B2B SHARING PLATFORMS. THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP : A qualitative study investigating what drives or hinders the business to business sharing economy

The sharing economy has become a widely known phenomena, however, the main focus has always been on sharing between consumers, with firms like Airbnb and Uber at the center of the conversation. There is plenty of material written on the sharing economy in a consumer context, however, there is a glar...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Falkenberg, Adam, Esselin, Christian
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-161221
Description
Summary:The sharing economy has become a widely known phenomena, however, the main focus has always been on sharing between consumers, with firms like Airbnb and Uber at the center of the conversation. There is plenty of material written on the sharing economy in a consumer context, however, there is a glaring gap in current literature when it comes to sharing between businesses. There is a need for an analysis of what drives sharing between businesses, in order to identify potential differences between the consumer and the business environment. This study aims to answer the following research question: Why and to what extent do the factors convenience, financial, sustainable and uncertainty entice or deter management participation in the B2B sharing economy? The factors investigated in the study is derived from current literature. From the literature a conceptual model was developed. To complement the secondary data interviews were held to get a better grasp of sharing in a business context. The results suggests that there is an importance hierarchy in between the factors from most to least important as follows; financial, uncertainty, convenience and sustainability. Finally, the study contributes with a revised conceptual model where data from the results are used to modify the model derived from previous literature. The revised conceptual model can guide business to business sharing platforms when developing marketing strategies for their platforms. In addition, the insights gained from the study can be used when developing a platform or business model by prioritizing the more important factors.