UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO (UFRJ)

INSTITUTO COPPEAD DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO

YENTL LISANNE KNOSSENBURG

SOCIAL MARKET FAILURES:

FROM OWNERSHIP TO ACCESS

Rio de Janeiro

2017

YENTL LISANNE KNOSSENBURG

SOCIAL MARKET FAILURES:

FROM OWNERSHIP TO ACCESS

Master Dissertation presented of the Master in

Business Administration (MBA), Coppead

Institute of Administration of the Universidade

Federal do Rio de Janeiro, part of the necessary

requisites for the title of Master in Business

Administration.

Coordinator: Paula Castro Pires de Souza Chimenti (D.Sc.)

Rio de Janeiro

2017

CIP – Catalogação na Publicação

Knossenburg, Yentl Lisanne

Social market failures: from ownership to access. / Yentl Lisanne

Knossenburg. -- Rio de Janeiro, 2017

101 p.

Orientadora: Paula Castro Pires de Souza Chimenti

Dissertação (mestrado) – Universidade Federal do

Rio de Janeiro, Instituto COPPEAD de Administração,

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração, 2017

Elaborado pelo Sistema e Geração Automática da UFRJ com os

dados fornecidos pelo(a) autor(a).

YENTL LISANNE KNOSSENBURG

SOCIAL MARKET FAILURES:

FROM OWNERSHIP TO ACCESS

Master Dissertation presented of the Master in

Business Administration (MBA), Coppead

Institute of Administration of the Universidade

Federal do Rio de Janeiro, part of the necessary

requisites for the title of Master in

Administration.

Approved by:

______________________________________________________

Profa. Paula Chimenti, D. Sc. - Orientador

(COPPEAD/UFRJ)

_______________________________________________________

Prof. Roberto Nogueira, D.Sc

(COPPEAD/UFRJ)

_______________________________________________________

Prof. José Afonso Mazzon, D. Sc

(USP)

For my loved ones

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work has become the essence of my combined interest and immense curiosity

towards areas where business, strategy and innovation overlap. I would like to thank a number

of important people who contributed in direct and indirect ways to this work. Firstly, I want to

thank Paula Chimenti greatly for her continuous support and confidence in my efforts doing so.

She has been a great mentor, advisor and even friend during this time. This relation enabled this

study to rise to this level and be finished with this quality which I am proud of. Second, I would

like to also thank Roberto Nogueira for his great enthusiasm and fresh ideas about how this

work should be organized and improved. Both professors are highly passionate and

knowledgeable about their areas and I feel very grateful to have established this work with their

mentorship.

Next, I would like to thank my dear family. Jennifer, Marjan and Theo you have helped

me literally at every step of the way, skyped with me for hours and without you this literally

would have been impossible. Because of your support I managed to finish my academic degrees

and you have shown to always be there for me. What can I wish for more than a family that is

this passionate, lovable and supportive for whatever dreams you may have. Accepting and

supporting that I have moved to the other side of the world for two years, you have been

amazing and I am so grateful for that. Dankjewel, ik hou van jullie.

With this work, I am finishing my studies in Business Administration which has

provided me with the knowledge, skills and experience to be prepared to set my career and

handle the dynamic international environments I hope to face. I want to thank everyone at

Coppead and in Rio de Janeiro that has contributed to my experience by making it such an

amazing and memorable time of my life. An adventure it was, but it solely made me stronger

and hungry for more. Rio de Janeiro você esta no meu coração.

ABSTRACT

Knossenburg, Yentl Lisanne. Social market failures: from ownership to access. Rio de Janeiro,

2017. Dissertation (Master in Business Administration) – Instituto de Pós Graduação e Pesquisa

em Administração, COPPEAD, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2017.

We have never lived in an age where products and services have been so readily available as

they are now. Throughout time technological advances as the Internet have brought major

improvements to our lives and is facilitating our need to always instantly satisfy our needs. Yet

this has led to a set of negative externalities. Companies are using the Web to build online social

platforms to bridge so called social failures that allow us to connect with others, therefore share

more, access in a cheaper manner and possibly reduce some of these failures. Many enthusiasts

have claimed that companies as Uber and AIRBNB disrupt markets and improve society for

the better. Yet, what has remained unanswered is how this new type of economy, the access

economy, looks in practice. This study has focused on researching the practical implications of

Uber from the company’s point of view, the driver’s benefits and the passenger’s perspective.

Of which the latter in a diverse range of national contexts: Brazil, Hong Kong and The

Netherlands. We found that companies part of the access economy show to have disruptive

effects on the market and how people live in an economic, urban and social manner. Yet saving

the environment is not something addressed or prioritized: we actually might start consuming

more as the platform has shown to not solely exist out of two-sides. Also, the close connection

and engagement with the other user of the platform is greatly enjoyed and more ways of direct

communication is requested. Overall, Uber has fulfilled many social market failures

internationally, yet the different contexts has shown to heavily affect how its service was

appreciated.

Keywords: access economy, sharing, social market failures, Uber, platforms

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Segments affected by the access economy………………..………………………..17

Figure 2: Global mobile phone users in billions……...……………………………………....18

Figure 3: Uber versus taxis versus car rental…………………………………………………22

Figure 4: Access economy defined and structured…………………………...………………24

Figure 5: By Torbenrick.eu (2013) - the evolvement of the Internet paved the way for the

access economy……...……………………………………………………………..………....36

Figure 6: From Botsman (2010) showing the sharing evolution pyramid……...………...…..37

Figure 7: By Eisenmann (2007). network effects………………………………......………...39

Figure 8: Mapping the access economy categories and companies from Owyang (2016)…...44

Figure 9: Impact of access economy on societies……………..…………………………..….46

Figure 10: Uber versus Facebook $50 Billion-mark comparison from The Wall Street

Journal (2015)…………………..……………………………...………………………..……53

Figure 11: Uber business model……………………………...……………………………….58

Figure 12: Places Uber is banned or partly from Washington Post 2015…………..………...59

Figure 13: Horizontal and vertical research structure concerning Uber interviews………..…61

Figure 14: Uber platform sides and requirements………………...…………………………..62

Figure 15: Uber in practice is not solely a two-sided platform………………………...……..89

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Roads and vehicles in cities worldwide…………………………………………….19

Table 2: Public transport supply and usage in cities worldwide…………………………...…20

Table 3: Framework by Piskorski (2014): types of interaction costs underlying social

failures…….………………………………………………………………………………......30

Table 4: Framework developed by Piskorski (2014): Strategic choices companies of social

solutions………………………………………………………………………………..……..32

Table 5: Characteristics of the access economy.……………………………………………...33

Table 6: Market categories of companies in the access economy by Schor (2014)…….........41

Table 7: Overview of profile of interviewees………...………..…………………………..…50

Table 8: Uber’s characteristics when using the platform……………………………………..55

Table 9: Characteristics of Uber from three parties involved……………...…...………….....56

Table 10: Synthesis of qualitative research: company and drivers…..…………………….....83

Table 11: Synthesis of qualitative research: passengers in Brazil, Hong Kong and The

Netherlands…………………………………………………………………………………...84

CONTENT

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 12

1.1 Background ......................................................................................................................... 12

1.2 Objectives of the study ....................................................................................................... 14

1.3 Relevance............................................................................................................................ 15

1.4 Delimitation ........................................................................................................................ 16

1.5 Organization of the work .................................................................................................... 16

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ..................................................................................... 17

2.1 Contextualization ................................................................................................................ 17

2.2 The Access Economy ......................................................................................................... 20

2.2.1 Definition and Clarification ............................................................................................. 21

2.2.2 Characteristics of the Access Economy........................................................................... 28

2.3 Access Economy in context ................................................................................................ 33

2.3.1 What is New about Sharing in the Access Economy?..................................................... 33

2.3.2 What has Enabled the Access Economy? ........................................................................ 34

2.3.3 Why do Consumers Take Part in the Access Economy?................................................. 36

2.4 Access Economy companies .............................................................................................. 37

2.4.1 Network effects................................................................................................................ 37

2.4.2 Categories of Companies in the Access Economy .......................................................... 39

2.4.3 Visualization and Ecosystem of Companies in the Access Economy ............................. 42

2.4.4 How do Companies in the Access Economy Affect Incumbents? .................................. 44

2.4.5 What are Possible Challenges for the Access Economy Companies?............................. 44

2.4.6 How Beneficial is the Access Economy estimated to be? ............................................... 45

3 METHOD ............................................................................................................................. 48

3.1 Qualitative interviews ......................................................................................................... 48

3.2 Interviews ........................................................................................................................... 49

3.2.1 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 49

3.2.2 Data collection procedure ................................................................................................ 50

3.2.3 Language ......................................................................................................................... 51

3.2.4 Data analysis .................................................................................................................... 51

3.2.5 Limitations ....................................................................................................................... 52

4 RESULTS ............................................................................................................................. 52

4.1 Case study Uber .................................................................................................................. 52

4.2 How the Uber application works ........................................................................................ 54

4.3 Characteristics of Uber customers, drivers and platform ................................................... 55

4.4 The Uber business model ................................................................................................... 57

4.5 Uber challenges .................................................................................................................. 57

4.6 Uber operating in different economies ............................................................................... 59

5 ANALYSIS OF RESULTS ................................................................................................. 60

5.1 Uber company .................................................................................................................... 61

5.2 Uber drivers ........................................................................................................................ 63

5.3 Uber passengers: Brazil, Hong Kong & The Netherlands.................................................. 71

5.4 Synthesis of the research results ......................................................................................... 82

6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 85

6.1 Uber in reality ..................................................................................................................... 85

6.2 Theoretical implications and future research...................................................................... 90

6.3 Managerial implications ..................................................................................................... 90

REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 91

APPENDIX A .......................................................................................................................... 97

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1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

In our daily lives we are taught to work hard so that later we can own a big television,

car, swimming pool and house. One of our main incentives to “work hard” or to make big

efforts is driven by ownership, as if this is a direct translation of an identity of success (Kassan

& Orsi, 2012). As Belk (2014, p. 1595) claims “the old wisdom that we are what we own, may

need modifying to consider forms of possession and uses that do not involve ownership.” Since

a couple of years this trend is taking place, as ownership does not have the same connotation as

it had in the past anymore and access is increasingly gaining traction.

