The sharing economy : what is it and where is it going?

Abstract

Recent societal forces, combined with advances in technology, have led to the creation of the sharing economy, a 21st century socio-economic system built on the sharing of human and physical assets. This dissertation describes the key attributes and criteria that differentiate the multiple sharing economy systems, describing influential forces of recent national and global economic conditions, greater public awareness of the deterioration of the environment, a growing desire for community engagement, and continued development of new technologies. The work also analyzes three different industries - transportation, hospitality, and consumer-based services -- as a means of understanding how sharing economy models have achieved success and how they affect the overall economy and established industries. Finally, my analysis suggests that future sharing economy concepts will need to focus more on providing on-demand service verticals, utilizing the asset of time even more than physical assets.