[Air-L] Cfp: The Sharing Economy as a Path to Government Innovation

[shenja van der graaf]

CfP: Special issue: The sharing economy as a path to government innovation (
https://timreview.ca/calls-papers)

Guest editors:

Dr. Shenja van der Graaf
Carina Veeckman
imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

The concept of “sharing economy” is often used interchangeably with the
notions of “collaborative consumption” (Hamari, Sjöklint, & Ukkonen,
2016), “collaborative economy” (Bauwens, Mendoza, & Iacomella, 2012;
Botsman & Rogers, 2010), “crowd-based capitalism” (Sundararajan, 2016),
“peer economy” (Bradley, 2014), “gig economy” (Friedman, 2014; Mulcahy,
2016), “peer-to-peer economy” (Koopman, Mitchell, & Thierer, 2014) and
“platform economy” (Parker, Van Alstyne, & Choudary, 2016), to name a few.
It has become an umbrella term becoming increasingly relevant to both the
daily lives of private individuals and to the direction and operation of
social and political systems, thereby covering a large number of peer
sharing behaviours across several sectors, such as accommodation (Airbnb,
Couchsurfing), delivery and home services (Instacart), and transportation
(Lyft, Uber).

One of the key elements in the multiple definitions of the sharing economy
concept is the sense of belonging to community which is implied in the
sharing behaviours of involved actors. This community spirit is reflected
in the definition of Hamari et al. (2016: n.p.), defining the sharing
economy as a “peer to peer activity of obtaining, giving, or sharing the
access to goods and services, coordinated through community-based online
services”. The operation of sharing transactions via collaborative
platforms, such as online connecting platforms which are owned and
controlled by the consumers themselves, is the main driver behind the sense
of community surrounding the concept of the sharing economy. Consequently,
sharing with no true sense of community and collaboration among the actors,
even when sharing is not at all accompanied by economic transactions, or
sharing via for-profit intermediaries, as in the case of Uber, do not count
as examples of genuine sharing economy (Belk, 2014).

The opportunities within the sharing economy are enormous and are not just
for big businesses. For many, and in particular young people and women, the
sharing economy allows them to save money by accessing goods and services
rather than buying them, or only paying for them when they need them. The
democratization of access to resources, accompanied by the development and
implementation of more sustainable economic and environmental models is the
main outcome expected by the engagement of people in peer sharing
behaviours. A study of Wosskow (2014) showed that people are not just
saving money, they have also reported having a positive or very positive
experience with shared models of consumption. For women within the UK, the
sharing economy seems to have a real impact on how British women work. It
allows them to work more flexibly when they have a family, and to have a
lifeline back to work. It also seems that around a third of women in the UK
founded or co-founded a sharing economy business. In these given examples,
the new economy can have its implications on the organisation of work and
life, and in particularly in exploring flexible working patterns, long
working hours and homeworking and in sharing caring responsibilities among
partners or others (Perrons, 2003).

The sharing economy, however, is not only creating opportunities, it is
also presenting different governance challenges. One of them is the
creation of inequality in the ‘renting’ economy. Although the sharing
economy claims to de-emphasize ownership, it is mostly those who have the
assets that will accumulate money from it. If government agencies would
partner here with sharing economy platforms, it could only further deepen
economic issues and class divisions (Ganapati & Reddick, 2018). Another
challenge is the governance of the new working force that are operating as
independent contractors, and typically do not get the work security of
full-time workers. This might lead to unfair competition in the market,
such as the recent protests of taxi drivers against ride-sharing platforms
such as Uber.

Against this backdrop and cited examples of mostly commercial business,
this call for papers is particularly interested in empirical research such
as case studies focusing on exploring the outcomes and challenges of
government innovation related to the sharing economy. Nowadays, we witness
that governments are not fully embracing the opportunities offered by the
sharing economy, although it could make their operations more efficient and
lead towards a better usage of their public resources. Local authorities
could explore the sharing of IT systems, the sharing of heavy equipment or
local spaces, or support ride-sharing as part of public transport. Apart
from renting models, government departments could also embrace the time
banking system as a way to give their staff the opportunity to volunteer
with local charities and services, or as a way to broaden access to certain
services, such as childcare. Empirical studies could particularly focus on
the usage of or collaboration with online platforms to facilitate
collaborative consumption and delivery of public goods or services, and how
the creation of these tool creates a tension between the public and private
sector.

Given the multitude of sharing activities that could fall under the concept
of sharing economy, this call for papers welcomes any contribution in the
following classification: rental economy, peer-to-peer economy, on-demand
economy, time banking, open source software and social lending/crowdfunding
(Pais & Provasi, 2015); with a particular interest in case studies that
demonstrate the value of innovation management frameworks, models and plans
of government bodies or alternatives to public services.

We encourage interdisciplinary contributions that would cross the
boundaries between the fields of cultural and media studies, urban studies,
science and technology studies, platform studies, management and innovation
studies, policy studies, economics.

We look forward to papers that broadly deal with following topics, but are
certainly not limited to the following:

-The methodological and empirical challenges associated with the critical
study of the Sharing Economy in the context of government innovation
-Public service delivery in the sharing age (e.g., informal childcare
service)
-Opportunities, challenges, impacts of the sharing economy on governance
and public sector
-The role of the public sector in the sharing economy (vis-à-vis the
private sector)
-The willingness of government bodies to adopt sharing economy solutions
-Microentrepreneurs or peer-to-peer communities providing an alternative to
public services, or access to public resources
-Citizen perception studies or impact assessment studies of (better)
sharing public services as a new economy
-Case studies illustrating either successful or unsuccessful government
innovation in sharing economy (lessons learned)

Planning
750-words abstracts should be emailed to Shenja.vanderGraaf at imec.be by
January 24, 2020.

Abstracts will be reviewed by the Tim Review Editorial Board and the
special issue editors. Any queries can be addressed to the (guest) editors.

Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by February 7, 2020 and
invited to submit full manuscripts by March 31, 2020.

These manuscripts are subject to full blind peer review according to TIM
Review’s policies. The issue will be published in May 2020. Please check
the author guidelines for full submission.

The TIM Review in an is an online open-access peer-reviewed journal and
brings together diverse viewpoints - from academics, entrepreneurs,
companies of all sizes, the public sector, the community sector, and others
- to bridge the gap between theory and practice, with a particular focus on
the topics of technology and global entrepreneurship in small and large
companies. No Article Processing Charges (APC) https://timreview.ca/

Important dates:

-  January 24th: Submission of abstracts

-  February 7th: Invitation for full submission

-  March 31st: Full submission deadline

-  May 2020: Special issue publication

References
Bauwens, M., Mendoza, N., & Iacomella, F. (2012). Synthetic overview of the
collaborative economy. P2P Foundation, 7.
Belk, R. (2014). Sharing Versus Pseudo-Sharing in Web 2.0. The
Anthropologist, 18(1), 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09720073.2014.11891518
Bradley, K. (2014). Towards a peer economy: How open source and
peer-to-peer architecture, hardware, and consumption are transforming the
economy. Green Utopianism: Perspectives, Politics and Micro-Practices /
[Ed] Johan Hedrén and Karin Bradley, Taylor & Francis, 183–204.
Friedman, G. (2014). Workers without employers: shadow corporations and the
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https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2014.02.03
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