A reason for this connotation towards ownership might have happened because we were

not able to use certain products without owning them. One of the most famous examples is the

drill, which was mentioned by the renowned Harvard Business School professor Theodore

Levitt: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”. What

was meant by this quote is that people most of the time are actually not buying products because

they want the product itself so dearly. What we are actually looking for is the value the product

brings with it. In other words, what they are trying to buy is a solution. The same principle can

be confirmed with other examples as the compact disk (CD), which again was something that

consumers bought not for the physical product, but for what was on it: music. No one was

actually looking to have a plastic case and shiny disk. People were buying what the ownership

of a physical product brought with it. Yet, in the past, consumption was mainly driven by

ownership as often no alternative was available. Following this trend of ownership in

combination with the economic prosperity, we have actually been striving towards a world

where all our needs are satisfied in abundance which has questionable benefits.

Since the first day of human existence and rapidly accelerating due to the Industrial

Revolution, we have been working towards a world where our needs and desires are satisfied

immediately at any time and place. An abundance of any type of food, drinks, goods, energy,

entertainment is readily available to us whenever and wherever we want it. Abundance seemed

to be the ultimate goal. We have created supermarkets with an overwhelming array of

alternatives and quantities of consumer goods from all over the world, fast food restaurants

serving us entire meals and beverages within minutes, a TV available in every room in our

homes with channels for every niche consumer group and 24/7 delivery of almost anything at

any time online.

13

This trend of abundance also took place for products, solely looking at the facts: there

are more mobile phones than people on the world (Independent.com, 2014) and there is a car

for every citizen in the United States (Kalanick, 2016). That shows in what kind of world we

are currently living. Actually, owning a car does not state anything about usage, a study as

reported by Sacks (2011) showed that car is idle 92% of the time that in Europe and North

America. Going back to the example of a drill, this item is used 6 to 13 minutes during its

complete lifetime (Earthshare, no date, apud Belk, 2014). Hence it indeed seems that we have

reached a state of abundance (Diamandis & Kotler, 2012).

As humans, dealing with such abundance and ease is not something we were

programmed for: we were biologically designed to hunt and gather food and to deal with

scarcity in our everyday lives. It is questionable if this is striving for ownership and readily

available or abundance of goods is actually the best future scenario as it has many devastating

consequences (Kassan & Orsi, 2012). “The reality is that we have already used the planet’s

resources faster than they can be replenished, and we have built our current economic system

by creating an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor” (Kassan & Orsi, 2012, p. 4).

This is the reason that self-control in consumption and striving for ownership might be the

challenge of the 21st century and a reoccurring Achilles heel in great parts of our daily activities.

The ever increasing offering of products and services is resulting in people over-eating, over-

drinking and over-consuming leading to devastating economic, environmental, health downfall

(Botsman, 2013: Globalissues.com, 2010). Abundance is leading to significant negative

consequences instead of seen as a promising scenario for the future (Diamandis & Kotler,

2012).

Although we have been striving to make everything readily available to everyone, at the

same time, we realize that we might not need to own everything and business models are being

developed based on this idea (Belk, 2013). “The new economy that we build must not just be

sustainable; it must now regenerate the economic and ecological abundance necessary for

everyone to thrive again” (Kassan & Orsi, 2012, p. 4). The rise and mass acceptance of the

Internet has provided new ways of conducting business to share and lend more and own less

(Schor, 2014). The worldwide web has enabled many products to be removed from its

tangibility to make room for what people were actually buying; the intangible need or benefit

as music, movies and text. Think only about Napster, Spotify, YouTube, E-Books and many

more.

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Nowadays this idea stretches even further than just removing tangibility for what in the

past was only available by buying a product. Many online businesses are being developed based

on the idea of focusing on the actual need people are having looking for market failures existing

in current industries or markets. One of the advantages of this is that companies know they are

going to fulfill a distinct need that is currently lacking by the incumbents in the industry. The

companies itself in this type of economy are the biggest ambassadors of non-ownership: they

in fact don’t own anything themselves. The most successful platform for accommodation does

not own any property (AIRBNB), platform for transport does not own any cars (Uber) or any

products themselves (Temaçúcar). What they offer is a platform for people to offer their

services and items to other consumers who are looking for those (in exchange for money). This

has slowly given rise to what is often referred to as the access economy (Botsman, 2013). This

new type of economy enables (almost) everyone to have access to everything while at the same

time not having to own it: disrupting many traditional markets, and removing many existing

negative externalities as pollution, overconsumption of natural resources and poverty (Schor,

2014; Cannon & Summers, 2014).

The word everyone might be one of the most important changes as this is where a trend

has been developing the last decade. Online social platforms and companies are being

established to enable more efficient use of resources to enable everyone to share and have access

whilst at the same time halting and reversing many of the negative externalities of this era

(Botsman, 2013). Going back to the time of the Industrial Revolution, Botsman and Rogers

(2010) suggest that this type of new sharing consumption could be the next great change

concerning ownership, and also towards better connecting supply and demand.

This thesis will discuss the access economy from a business perspective and will

research the practical implications to analyse and understand this supposedly promising

phenomenon in reality.

1.2 Objectives of the study

The aim of this thesis is to understand this new economy referred to in this work as the

access economy analysed from a business perspective. The following goals are proposed:

Define, clarify and delimitate the access economy from other similar terms.

Revision of existing literature on access economy, its dynamics, the companies operating

in it, its benefits and challenges.

15

Develop a case study about Uber within academic and practical discourse based on the

method of Yin (2003).

Contextualize the phenomenon of the access economy by gathering practical data by

conducting interviews with all three parties involved (users, drivers, company).

Conclude on practical implications through comprehensive interviews with Uber

passengers in Brazil, Hong Kong and The Netherlands.

Conclude on findings and finalize with theoretical implications of how beneficial the access

economy actually is and the managerial implications concerning the implementation of such

business models in reality.

1.3 Relevance

The access economy seems to be present all over the news as well as represents a

trending topic in academic spheres. In practice, the numbers might demonstrate why: the access

economy has record high investments globally according to a report of 2015 by Deloitte: more

than 12 Billion has been invested and this is increasing each year. According to Alsever (2013)

this is taking place since investors are realizing more often the potential of the access economy

and therefore the financial resources are more frequently made available. Also, companies seem

to understand better nowadays how to make a profit based on the principles of the access

economy (Haque, apud Botsman, 2013).

This new access economy is an interesting phenomenon as it is still to see if the

traditional companies are ready or able to cope with such competition (Schor, 2014). Hence,

the access economy has the potential to disrupt traditional markets and industries globally

(Schor, 2014; Cannon & Summers, 2014). Next to the fact that is a global phenomenon, it is

also a rooted phenomenon in almost all main areas of the economy as mobility (Uber, Blablacar

and Lyft), housing (Airbnb and Couchsurfing), products (Getable and Yerdle), services

(Taskrabbit, Borrow my doggy) and money (Kickstarter). This accentuates that the

consequences of this new type of economy with its characterizing companies could potentially

disrupt markets greatly (Cohen & Kietzmann, 2014).

What is also relevant to point out about this new economy is that it has been reported to

potentially reduce some of the existing societal problems as ´hyper-consumption, pollution and

poverty´ (Hamari, Sjoklint & Ukkonen, 2015, p. 1). In a report by Forbes (Geron, 2013), it has

16

been estimated that “revenue flowing through the sharing economy directly into people’s

wallets will surpass $3.5 billion, with growth exceeding 25%.

In the academic as well as non-academic literature available, it has been labelled as one

of the most trending and popular topics to be discussed (Deloitte, 2015; Knote & Blom, 2016).

Yet in academic discourse the practical implications are still limited and insufficient in

comparison to the existing practical discourse (Heinrichs, 2013; Botsman, 2013). Hence,

summing up all points previously discussed, the need for a deeper and more clarifying insight

into the reality of the access economy is paramount.

1.4 Delimitation

This research will specifically examine the access economy from a practical point of

view. The access economy in short relates to a new way of doing business by companies

building online platforms to better connect supply with demand, possibly resulting in a more

sustainable, thriving and socially connected future (Botsman, 2013). This research will be

focused specifically on the practical implications to question the benefits of the access economy

on the users involved.

The access economy has been discussed in academic research and can be connected to

many issues it is currently facing. Yet the scope of this research neither allows to go into

challenges Uber is facing with politics and towards regulation and legislation all over the world,

nor will it further explore this concept from a competitors point of view. Though it would be

interesting to also interview stakeholders in public transport and taxi drivers, they will not be

questioned in this research as the focus is solely on the users point of view, so Uber passengers,

drivers and company to understand the benefits they are experiencing in practice and how such

a promising new business works out in reality.

1.5 Organization of the work

The last few sections have indicated the context of the study and relevance to indicate

why this topic should be addressed and clarify why it is important to further be explored.

Chapter 2 will review the academic literature that has been written about the access economy

by offering an extensive characterization of the ambiguous concept and topic, map the market

of the current access economy and explicate what the dynamics are. In chapter 3 the method, a

17

case study, will be discussed as a result of the previous chapters. Then in chapter 4 Uber a case

study about Uber is presented, following by chapter 5 which presents the analysis of the results

and answers the study goals of this research. Chapter 6 will conclude the research and further

theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Contextualization

Based on a report by Meshing.it (2017) almost 10,000 companies are currently operating

in the sharing economy, spread over 1610 cities in 132 nations. Due to the confusing

surrounding the concept of the access economy, the actual first platforms constituting it is also

under discussion. While for some, the first companies in the access economy were for free as

Couchsurfing (Kietzmann & Cohen, 2014; Botsman & Rogers, 2010), for others the first access

economy platforms constituted recirculation of goods as Ebay and Craigslist launched in 1995

(Schor, 2015). Next to the reselling of goods, the access economy now also has many examples

relating to the three other categories of the new sharing in the access economy as “exchange of

services, optimizing use of assets and building social connections.” (Schor, 2015, p. 6). Within

these categories and business models, companies in the access economy encompass a great

array of industries and fields, as illustrated in figure 1.

Figure 1: Segments of the access economy

Source: Ernst & Young report Oct/2015 – the rise of the sharing economy

The coverage and depth in which the access economy is entering the markets in a global

fashion shows to be intrusive, and apparently also to be successful. A study reported that the

access economy is worth over 110 billion dollars and growing (Botsman, 2013). According to

the same author, this type of society will disrupt the existing economy, consumer lifestyles and

18

will lead to several positive externalities as a consequence of more efficient use of resources.

Due to investments and bigger trust in companies in this new economy, access economy

companies are popping up and experiencing explosive growth (Schor, 2014).

