxation
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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