Humanizing markets : the emergence of community in the sharing economy
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Scholars and practitioners alike readily polarize the concepts of markets and communities, viewing them as incompatible and antagonistic. To critics, markets undermine communities' viability. This dissertation challenges this conclusion, examining how markets' scale and efficiency can be hybridized with the "human, " interpersonal aspects of communities. I study this hybridization in the sharing economy -- a set of organizations that increase the recirculation or utilization of goods among peers, such as Airbnb, Couchsurfing, and Lyft. My dissertation studies the case of Yerdle, a sharing economy startup structured as a virtual marketplace for exchanging used goods, like eBay, but with clear aspirations to build a community of sharing among users. Did a sense of community emerge within Yerdle's marketplace structure, and if so, how? Do feelings of community and identification promote increased user engagement, supporting the organization's growth and sustainability? To answers these questions, I employ mixed methods of interviews, surveys, and behavioral transaction data. My data reveal that though Yerdle was structured as a marketplace, many users operated with mindsets more typical of a tribe; I observed high levels of trust, social solidarity, and identification with Yerdle. I attribute this difference to what I call Yerdle's frame of exchange, i.e., the social construction and interpretation of communications, symbols, and design. New users who exchanged with more experienced, communal users were more likely to remain on the platform, suggesting a self-reinforcing feedback loop. I introduce a conceptual framework, the Community-Market model, to explain how certain frames of exchanges can lead to community-like attitudes and behaviors, and greater platform persistence. Yerdle's communal frame was distinguished by its neutral, internal currency of "credits" and its humanized culture of "real people." Yet in the last part of my dissertation, both features changed, resulting in a more transactional frame of exchange. This transactional shift is associated with a significant decline in active users' perceptions of trust, social solidarity, and group identification with Yerdle. Engagement on Yerdle also declined significantly, which can be attributed, through mediation analysis, to the decline in group identification. This research represents a novel effort to study the social dynamics of exchange in a field setting, offering scholars and practitioners a framework for hybridizing the benefits of communities and markets.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Ovadia, Michael S |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (Stanford University) |
| Primary advisor | Ortolano, Leonard |
| Primary advisor | Shiv, Baba, 1960- |
| Thesis advisor | Ortolano, Leonard |
| Thesis advisor | Shiv, Baba, 1960- |
| Thesis advisor | Cook, Karen S |
| Thesis advisor | Rao, Hayagreeva, 1959- |
| Advisor | Cook, Karen S |
| Advisor | Rao, Hayagreeva, 1959- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Michael S. Ovadia. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Michael S. Ovadia
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...