MOBILE PHONE AND INTERNET USAGE

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) conclude an increase of internet and mobile phone usage.

This trend is driven and enabled by technological developments in the information and

communication technology, as the Internet. As these technologies are gaining more traction,

more online platform are raised, benefitting from the new online business rules: network effects

as zero marginal costs, consumers who are getting more aware, critical and empowered, online

communities and the rise of social platforms and companies based on the premise of sharing

and collaborating. The facts illustrate this point: penetration of mobile phone users is currently

63% globally and will only continue to rise according to the statistics in figure 2. Next to the

fact that mobile phone usage covers a large part of the world, the mobile phone usage is taking

over other more traditional devices to connect to the Internet.

Figure 2: Global mobile phone users in billions

Source: Statista.com (2017)

19

TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY

As the world is getting more populated, so the mobility and transport challenges keep

on rising. Cities are expanding and so transport is becoming more concentrated leading to traffic

congestion, challenges towards finding parking space, public space being more and more

dominated by cars and a growing number of accidents each year (Rodrigue, 2017). Outcome of

this are increasing commute times, more emissions and greater environmental damage. Some

trends are trying to counter these negative effects as making public transport more accessible,

car sharing/pooling or by the development of electric cars. Yet it has also been reported that

each year operating public transport becomes more costly (Rodrigue, 2017). The availability

and options of public transport differs per country as well as the number of private cars held.

For instance, when comparing Hong Kong to other major cities in the world it shows to have a

very low percentage of privately held cars while the cities whilst the public transport shows to

be well served as well comparing to other cities present in this statistic.

Table 1: Roads and vehicles in cities worldwide

Source: LTA.gov (2013)

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Table 2: Public transport supply and usage in cities worldwide

Source: LTA.gov (2013)

Taxis are present in all major cities worldwide, yet nowadays new ways of transport are

entering the market with companies as Lyft and Uber. For instance, Uber has 40 million active

users worldwide and is present in 450 markets over 70 countries (Smith, 2017). Next to this, it

has been calculated that in the beginning of 2015, 46% of all paid car rides was through Uber

in comparison to 15% in the same period a year before, whilst taxi usage went down from 85%

to 53% during the same time period (Certify, 2015). As Uber usage seems to be increasing and

car rentals remain the same, taxis are losing ground as seen in figure 3:

21

Figure 3: Uber versus taxis versus car rental

Source: Certify.com (2015)

2.2 The Access Economy

2.2.1 Definition and Clarification

In the existing academic literature, many different terms have risen for seemingly the

same topic which has led to much confusion in academic discourse but also in practice. The

main objective of these paragraphs is therefore to resolve this blurriness and outline why the

access economy is the most fitting term for this new trend and what these other terms then stand

for. The most popular terms will be addressed which are: sharing economy (Botsman, 2013;

Allen, 2015), the Mesh (Gansky, 2012), collaborative consumption (Botsman & Rogers, 2010),

the collaborative economy (Botsman, 2015), on-demand economy (Gurvich, Lariviere &

Moreno, 2016), platform economy (Kenney & Zysman, 2015; Schor, 2015) and access

economy (Bardi & Eckhardt, 2012).

FROM OWNERSHIP TO ACCESS: ACCESS ECONOMY

The term initiated by Eckhardt and Bardi (2012), also coined in Harvard Business

Review in 2015 can be concluded to be the best term for this new economy: the access economy.

This term has only been adopted by a few in academic discourse (Kassan & Orsi, 2012; Bardi

& Eckhardt, 2012). The idea behind the access economy is that “we can have access to many

things that we need without having to own them all by ourselves” (Kassan & Orsi, 2012, p. 4).

Bardi and Eckhardt (2012, p.1) add the idea of “a possibly market mediated transaction without

a transfer of ownership.” The idea is that consumers have a bigger range of access of goods and

22

services instead of only being able to access them by acquirement and therefore owning the

product or service.

We believe that this term points out the most relevant factor without creating an utopian

view as collaborative or sharing economy does, focusing too much on immediate satisfaction

of needs as with the on-demand economy or stretching the topic too much as the platform

economy. This is why this term has been selected to be the umbrella term of all that has been

discussed. The following final definition is what is meant in this work when talking about the

access economy coined by Heinrichs (2013, p. 229) “exchanging, redistributing, renting,

sharing, and donating information, goods, and talent, either organizing themselves or via

commercial organization by social media platforms.’’ This definition points out the different

aspects of the access economy (profit or non-profit; compensation or no-compensation; transfer

of ownership, temporary possession, sharing or temporary usage; goods and/or services; via

online social platforms) which has not all been covered before by another definition this

explicitly.

The idea behind the access economy is that owning an item becomes less important than

having access to it: many items are underutilized and therefore can easily be shared among each

other instead of owned by everyone (Botsman, 2013). From here onwards, the term access

economy will be used solely as the term explaining the complete definition argued for above.

Figure 4 concludes this with an overview of all different terms, their defining characteristics

and the most obvious examples. In the next paragraphs, the different types of companies that

belong to these phenomena will be explained in more detail.

23

Figure 4: Access economy defined and structured

SHARING OF WHAT IS IDLE: SHARING ECONOMY

In essence the definition of sharing is: “the act and process of distributing what is ours

to others for their use and/or the act and process of receiving or taking something from others

for our use.” (Belk, 2007, p. 126). Gansky (2012) uses the term “The Mesh” for the sharing

economy offered the following definition for the economy related to sharing: “economic and

social systems that enable shared access to goods, services, data and talent. These systems take

a variety of forms but all leverage information technology to empower individuals,

corporations, non-profits and government with information that enables distribution, sharing

and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services”. Hence both seem to focus on the idea of a

re-division of goods and services in a social manner.

The term sharing economy was also adopted in the Oxford English Dictionary (2017)

which added “typically by means of the Internet.” to the definition. Next to that, Botsman

(2015) explained it in a similar manner but emphasized it is all practiced by individuals,

indicating that it is definitely a C2C platform. What is tapped into with this definition is the

excess of usage of goods, space, time and services - the usage of internet enabling this new

economy – sharing, distributing and reuse and the idea of a possible compensation in return for

the service or good.

24

Companies part of the sharing economy deal with five major issues differentiating them

from others: “unlocking idle assets or goods, clear value driven mission and meaningful

principles, supply side providers should be valued highly and benefit from it, customers on the

demand side should benefit from access over the option of owning it, the business should be

built on distributed marketplaces and decentralized networks” (Botsman, 2015, p. 1). As argued

by this definition, the sharing economy is a concept that can work out in a great variety of ways

in practice. Substantial examples pointed out are Couchsurfing and AirBnB (Botsman, 2015).

One of the first platforms raised on the idea of social sharing is Couchsurfing in 2003.

The idea behind Couchsurfing is to ‘stay with local and meet travellers. Couchsurfers open

their homes and share their lives.’ Couchsurfing could not be more literally explained than the

name already does: whoever has a couch, or better, available could let someone sleep over for

the night to connect to others and help a person in need to a place to stay. Both parties do not

pay for this transaction and the communication flows via the Couchsurfing platform connecting

the demand side (person looking for a place to stay) with the supply side (a person offering their

couch) without owning any apartment, working on connecting the sides or dealing with the

transaction. The same account for a platform as AIRBNB which does something very similar

but then in exchange for money.

Yet, thinking about the definition Botsman (2015) coined focusing on individuals an

issue arises. Some existing companies make use of the AIRBNB platforms such as B&B and

hostels (B2C). While this definition by Botsman (2015) clearly excludes those as it is not by

individuals. While, AIRBNB is pointed out as a fitting example for the sharing economy which

shows a contradiction in the academic discourse.

WHAT IS MINE, IS YOURS: COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION

The first time a term was coined talking about the access economy was by Felson and

Speath in 1978, talking about collaborative consumption. This was two and a half decades

before many of the digital platforms that currently represent the sharing economy as

Couchsurfing (est. 2003), AIRBNB (est. 2008) and Uber (est. 2009) got established. Felson and

Speath described acts of collaborative consumption as “those events in which one or more

persons consume economic goods or services in the process of engaging in joint activities with

one or more others” (1978, p. 614). Yet, as pointed out by Belk (2014) this definition is too

concise and general to actually characterize all cases in which collaborative consumption takes

place.

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Since then, it has been also used by other researchers as Belk (2013) who defined as

something more specific: “People coordinating the acquisition and distribution of a resource

for a fee or other compensation. By including other compensation, the definition also

encompasses bartering, trading, and swapping, which involve giving and receiving non-

monetary compensation” (Belk, 2013, p. 1597). In an article of Botsman in 2015, the idea of

matching possession and demand by surpassing middlemen and maximizing the value of

underused goods is added. Botsman (2015) mentioned ZipCar and Peerby as good examples to

illustrate what it represents. As they put in practice exactly what the previous mentioned

definitions describe.

Zipcar enables people to have access to cars, available at spots throughout a city, where

they can reserve or unlock a car by using their mobile application. The price is a packaged deal

so maintenance and fuel is taken care of by the company. This means that you don’t own a car,

but you can have access to it anytime without having the disadvantages of ownership. The same

accounts for the second example Peerby which aims to help people out who would like to lend

certain goods they don’t have available at home. As they proclaim themselves ‘Since 80% of

our stuff we don’t use more often than once a month’. The idea behind the access over

ownership is clearly present in this example as well as the optimal usage of underutilized goods

by connecting to neighbours on a bigger scale via the internet. Although this example is more

present in European example, many other examples exist spread over the world as

Neighboorgoods in the United States and Temaçúcar in Brazil for instance.

Belk (2014) writes collaborative consumption to be too focused on the idea of

consumption instead of distribution and buying of something. Taking a look again at the

definition proposed by Belk (2013, p. 1597) “which involve giving and receiving non-monetary

compensation”, it clearly points out an important characteristic as it argues that a certain form

of return or compensation is demanded for this transaction to take place. So, collaborative

consumption therefore only refers to companies in which compensation is part of the equation

hence a platform as Couchsurfing does not seem to fit in this frame.

ALL MIDDLE-MEN ARE BAD: COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY

Next to collaborative consumption, there are also companies often mentioned to be part

of the new market that obtained value in the Internet by avoiding the bureaucracy of working

for another person to reach your goal creating more value for the original source, such as an

26

artist. Think about people in arts that nowadays directly can reach their audience via the

platform of Etsy or Kickstarter which allows people to “sell” their own projects and possibly

gaining more exposure than ever before. The collaborative economy in fact means “An

economic system of decentralized networks and marketplaces that unlocks the value of

underused assets by matching needs and haves, in ways that bypass traditional middlemen.”

