Martin, CJ, Upham, P orcid.org/0000-0003-1998-4698 and Klapper, R (2017) Democratising platform governance in the sharing economy: An analytical framework and initial empirical insights. Journal of Cleaner Production, 166. pp. 1395-1406. ISSN 0959-6526
Abstract
The growing controversy around the adverse impacts of sharing economy platforms, including Airbnb and Uber, has led to calls for more democratic models of platform governance. Advocates of democratic governance models claim that these could help to create a more sustainable sharing economy by ensuring that platforms promote social and environmental values alongside the instrumental values of the capitalist economy. Exploring this claim we bring together theories of platform governance, democratic organisational governance and the enactment of values in socio-technical systems, offering a conceptual framework for analysing emerging democratic models of platform governance. Applying this framework, we present a mixed methods case study focused on Freegle, a platform that enables people to gift unwanted consumer goods locally and one of very few platforms to have sustained a democratic governance model at scale. In particular, we explore the extent to which the social, environmental and instrumental values of platform users and owners have been accommodated in the governance of Freegle. Our findings are broadly supportive of the claims made by advocates of democratic platform governance, although in Freegle’s case social and environmental values are rather better accommodated than instrumental values. While we are cautiously optimistic about the potential from a sustainability perspective of democratic platform governance models, we emphasise that major challenges are likely to be faced by those implementing these; and that such models should be complemented by government regulation of the sharing economy.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Journal of Cleaner Production. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Sharing economy; Collaborative consumption; Collaborative economy; Platform co-operativism; Platform governance; Platform cooperative |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Aug 2017 08:23 |
Last Modified: | 17 Aug 2018 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.08.123 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:120438 |