Economie de partage : motivations et barrières des fournisseurs

Abstract

Recently, a new model of consumption has emerged in our economy. It is called “sharing economy”, or “collaborative economy”. The rapid growth of this new phenomenon has been encouraged by technological, economic and social factors. Also, this new economy has totally disrupted the traditional one. First of all, because it has given power to private users, who are also called “peers”. This means that both the provider and the consumer are now able to act on their own. The second reason why this new model is totally revolutionary is that it is based on access instead of ownership, which characterizes more traditional ways of consumption. In this way, sharing economy enables peer-users to exchange goods and services in return for compensation, which does not necessarily have to be financial. In this sharing economy, in order to organize the meeting of supply and demand, and to take care of the transactions that happen every day, online platforms were created. However, surviving as a platform is not an easy task, and therefore it’s crucial for them to attract enough participants.

For a better understanding of this trend, it is interesting to know and understand why peers decide to participate or not on those platforms. Several academic studies have covered the case of the customers, but the providers apparently remain under-explored. Yet, suppliers are as important as customers, as they are the ones who bring the resource to share.

Therefore, this thesis is to be read as an analysis of what it is that motivates providers to use the sharing economy platforms, and which are the barriers they encounter in this context.