(Botsman, 2015).

This definition of collaborative economy in fact truly means: an act of sharing on a

platform for a common goal that was previously driven by middlemen. As it does with Etsy

where crafters in the past, for instance, were depending on art buyers or shops in order to sell

their goods leading to less profit for the artist as well as less independence in leading their own

business.

CLICK, TAP, GET: ON-DEMAND ECONOMY

So, where does one of the pioneers of this new phenomenon, Uber, belong? Uber a self-

proclaimed technology-driven company connecting Uber drivers with passengers via an online

platform. The idea is that with a few taps in an online application, a personal driver is able to

pick you up wherever you are and drive you wherever you want for a lower price and very

probable better service than traditional ways of transport had done before. The idea is that

drivers should be able to use their own cars and the passengers can call those services anytime

at any place. Hence immediate availability of supply to demand is the main selling point of this

type of economy and the companies propagating this idea as Uber and Lyft (Gurvich, Lariviere

& Moreno, 2016).

Based on this description, the on-demand economy is the most fitting term for platforms

as Uber: “platforms that directly match customer needs with providers to immediately deliver

goods and services.” (Botsman, 2015). Deskbeer does the same in a completely different

industry. This company promises an on-demand delivery, where you are at any time of the day,

a batch of beers within a short time notice. This type of On-demand is therefore characterized

by the idea that companies are focused on fulfilling the needs of people at the exact moment

that the demand arises.

27

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT? PLATFORM ECONOMY

Another term is getting more leverage in the field: platform economy. This concept

emphasizes the idea of the Internet’s major role of enabling this type of business and the idea

of connecting different sides in one space. For Kenney and Zysman (2015, p. 7) this is their

preferred term as they proclaim “digital platforms are the base upon which an increasing

number of connection-based activities – marketplace, social, and political - are being organized.

If the Industrial Revolution was organized around the factory, today’s changes are organized

around platforms, algorithms applied to enormous databases running in the cloud.’’ The idea is

that you don’t need a physical product to save things, as was traditionally done in the past on a

floppy, CD or USB later on. The Internet allows you to save and connect to what you are

looking for or need at anytime, anyplace you want.

At the same time, Kenney and Zysman (2015) extensively refer to clouds and any type

of platforms which would also include YouTube and even App stores. Although it does provide

some important insights into this new economy, it does stretches it too far and talks about a

phenomenon that is much greater than what has been previously written. Looking a bit deeper

into the fine lines of this definition, actually any type of platform or cloud is part of this new

economy which means that it has some overlap with the previous mentioned definitions yet also

offers some clear distinctions. The problem is here that as the platform economy includes all

platforms, you could call any platform part of it while it does not completely overarch every

company part of it.

First, companies as AIRBNB or Uber definitely represent a platform but do not represent

a cloud for people to save their documents on. An app-store does connect some amateur app

producers with app users, but the idea of social sharing or collaborating on a platform is left out

completely. Second, an app store often is a company selling apps to customers, in this way the

essence of what is meant with this new economy is far from evidently found. What is very

different from the other branches of the access economy, is that these platforms as YouTube

and Appstore does not meet supply and demand more fittingly, nor optimizes an underutilized

service or good. Also, this term did not receive an overall coverage within the academic

literature and the previously mentioned reasons might be the base for it.

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2.2.2 Characteristics of the Access Economy

The access economy is a fairly recent topic, yet it has been described in many different

ways with various terms as concluded from the previous paragraph. To clarify this overarching

term, the access economy, this section will lay out the characteristics as gathered from the

academic literature. The ten characteristics are indicated in the text with bold numbers.

The first characteristic is access over ownership (1), which refers to the core idea behind

the access economy: in the end, we own a lot of products that we actually might not need to

own, as access would be enough to satisfy our needs related to the products. A reason for this

could be because we use certain goods rarely, as a drill or a car. Or because we only want the

need that this good fulfils, but there is no other way than to own it before usage is possible. As

in the case of a CD. We don’t really want the CD, we want the music that is on it, as Botsman

(2013) describes. So, owning a product might not make sense often as goods and services are

there to satisfy our needs and urges which are intangible and therefore do not need to be owned.

Next to that, owning goods has many negative externalities. Ownership involves buying an

- expensive - product (car), taking up physical space (parking space, garages etcetera), needing

to have incidentals (insurance, gas and check-ups), wasting time (traffic jams) and polluting

(CO2 emissions). To make matters worse, most products are underutilized: a car is 96% of the

time sitting idle (Botsman, 2015; Kalanick, 2016).

The second characteristic is that access economy users will go from fixed costs (ownership)

to variable costs (renting) (2). Making use of a company as Uber allows you to pay exactly for

what you need it (a ride), for that time specifically (start till finish of needs satisfaction),

resulting into a variable cost instead. For drivers, this means determining being their own boss

which Uber company attempts to solve by lurking many to the platform and balance with surge

pricing. This supply will be derived, as already happening in the access economy, from the

network of acquaintances but maybe especially strangers that are connected online on social

platforms being the portal to access of services, think about Uber who connects drivers with

passengers, Temaçúcar who connects owners of goods with people that are in need or

Couchsurfers connecting people looking for a place to stay and getting to know new people

with people having a spare couch (Kassan & Orsi, 2012).

This connection via a platform is also called market mediated access (3) (Bardhi &

Eckhardt, 2012). In the access economy, this means using the market as a supplier of “access”

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to goods instead purely of seller of goods meant for ownership. Access to objects or goods is

gained through the use of technology initiated by a company. The companies that have formed

this market mediated access are online social platforms (4) aimed at connecting people to

people (Reinhart, n.d., apud Sacks, 2011). In fact, these companies are ambassadors of their

own principles as they often own nothing themselves but the intangible online platform with

the network. Their business is focused on more fittingly connecting the demand with the supply

side on either side of the network. When parties connect on these online social platforms, we

are dealing with online and offline markets (5) at the same time: people are connecting online

but the product or service is often exchanged or experienced offline (Zervas, Proserpio & Byers,

2014).

This leads the company to have zero marginal costs (6) of every extra member that wants

to be part of the network, the sixth characteristic (Reinhart, n.d., apud Sacks, 2011). Every new

member results to roughly zero costs as members sign up autonomously and also connect to the

other members themselves. The actual platform and the need it fulfils is ran by the users itself.

For instance, on BorrowMyDogy.com dog owners (supply) connect to people that want to look

after other people’s dogs at certain times (demand).

The online platform connects the supply side to the demand side on the basis of a mutual

benefit (7) (Zervas et al., 2014). This mutual benefit takes place as these platforms are focused

on connecting parties looking to satisfy a certain need or obtaining an incentive when being

part of it. This can be translated into a quote as mentioned in the article of Heinrichs (2013, p.

229) “when information about goods is shared, the value of those goods increases, for the

business, for individuals, and for the community" (Gansky, 2010; Cao, Chen, Yao & Yuan,

2016). A common benefit is derived by being part of the platform and by connecting to the

other side, might it be supply or demand, by matching (often idle) resources in a more efficient

or creative manner (Kietzmann & Cohen, 2014; Botsman & Rogers, 2011). This benefit can be

in a great variety of ways as Couchsurfing in terms of a free service, and AIRBNB on a

monetary reciprocal basis.

This is why these platforms established by the access economy principles, are founded

on social failures (8). Such social failures take place when people would have had a benefit the

moment they were connected but because of the disconnection people lose this benefit. This

disconnection can sometimes be restored by making use of the Internet which is actually leading

to market opportunities. These social market failures are used as a basis for a great number of

social platforms raised (Piskorski, 2014). This could be due to a great variety of reasons. First,

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in the past was mostly due to the lack of a medium connecting parties. Now technology has

advanced into Internet, Social Media and smartphones which has gained mass adoption,

allowing us to be part of the access economy anytime anywhere and creating value on the

platforms (Schor, 2014). Second, in the offline world, those interactions also did not take place

due to the boundaries space or due to what is called interaction costs (Piskorski, 2014). If this

cost of interaction between people is higher than the advantage, it will very probably not take

place. As a consequence, this could lead to a social or market failure. Piskorski (2014)

developed a framework classifying interaction costs on social and economic grounds. Next to

this, based on these two classifications, he further categorized it into 4 interaction costs: breadth,

display, search and communication. In return this also depends on the type of relationship: ones

that are new and ones that are established, as can be seen in table 3 explained with the example

of organizing a housewarming:

Table 3: Framework by Piskorski (2014): types of interaction costs underlying social failures

The breadth costs refer to a situation when it is hard to get access to someone you are

trying to reach. The Internet takes away many of the costs because crossing borders is irrelevant

online and social reasons behind breadth would be when it is socially not acceptable to contact

another person. Yet, an online platform mediates this interaction and hence is also taken away.

Display occurs when it would be beneficial if personal information can be displayed but for

economic and social reasons this sometimes does not happen.

Online this gets taken away due to the anonymity and because the basis of being on the

platform is to find the other based on the information they display, it often does not cost

BREADTH:

to connect

DISPLAY:

to display info

SEARCH:

to find other party

COMMUNICATION:

to convey info

ECONOMIC

REASONS

Your friends live

on the other side

of the world

Showing your house

to all your friends

is expensive

You don’t know who

you have to talk to help

decorate your house

Too much effort to

talk all your friends

to invite them

SOCIAL

REASONS

It is not socially

acceptable to

show your house

to a woman

Showing your house

could be seen as

showing off

by your friends

You do not want to

talk to everyone to ask

if they can help, it could

come across as needy

Not socially acceptable

to communicate to

women to invite them

for your housewarming

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anything to reach out to someone or display information so people are more likely to reach out.

Third, search interaction costs incur when it is hard to search and find the other party, while on

the internet this also becomes less significant based on the same motivations as the one for

display. Last, the fourth reason relates to when communication is too challenging that it incurs

very high costs (Piskorski, 2014).

Again, the Internet also facilitates this as the social platforms provides norms and rules

how to communicate and facilitates reaching out to the most relevant people possible. The

development but also mass adoption of the Internet is facilitating the way people interact and

benefit from connecting. In some way, trust has limited sharing in the past as necessary

information was not available to refrain from feeling the situation was too dangerous to engage

in (Schor, 2015).

