Mapping the Collaborative Economy Landscape and its Relationship with Information and Communication Technologies
The Rise of the Sharing Economy : exploring the challenges and opportunities of collaborative consumption, chapter 9, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, Calif.,, (2018)Abstract
Collaborative economy (CE), defined as a peer-to-peer sharing of information, goods and services, has seen a large rise recently due to the global financial crisis and the advances of information and communication technologies (ICT) and infrastructures worldwide. This is one of the first surveys that examines this rise from a technical perspective, under the prism of ICT, attempting to map the landscape of the most popular CE initiatives that make use of ICT for their operation, categorizing CE companies into six main categories and 14 sub-categories. This chapter tries to understand, at each of the 14 sub-categories, which software and hardware elements, software design aspects and online communication tools have facilitated the growth of the most successful CE-based companies, reducing the barriers of acceptance, participation and engagement among the public. More than 150 well-known initiatives are reviewed, which operate around the world based on the CE principles, using ICT as the main medium for interaction, collaboration, sharing and exchange of information, goods and services. Successful and failed practices are discussed, obstacles for further adoption are listed and best software design elements involved are identified. Finally, this chapter attempts to predict the future of this promising practice, in parallel to the projected evolution of ICT such as the Internet and Web of Things, the Semantic Web, alternative currencies, predictive intelligence and big data analysis.