Botsman (2015) demonstrates that the issue of trust is nowadays not removed, but solely

different in identity. The Internet has led to new challenges as nowadays, we are connecting by

computers and the new currency is becoming reputation and trust, whilst some of the traditional

costs are being removed by the characteristics of the Web (Botsman, 2012). An example of this

is crowd-sourcing of information in which reputations are built by continuous social collection

of information (Schor, 2015). Many companies are focusing their technology on building a

design and characteristics on the creation of trust among people by “informal and formal social

control” by ratings, evaluations and verifications for instance (Botsman, 2012; Bicchieri, Duffy

& Tolle., 2004, p. 287).

Going back to the existing economic and social reasons to not interact, many companies

have actually played into these opportunities to build companies around them for the access

economy. This is then called a social solution (9), Going along with the research of Piskorski

(2014), the idea is that companies should not focus solely on the social or economic cost of

interaction but should tackle both as it is otherwise hard to actually overcome the cost, be

beneficial or satisfy the need in any occasion. In other words, create an actual social benefit

(Piskorski, 2011).

This social connection could be made in a great variety of ways which depends on the

type of social failure and need fulfilled (Piskorski, 2014). This can be done by allowing a private

or public connection; with a few, many or unlimited access to strangers; or a few friends or

many friends (Piskorski, 2014). This has to be strategically decided upon per platform as it

serves different needs in which sometimes connecting to strangers is a must whilst in others it

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is preferred to solely be related to friends (Reinhart, n.d, apud Sacks, 2011) which makes a big

difference based on the product or service related to the platform.

For instance, with a marketplace as Temaçúcar it is important to be in touch in public

with many strangers to see if you can find the product you need, yet on other platforms dealing

with strangers on a more restricted level is more important as with Facebook. People want to

see what their friends are doing but are not necessarily interested what everybody else is doing:

interaction with strangers in public does not lead to any need satisfaction or benefit. As

Piskorski (2011) reports many people are part of social platforms for two primary needs:

meeting new people and strengthen social relations. And even though many similar platforms

are nowadays part of the web, they can easily coexist and add to each other as they all tap into

a different kind of solution as shown in table 4 (Piskorski, 2014).

Table 4: Framework developed by Piskorski (2014): Strategic choices companies of social solutions

Companies in the access economy started and are still as a C2C solution relating back

to the last characteristic, social failure. As Kassan & Orsi (2012) describe it, companies are

often designed by people that experience a social failure in their daily lives, then tried to build

a company to solve this problem. This is why it is not a top down solution but it is created,

established and maintained by consumers themselves, which again is due to the accessible and

interactive abilities of the Internet (Kassan & Orsi, 2012). An example of this is The Sharehood

which was developed by Michael Green who wanted to use a washing machine. Instead of

going to the laundry house, he realized that there must be many washing machines closer to

him unused at that time. That is how he started Sharehood.com for people that are looking for

certain goods and can rent them from their neighbours at a minor cost (Belk, 2014). AIRBNB

is also great example of this, who also started as a C2C solution. Two guys, Cheskia and Gebbia

that could not pay their rent and decided to rent out part of their apartment to three renters.

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Then, they saw the potential of the company and launched it right before a big convention in

2008 which started lifting off ever since (Crook & Escher, 2015).

The matching supply and demand (10) which means that via these online platforms,

people will have what they need, when they need it while reducing overproduction or

oversupply and maximizing value and satisfying demand (Botsman, 2015). This has great

benefits as many companies in the end have great difficulties managing the logistics and

dynamics of supply and demand. Uber is a company that specifically focuses on the seamlessly

connecting of supply and demand. The way Uber practices this is by having surge pricing when

demand is high (passengers looking for rides) and supply low (drivers available on the road).

In this case, the price will be multiplied by a certain factor for a short period of time to lure

more drivers to the road. See table 5 for an overview of all the characteristics of the access

economy.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ACCESS ECONOMY

1. Access over ownership

2. Fixed costs to variable costs

3. Market mediated access

4. Online social platforms

5. Online and offline markets

6. Zero marginal costs

7. Mutual benefit

8. Social failures

9. Social solutions

10. Matching supply and demand

Table 5: Characteristics of the access economy

2.3 Access Economy in context

2.3.1 What is New about Sharing in the Access Economy?

This recent phenomenon of the access economy is proposing a paradox: sharing and

access. We seem to be sharing more and more nowadays, even companies are solely focused

on connecting people to create a social benefit of sharing. Yet is it actually a new phenomenon?

We never had a time period in which we were not sharing goods, services or even knowledge.

Schor (2014) argues that that the actual hype about the access economy being something we

have not seen before is utterly exaggerated. Sharing has been part of our lives since human

existence in almost every group. There were groups of elites as in Greece that did not share.

Yet we all share in our daily lives, think only about transportation, roads and shops (Gansky,

2010). Just in the past, we did not have the means, as social platforms, to communicate so it

mostly stayed within people’s personal proximate network (Schor, 2014).

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Even though the fact that using the Internet for sharing might be an obvious novelty, it

is often a point of argument in literature how new this trend in fact is. Therefore, sharing itself

might not actually be that new, yet the application of it within the access economy is something

that had not been possible before, also on this scale (Belk, 2014; Zervas et al., 2014). There

have been other types of sharing trends with the Internet as the illegal downloading of content,

Wikipedia with the free sharing of information or the Linux platform which was open-source

for everyone to access, use and change. So, this is another wave of sharing (Belk, 2014). The

access economy is another way of sharing that the Internet enabled.

One novel dimension that is pointed out is the fact that the Internet facilitates connection

with any person from intimate friends to complete strangers at any place at any time in the

world (Schor, 2014). This makes it possible for people to be on one side of the world while

arranging a Couchsurfing place on the other side of the world for anytime without hassle. The

Internet has become a medium to overcome of the offline market failures.

Yet, as discussed before in the characteristics of the access economy, trust and

reputation is becoming the new currency of this century (Botsman, 2012). We cannot access

many of the other clues or information we normally read and interpret to assess the riskiness,

reputation and probable effectiveness of the interaction (Belk, 2014; Fitzmaurice & Schor,

2014). This reputation building is the second novelty dimension of the sharing in the access

economy (Schor, 2014). The Internet enabled people to not only share but also rate how the

people they were sharing with interacted, comment about their experiences and rate how

pleasurable it was. In the end, a person gets a reputation online which you do not obtain by

word-of-mouth but by viewing and reading numerous reviews yourself from close friends as

well as strangers about this person. Possibly even better than the offline variant. This is one of

the novelties whilst at the same time causes of the access economy’s thriving. We can conclude

that the sharing itself is actually not that new, yet the medium used (Internet) and the way it is

used to increase trust by evaluations and interacting is make sharing with strangers possible and

comfortable and new to how it was before (Schor, 2014).

2.3.2 What has Enabled the Access Economy?

After finding out how the access economy is new to what we have experienced in the

past and how it is new, we have already touched upon the topic slightly of how it actually came

to this new type of marketplace that is currently shaping society in different ways as well. Going

35

back to the roots of how it all lead to the access economy, three main motivations can be found

out in the literature as the general causes and foundations for the start of the access economy.

First, the “sharing turn” as proposed by Grassmuck (apud Belk, 2014) initiated by

innovations of information and communication technologies as Internet (Hamari et al., 2015;

Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The Internet has undergone an evolvement of mostly focused on

communication, to the Web 2.0 where more features were added as marketplaces, more refined

search engines, payment systems as Paypal and new ways of connecting as Skype, Facebook

(Torbenrick.eu, 2013). The third wave of developments involved further exploration of Social

Media and the access economy as can be seen below in figure 5.

Figure 5: By Torbenrick.eu (2013) - the evolvement of the Internet paved the way for the access economy

This enabled people to act, communicate and participate online as never before while

the world has become more and more globalized. By clicking on a button, we could not only

read, watch and listen to content but we could like it, comment on it and share it to others. Also,

it enabled content creation and interaction with people from all over the world via Social Media

which also experienced an evolution throughout time making people more used to sharing as

explained by figure 6 (Botsman, 2013).

PHASE 1

COMMUNICATION

•Yahoo

•Aol

•CompuServe

PHASE 2

WEB 2.0

•Itunes

•Spotify

•Facebook

•Skype

•Google

•Amazon

PHASE 3

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ACCESS ECONOMY

•Zipcar

•AIRBNB

•Lending Club

•HouseTrip

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Figure 6:From Botsman (2010) showing the sharing evolution pyramid

Secondly, as can be concluded from this figure and often argued, the perception towards

sharing, what and how much we should share has changed (Botsman, 2010). This is often

explained as a consequence of the worldwide recession, environmental concerns and a raised

faith in the positive externalities of working together as a community (Cohen & Kietzmann,

2014; Botsman, 2010). Third, we trust more because of the reputation building that companies

are focusing on to evaluate each other’s trustworthiness and evaluate the credibility with the

social reviews consumers write, rank or select (Zervas et al., 2014).

2.3.3 Why do Consumers Take Part in the Access Economy?

As any other business, the online social platforms in the access economy are also

completely driven by supply and demand. Yet, what does differ is the fact that these platforms

do not own anything, so the two or more sides of the network bring the value to the platform

itself and drive the success of the platform. Without people registering and participating on the

platform, it would solely stay an empty website. As a reminder, AIRBNB does not own

apartments and Uber does not own cars. Therefore, it is important to understand what actually

motivates supply and demand to take part on those platforms and the access economy.

As investigated by Schor (2014) There are six motivations for people to take part on the

platform: trendiness, new technology, economic, environmental, social and ideological. The

first two are due to the fact that people like to be part of something that is new and want to see

where this new trend or technology is going. The third is economic which is because the access

economy allows people to not actually buy an item but to rent or even share a good or service

which makes it cheaper than permanent ownership (Schor, 2014; Fitzmaurice & Shor, 2014).

Connect to share daily

thoughts and media

Connect people to each other

Connect to share information

Connect to access

and share assets

37

The fourth is the fact that it is perceived that the access economy should lead to a lesser

environmental impact (Schor, 2015).

More people making use of Uber in theory means less cars needed, means less

production of cars, less cars on the road, less space needed, less time in traffic, less CO2 output,

less pollution and therefore less environmental damage. Within academic discourse the actual

environmental impact is heavily debated. As a reference Torbenrick.eu (2013, p. 1) claims that

“every car-sharing vehicle reduces car ownership by 9 – 13 vehicles “ This obviously has great

consequences for the whole industry, think only about fuel, insurance, car sellers, repair shops

and garages. A study by Martin and Shasheen (2010) reports that it did significantly decrease

emissions, yet as reported by Schor (2015) this mostly took place because users focused

specifically on reducing the emissions. Others who participated in car sharing actually increased

emissions, so the truth remains to be found.

The fifth factor is a social motivation. People like to get to know new people, connect

to others and create new relationships with strangers or even people that are closer but normally

don’t connect to as neighbours (Schor, 2014; Albinsson & Perera, 2012). The sixth factor which

is ideological as many people appreciate the idea of sharing and collaborating together to make

the world more efficient, instead of letting the market control the supply and demand

(Fitzmaurice & Schor, 2014; Belk, 2014). Also, people are drawn to the platform for monetary

reasons as these social platforms created new opportunities to make money in an accessible

way.

2.4 Access Economy companies

2.4.1 Network effects

The access economy is driven by social platforms which are creating benefits in the

offline world by connecting people in the online sphere. Because the companies are based on

platforms they are mostly dealing with what is called network effects which is a topic grounded

in literature and explained by theory following next.

As we are dealing with a social network, supply and demand is what drives, maintains

and makes the network strive (Eisenmann, 2007). This supply and demand is actually made up

of “a system of interconnected nodes” (Eisenmann, 2007, p. 2) which are made up out of

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network users which could be people, companies, things and more. These users can be part of

a one-/two-/three-sided network which all depends on the homogeneity of the network users. If

all network users constantly switch from the demand to the supply side for instance, the network

is more homogenous and therefore more likely to be categorized one-sided. In a two-sided

network the number of network users on a particular side could be of great significance, for

instance at the same side (same-sided network effects) or the other (cross-sided network effects)

as can be seen in figure 7 (Eisenmann, 2007).

Figure 7: By Eisenmann (2007): network effects

A three-sided platform connects three kinds of network users that all have a distinct

interest and participation of others on the platform. An example of this are advertisers,

consumer content producers and professional content producers as with YouTube for instance.

Yet, it can actually only be called a platform once at least two sides have been connected in one

place (Alstyne & Parker & Eisenmann, 2006).

All these platforms experience what is called network effects which can be either

positive or negative (Eisenmann, 2007). This is essentially the same as what happens with

correlations: a positive network effect means that if the number of people at one side goes up

the benefit or number of the other also goes up. While negative means that when one consumer

base increases, the other experiences a disadvantage and decreases. This particular aspect can

be used strategically to make the platform more attractive for users to attend and stay with this

platform (Alstyne et al., 2006).

For instance, for Facebook it is important to attract a large group of people to the

platform as then more people will be keen to register themselves on this platform as all their

Cross-sided network effects

Same-sided

network effects

39

friends are on there. This phenomenon is called same-sided network effects as shown in the

diagram of Eisenmann (2007). Also, the more people that are present on the platform, the more

interesting it becomes for advertisers to use the platform as their medium which is called a

positive cross-side network effect (Eisenmann, 2007). On the contrary, with a platform such as

Uber, the number of friends that are also using the platform does not really make a difference.

Yet the more people using the Uber app, the more attractive it is for the drivers and the more

drivers on the platform the more interesting for passengers as they will more easily get a ride

this is again cross side network effects (Eisenmann, 2007).

The owner of these platform being Uber, AIRBNB, BlaBlacar can encourage both or

one side of the platform to participate on it. This is a strategic choice for companies to make

(Reinhart, n.d., apud Sacks, 2011; Eisenmann, 2007). When dealing with platforms, it is

possible that it is a winner takes all market which means that there is actually room for only

one platform as other platforms will bleed out because of network effects, as same side network

effects take place. Also, it is important to understand if the market has particular niches that can

be fulfilled by the same company or by multiple. If this cannot be fulfilled by one company,

this cannot become a winner takes all market which is the second criteria (Alstyne et al., 2006).

Understanding the dynamics of the platform as negative and positive network effects is hence

paramount.

Next to these network effects, there are also homing costs affecting the market. Homing

costs incur when changing to another type of platform is actually unattractive for users due to

the fact that it is challenging (expensive, difficult, etcetera) to maintain multiple platforms at

the same time. What is interesting to note is that these social platforms have a great benefit over

companies working with physical platforms as shops or products. Companies working in the

online spheres with social platforms have zero marginal costs for any new member entering the

platform (Rifkin, 2011). All in all, online social platforms deal with a new set of dynamics,

effects and strategic options that need to be carefully considered to successfully take part of the

access economy and which are companies currently applying in different ways depending on

the type of platform they have and its dynamics.

2.4.2 Categories of Companies in the Access Economy

According to Piskorski (2011, p. 2) companies that are successful with their social

strategies contain three elements: “reduce costs or people’s willingness to pay, helping people

40

establish or strengthen relationships and they do free work on the company’s behalf.” For many

companies in the access economy this is exactly how they can be described: they own nothing

but the platform, reduce the (economic or social) cost of interacting and connect to sides

resolving social failures. Companies often do not play any role in connecting the two parties

which according to Piskorski (2011) is the characteristic that sets successful companies apart

from unsuccessful companies. According to his research, companies should focus on the

resolving the need to interact and to enable them to do so without too much involvement. All

major companies within the access economy show to put this in practice, even though they

practice this in vastly different ways and industries.

The access economy has a great variety of companies operating in it, with some classical

peer-to-peer sharing websites but also many recent for-profit companies (Hamari et al., 2015).

Several traditional industries have been disrupted because of the access economy platforms

such as the accommodation, transportation and pet industry (Torbenrick.eu, 2013). In the

beginning, the access economy mostly represented companies that openly shared a software to

be accessed, used and changed at any moment in time, as with the hacker culture of the 60’s

and 70’s and later with Github (Levy, 2010). Also, online encyclopaedias as Wikipedia, video

sharing websites as YouTube and Vimeo, picture sharing as Instagram, online music sharing as

Limewire or file sharing on Pirate Bay. Nowadays, there are companies that are still non-profit,

yet many that are for-profit are popping up more and more as Uber for the transportation

industry, AIRBNB for the hotel industry and Yerdle for the goods industry.

What all these websites have in common is an online website with mostly of the time a

mobile application that is driven by supply and demand of its users and members. These

platforms are formed around three main overall categories: access to ownership, transfer of

ownership (Hamari et al., 2015) and collaborative lifestyles (Heinrichs, 2013; Botsman, 2013).

The first means that for a short period of time users can share the ownership of a good or access

a service by renting and lending (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). This also referred to by Heinrichs

(2013) as product service systems (PSS). The second, transfer of ownership, refers to the idea

of a permanent act of “swapping, donating and purchasing” of a good (Hamari et al., 2015, p.

3) or redistribution markets (Heinrichs, 2013). The third are collaborative lifestyles which refers

to the part of the access economy in which people share their personal skills, talents and

knowledge with others (Botsman, 2013; Heinrichs, 2013).

After dividing the activities into three main categories, Schor (2014) divided the main

activities of these companies into four distinct ones: “recirculation of goods, increased

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utilization of durable assets, exchange of services, and sharing of productive assets” (Schor,

2014, p. 1) as well as creating social connections (Schor & Fitzmaurice, 2014). This

classification has further been defined based on two market approaches for- and non-profit and

C2C and B2C platforms.

C2C is more related to the original idea of sharing which can be between acquaintances

or strangers. They are more in control of the activity per individual transaction and under which

conditions it will take place as with BlaBlaCar. B2C has a greater tendency to look as a regular

company transaction with set conditions and not much personal interaction (Schor &

Fitzmaurice, 2014). As with Groupon for instance. The different types of companies can be

formed from the 4 columns as can be viewed in table 6.

1. Category of

Company

2. Activities of

Companies

3. Market

Orientation

4. Type of provider

Access to ownership Recirculation of

goods Non-profit

Consumer to

Consumer (C2C)

Transfer of

ownership

Increased

utilization of

durable assets

Collaborative Lifestyles Exchange of

services For Profit

Business to Consumer

(B2C)

Social connections

Table 6: Market categories of companies in the access economy by Schor (2014)

Companies that are for-profit in the access economy do this in a variety of ways

depending on their structure according to Schor (2014) and Belk (2014). C2C For-Profit

companies gain money by adding up a margin on the exchanges taking place on the online

platform. B2C mostly do this in the traditional way by maximizing the profit per deal (Schor,

2014). There is also an option to completely not charge for using a platform and its offering as

done with Google. Most of the time, the revenues then come from online advertisements which

are specifically directed for that users based on their data (Belk, 2014).

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2.4.3 Visualization and Ecosystem of Companies in the Access Economy

Companies operating in the access economy are divided in a great number of fields,

industries and activities which might be one of the reasons why it is often called disruptive

(Botsman, 2015). To understand and illustrate how the access economy is looking currently an

ecosystem is mapped as can be seen on the following page developed by Owyang (2016). The

ecosystem is divided into 12 fields ranging from money to transportation, food to health and

wellness. Within the individual combs, the companies partaking in these specific fields of the

access economy are represented. As we are talking about the access economy it includes all

kinds of companies mentioned before; B2C/C2C, for-profit/non-profit and all kinds of ways to

access – share, lend, give. See figure 8 for the ecosystem of the access economy created by

Owyang (2016).

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Figure 8: Mapping the access economy categories and companies from Owyang (2016).

44

2.4.4 How do Companies in the Access Economy Affect Incumbents?

The effects of the access economy on the society are positive for the majority of what

has been researched till now, also as mentioned in the introduction the traditional companies

are experiencing a disruption. For instance, a study conducted by Zervas et al. (2014) reported

that AIRBNB coverage in a city has a negative effect on hotel revenue especially on hotels with

cheaper offerings. Cannon and Summers (2014, p. 1) state “For proof, look no further than

AIRBNB which, at $10 billion, can boast a higher valuation than the Hyatt hotel chain. Uber is

currently valued at $18.2 billion relative to Hertz at $12.5 billion and Avis at $5.2 billion.” So,

what can traditional companies actually do about these threats, shows the two possible strategies

(fight or flight) of traditional companies to act in this new era as argued by Belk (2014).

Companies can either confront the new competitors and try to adapt their business to the new

marketplace or flight the scene and diversify themselves. Due to the novelty of the access

economy, not much has been written about how incumbents are currently addressing these

issues.

2.4.5 What are Possible Challenges for the Access Economy Companies?

The diverse group of companies working in the access economy are also subject to

challenges. Sacks (2011) argues that the primary challenge is trust. As online platforms are

focused on sharing with acquaintances but primarily maybe even with strangers leading to trust

and experienced safety issues (Fitzmaurice & Schor, 2014).

Some sharing websites have this in a greater degree than others, for instance

NeighborGoods where people share goods, but also Snapgoods to share and exchange goods

and products with strangers. Yet, with companies as AIRBNB or Couchsurfing you are actually

allowing a person you have never met in your home, sometimes even without meeting the

person yourself. That is the reason why most of these companies work because of the social

reviews which would function as an online word-of-mouth for reputation forming of the client

(Sacks, 2011).

Also, regulation is a major barrier as it could limit or completely stop the functioning of

the new companies (Cannon & Summers, 2014). This is also the reason why this is a re-

occurring issue as Uber is pressured upon and protested against in many countries based on

(lacking) regulation. This is due to the fact that little is known about the effects of the access

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economy on the traditional markets, society and more leading to much sceptics and gossip about

it damaging traditional markets (Cannon & Summers, 2014).

2.4.6 How Beneficial is the Access Economy estimated to be?

The excitement about the access economy is stirred by the idea that it actually has the

potential of making the world a better place in a great variety of ways, as the motivations of

people to participate and the literature proclaim. As we would start sharing, lending, giving and

exchanging more, we would need less resources - be more connected - create less waste –

pollute less – increase the income of many and more related benefits are often mentioned

(Schor, 2014; Summers & Canon, 2014; Zervas et al., 2014). The existing research actually

debates this fact continuously as it is ambiguous if it does actually result into this. The following

graph indicates the areas in which the access economy could benefit and make a positive change

in society.

Figure 9: Impact of access economy on societies

Source: Ernst & Young report (Oct, 2015)

46

The academic discourse explores addresses most of these impacts and can be divided in

three areas: economical, environmental and social impacts.

Economically The idea is that due to the access economy new businesses could be

created, started and maintained by consumers enabling people to be part of a democracy and

meritocracy based on their own efforts (Schor, 2014). People are able to earn money in a new,

more accessible way and become less dependent of their employers. According to Summers

and Cannon (2014) the fact that it is economically beneficial is already proven. Employment

had increased and profit due to the access economy had surpassed 25%, already amounting to

$3.5 billion in 2014.

The idea behind this is explained by the same authors, AIRBNB for instance is often

less expensive than others forms of accommodation. This is the reason why people can

economize which results into two things: volume and purchase power (Schor, 2014; Zervas, et

al., 2014). First, people spending more money at a place itself even resulting in the possibility

of them staying longer which in the end always leads to a bigger spending. Second, people are

more keen to visit a city because they realize that accommodation does not have to be expensive

leading to great benefits for cities to have a great coverage of AIRBNB participants. This does

not only account for accommodation but as seen in the ecosystem can have a complete dramatic

effect on consumer behaviour and therefore traditional companies. As Schor (2014) reports,

people are preferring Uber and other C2C companies as Lyft over using public transportation.

Also in industries lead by agencies, bureaucracy and regulations as the health industry,

workers often have a low wage as much of the profit already gets removed by fees from these

kinds of institutions leading to less profits for the workers (Schor, 2014). If they would earn

more by working with an online social platform they would become more autonomous leading

to better labour and living conditions (Schor, 2014). Overall, the access economy seems to be

able to improve overall social welfare as Botsman (2012) proclaimed while no counter

arguments on this particular aspect has been offered.

Environmentally The access economy has many options for people to share which

effectively leads to people using resources more efficiently and sharing more. This leads to less

overall usage: people for instance are sharing cars less unused products we don’t buy

cars anymore sitting idle in parking towers less traffic on the road less carbon emission

less pollution, which is actually what one of the frequently mentioned benefits of the sharing

economy (Summers & Canon, 2014; Cervero, Golub & Nee, 2007). A study conducted in the

47

United States reported that people making use of car sharing facilities reduced 44% of the

distance they normally travelled with their own car, leading to less pollution. To illustrate this

with another aspect, when people share and exchange products more often, people don’t need

to own them so less products need to be fabricated resulting into less pollution (Schor, 2014).

Martin and Shasheen (2010) stated that due to these new ways of sharing the average number

of vehicles dropped by almost 50% per household. In Europe a study disclosed that carbon

emissions was halved (Summers & Canon, 2014).

It seems that many voices point towards the idea that the access economy is reducing

the environmental damage, but it might be speculative if the research was indeed done without

having this aim in mind. Studies also show the contrary. Schor (2015) explains the idea behind

this. Because people are more often sharing and recirculating used goods, more people have

purchasing power to actually also own or access those goods which leads to more consumption

and a different impact than initially thought. People are able to save more buy buying second

hand goods, therefore it leaves more money to access other products and services, which results

into consuming even more: worsening the ecological footprint (Schor, 2014). Platforms result

in higher CO2 emissions as their activities consume energy as a new business (activity) is

closely connected to more pollution.

Socially One of the arguments for access economy users to participate is on social

grounds: they want to connect more and get to know new people. Yet, the sounds are mixed as

not all access economy businesses seem to be satisfying this motivation (Schor, 2014). For

instance, Couchsurfing indeed has been reported to create new (lasting) connections. On the

other end, a car ride with BlaBlaCar can be as anonymous and silent as the consumers

themselves wishes.

Hence on all facets mentioned; socially, environmentally and economically solely the

latter is discussed to be most promising of all three and being the least ambiguous as a possible

positive implication on the society and for its participants. Due to the absence of academic

discourse and the dubious practical dialogue about this recent topic, the implications of being

an active participant in the access economy remain ambiguous which is exactly the gap this

research is trying to bridge (Böckmann, 2013). By researching Uber as a case study answers

will be found that discuss the consequences of these types of companies and its significance in

its context.

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3 METHOD

This particular research will conduct a case study on Uber on the method of Yin (2003)

which was combined with other, secondary, sources to triangulate the research and enhance

validity. The study was conducted by comprehensive qualitative interviews of all three parties

involved during an Uber service transaction: Uber Company, Uber drivers (supply side) and

Uber passengers (demand side). The latter was researched in three parts of the world: Brazil,

Hong Kong and The Netherlands. In this way, a thorough overview and clear insights can be

formed around the issue being researched concerning how the access economy is working in

reality for the people using the service and what are its implications in different societies.

3.1 Qualitative interviews

Qualitative research is a strategy of inquiry which in many ways is distinctly different

from a quantitative research and has a wide pallet of methods available to be conducted

(Creswell, 2014). This study has focused on a case study methodology developed by Yin

(2003). This method lends itself very well to serve the objective of the study to explore

understand the implications of a phenomena (access economy) in its context (Baxter & Jack,

2008). As Baxter and Jack (2008, p. 545) claim a case study is appropriate when “the boundaries

are not clear between the phenomenon and context.” The data gathered in this research was

based on in-depth qualitative interviews with open-ended questions as we analysed how an

innovative, technology-driven company, Uber as an example of a company symbolizing the

access economy, impacts its consumers in different countries and therefore different contexts.

Because it’s a single case study, a holistic approach is practiced (Yin, 2003).

An inductive approach of data analysis was applied in this research meaning that the

conclusions from the research were derived by layering what has been found in the research

and connecting discussed subjects. The personal interviews were conducted based on a general

script to keep the one-to-one personal interviews open and emergent, which allowed it to lead

to more profound and holistic level of depth and create more possible meaning. This is also the

reason why the research was conducted in-depth and in three-fold (Uber company, drivers and

passengers in Brazil) and Uber passengers extensively over 3 countries (Brazil, Hong Kong and

The Netherlands):

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3.2 Interviews

3.2.1 Selected Interviews

As suggested by Yin (2003) and Miles and Huberman (1994) it is paramount to keep

the case study focused and central to the main objective. Therefore, the in-depth personal

interviews have been conducted in a time span of 6 months in 2016 with all three parties - Uber

Brazil company, Uber drivers in Brazil and Uber passengers in three different countries (The

Netherlands, Hong Kong and Brazil). The interviewees were recruited by convenience as this

involves a case study and we were looking specifically for Uber users. The aim was to get a

great and deep insight into how operates in Brazil instead of generalization of the data as the

focus is often with quantitative studies. Snowball techniques were used with recruitment by

recommendations via friends and to select the most appropriate group of interviewees. Uber

could not make driver or passenger data available for this researched, so they were asked

personally, after recruitment, to introduce themselves. This was also done to make sure to get

an all-round image about the theme researched.

The Uber manager was interviewed without recording as he could not speak on the

record about Uber. Five Uber drivers were interviewed on average for an hour. The Uber drivers

were all around 26 to middle aged males of which a few were driving for Ubers as a side job

and others were driving for Uber as their only source of income. In total 14 passengers for about

40 minutes were interviewed upon their experiences with using Uber services. All passengers

had at least a few months’ experience with Uber, fell between an age range of 25 to 38 and was

a mix between males and females. All drivers and passengers were recorded and only 4 people

spoke in Portuguese in the interviews while the other 15 people spoke in English.

INTERVIEWEE GENDER GENDER FUNCTION NATIONALITY,

COUNTRY

1 Male 38 UBER employee Brazilian, Brazil

2 Male 26 Driver* Brazilian, Brazil

3 Male 27 Passenger* Brazilian, Brazil

4 Male 33 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

5 Male 29 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

6 Female 27 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

7 Female 29 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

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8 Male 30 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

9 Female 28 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

10 Male 28 Driver Brazilian, Brazil

11 Female 31 Passenger Brazilian, Brazil

12 Male 38 Driver* Brazilian, Brazil

13 Male 25 Driver* Brazilian, Brazil

14 Male 28 Passenger Brazilian, Hong Kong

15 Female 29 Passenger Hong Kong, Hong Kong

16 Female 34 Passenger American, Hong Kong

17 Female 25 Passenger Dutch, The Netherlands

18 Male 28 Passenger Dutch, The Netherlands

19 Female 26 Passenger Dutch, The Netherlands

Table 7: Overview of profile of interviewees.

* These interviews were conducted in Portuguese.

3.2.2 Data collection procedure

The interview used a script with open-ended questions, as can be viewed in appendix A.

The locations where the interview took place differed based on the preference of the

interviewees. Before starting the interview, the interviewees were asked if the interview could

be audiotaped and they were told they could stop the interview at any time without further

consequence. The interviewees were further asked to be the most expressive possible about

their thoughts and were told that the research was specifically focused on obtaining knowledge

on their experiences and knowledge so that in the end no answer is right or wrong. If all was

agreed on, the interview began.

The interview questions can be reviewed in appendix A. The interview questions and

technique of enquiry were based on the article of Creswell et al. (2014). The interview initiated

with some introduction questions to allow the interviewee to feel more comfortable. After these

questions, several probing questions were asked to take the interview to a possible higher level

and reach the actual answers that are hidden below a more superficial level of answering

(Creswell et al., 2014). At the end of the interview, the interviewee was thanked for its time and

willingness to participate in the study voluntarily without compensation.

51

The role of the interviewer during the interview is described by Creswell et al. (2014)

which was exactly how it was performed during the inquiry. A protocol was held to take

observatory, descriptive and demographic notes that would describe a general picture of the

situation during the interview and represent the memories that will assist later during the data

analysis and coding. The procedure of the interview, situation during the interview and data

analysis is as detailed reported as relevant, to make sure the research is reliable and consistent

(Yin, 2003).

3.2.3 Language

Some interviews were conducted in Portuguese as the native language spoken in Brazil

but solely when necessary as for some interviewees it was impossible to conduct the interview

in English. All other interviews were conducted in English. During interviews it was expressed

that interviewees could say words in Portuguese or phrases if they didn’t know how to express

themselves or that word otherwise in English. Temple and Young (2004) report that it is

important for interviewees to be able to express themselves properly in the language proposed,

if not an alternative should be sought as the interviewee might become dependent on the words

he/she knows. Staying flexible and open to these more culturally bound words as the Brazilian

interviewees might have, is one of the ways in which we tried to enrich the result and

interpretation. The word or phrase would afterwards immediately be translated or described in

English by the interviewer to confirm its correct translation and to understand what the

interviewee meant.

As discussed by Temple and Young (2004) it is important to be clear in which language

the interview was conducted so that the reader of the work can later on is able to better

understand the text. According to the same authors, the interviewer that realize the interview

should be conducted objectively, is also able to translate the text not interfering with any kind

of issues. If external translators are used, this might lead to confusion of translation as the

context was not experienced by the translators itself and therefore might lead to a “mark” on

the research as discussed by Temple and Young (2004).

3.2.4 Data analysis

After all interviews had been conducted and the sufficiency of data gathered was

determined by the saturation of receiving similar answers by multiple interviewees, the audio

52

data was ready to be transcribed and organized. The transcribing was done partly manually by

the researcher and partly conducted by an institution as part of Coppead, part of the federal

university of Rio de Janeiro. After this interpretations and conclusions were drawn which

resulted into maps and schemes to understand the main question of the article of how Uber

works in reality for people using the service as driver and passenger in different contexts in

Brazil, The Netherlands and Hong Kong.

3.2.5 Limitations

Limitations of this type of research, interview, according to Creswell et al. (2014) are

first the researcher has such an intense role in acquiring the data, it is probably that this will

actually influence the results of the study, leading to a bias. The same accounts for the type of

person the interviewee actually is. Not all interviewees will be as articulate and expressive as

desired which could have caused the interview to reach to certain conclusions not completely

representing reality. that the data is not discovered in the natural setting where people generally

operate as it was not an observation but apart from the scene they were asked to remember what

they found important. For this reason, no long-term conclusions or generalizations can be drawn

from them so the conclusions have to be drawn upon those interviewees that have been studied

and other research has to be done to draw more generalizable conclusions.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Case study Uber

Uber was launched in 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp in San Francisco,

United States. Originally it was a service called UberCabs where they tapped into the private

luxury car service serving executives working in Silicon Valley. Back then the service was

requested via email which would provide a code that clients could use in return for the app. The

two entrepreneurs understood that there was a huge gap and opportunity to gain from idle

(positions) in limousines and taxis and that technology was the answer to it. Yet, the name

UberCabs was greatly discussed based on its legal position, this is why they removed “Cabs”

and Uber continued from there onwards.

In 2012 it opened a new peer-to-peer car sharing service called UberX. After several

background checks by Uber and acceptance had been approved, in a sense everyone, anywhere,

anytime could pick up someone and start working for/with Uber (Farris, Yemen, Weiler &

53

Aliwadi, 2014). UberBlack was raised just a short time later offering a premium car service for

a slightly higher price. The service could be requested via a smartphone app that allowed people

to get a car digitally on the exact location where they were via geographical location

positioning. Also, afterwards the cost of the ride would automatically be calculated and

depreciated from the credit card (Farris et al., 2014). Since then several types of Uber versions

have been raised as UberPool, UberFood, UberDelivery and UberBusiness.

Uber is a company that is often mentioned to be a frontrunner, an example to many and

compared to other giants. In fact, Uber has been valued +$50 Billion company which in the end

reached this mark two years faster than the well-known giant Facebook as can be seen in the

following figure 10 (Macmillan & Demos, 2015).

Figure 10: Uber versus Facebook $ 50 Billion-mark comparison from

The Wall Street Journal (2015)

Since its existence, Uber has been growing rapidly and was reported to have over 400

employees in 2014 (Farris et al., 2014). It is currently operating in over 405 cities worldwide

and expanding horizontally (more locations) as well as vertically (different services) (Uber,

2016).

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4.2 How the Uber application works

Uber is described by Rogers (2015, p. 86) as “a smartphone-based app connects drivers

offering rides and passengers seeking them, passengers pay mileage-based fees through credit

cards that the company keeps on file, and then takes a percentage of each fare and gives the rest

to drivers.” The Uber platform operates on devices running Android as well as iOS for Apple

(Uber, 2016). The operations are mostly focused on the Uber platform, hence Uber does not

own vehicles itself. What is important to note is that the drivers and passengers are running the

business on the app itself, without them the platform would not be as valuable as it is currently.

Drivers go through a background check for their vehicles and their driver history. Passengers

solely need a mobile phone number, smartphone and a credit card, Google Wallet or PayPal

account. In some countries, as India and Brazil, Uber also has a cash option.

Starting the app will provide you with a screen that searches for your location and

immediately provides you with information concerning: your pick-up location (which can be

adjusted), how many minutes cars are distanced from you, the number and location of the cars

surrounding you. There is the option to choose between different kinds of Uber’s which varies

from country to country. In Brazil for instance, the options are UberX (cheapest option),

UberBlack (premium option), UberEnglish (English speaking driver), and UberPool (if you

would like to share your ride with others for a cheaper price). Then, the estimated time of arrival

(ETA) is shown, number of people that could enter the car and minimum fare. Another feature

of the starting screen is to estimate the cost of the ride by providing your destination.

When confirming the Uber pick-up, the request can be cancelled within 5 minutes,

otherwise the minimum fare will be charged. The Uber driver will be able to see the profile and

the rating of the person being picked up and the Uber passenger can see the Uber drivers’ car

type, model, driver’s name, picture and rating. In this way both parties are aware of the person

they will be in contact with. The passenger as well as the driver can contact the person which

they will be in contact with soon via the personal phone number displayed of passenger/driver.

When the passenger gets in the car, the ride starts by the driver activating the ride and the driver

will be lead to the destination by a navigation system calculating the best route to the passenger

inserted destination.

The ride ends when the driver stops the ride at the destination. The passenger is also

able to cancel the ride at any time but this will be shown on both apps. Then, the passenger will

automatically receive a receipt of a credit card transcript of how long the ride was, how much

it costed and proposed to give a rating and possible comments about the ride and driver. The

55

driver in return also rates the passenger. Also, the Uber passenger receives a complete report

by email about the route, the pickup time, drop-off time, total duration and the price.

Next to this procedure of requesting a ride, the Uber app also has a side menu on the left

side where you can adjust information about Payment, see your history, possible free rides to

send to friends, update on possible promotions, read any notifications, ask for help or change

the settings. Also, in this particular side menu you can find more about Uber, its legal issue and

rate it on Google Play.

4.3 Characteristics of Uber customers, drivers and platform

Uber offers a new experience for its passengers, driver as well as the workings of the

platform. According to Rogers (2015) one of the main disruptive features of Uber is a more

efficient market of car-hiring services by matching supply and demand more efficiently,

diminishing search costs of finding a cab, and giving drivers more flexibility to work when they

can and want. The main focus of Uber is to be as reliable as running water, everywhere for

everyone, this breaths through many feature of the company (Uber, 2016). In this section the

benefits for the agents using the platform are explained. Overall characteristics of Uber platform

for both the supply (drivers) and demand (passengers) side as shown in table 8:

CHARACTERISTICS OF UBER PLATFORM

o Two-way rating system (drivers about passengers and passengers about drivers)

o Cashless and automatic payment system (Credit card, PayPal or Google Wallet)

o Smartphone application used online

o GPS shows location passenger, route, location driver

o Up-front introduction passenger and driver

o Surge pricing (when demand is high prices go up)

o Insurance (driver, vehicle, others on the road as well as passenger)

o Code of Conduct (creates a standard of handling)

o (Incident) response team available

o Fast and clear payment and earning system (for driver and passenger)

Table 8: Uber’s characteristics when using the platform

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Then there are distinct characteristics for the demand, supply side and the city.

FOR PASSENGERS FOR DRIVERS FOR THE CITY

o Uber has several options

for different needs and

requests (e.g. X, Black,

Pet, English, Surf)

o Passengers can share

their ETA with others to

show them where they

are.

o Uber promises to offer

rides regardless of where

you are, want to go or

what you look like.

o All drivers must provide their

drivers licence, vehicle

documentation and screening

process that includes a review

of their motor vehicle records.

o Everyone can be an Uber

driver.

o Drivers work in their cars,

when, how long, where they

want.

o Solely need to step in the car,

start the app and start working.

o Tool available for more

efficient rides.

o The fares are automatically

transferred per week.

o Uber asks a service fee for

using the application.

o More economic

opportunities for residents.

o Fewer drunk drivers on the

streets. Since UberX

arrived in California in

July 2012, there has been

an estimated 6.5%

decrease in drunk-driving

crashes per month. And

DUI arrests have dropped

10% in Seattle (Uber,

2016).

o Better access to

transportation for those

without it.

Table 9: Characteristics of Uber from three parties involved

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4.4 The Uber business model

Uber has constructed a particular kind of business model based on the opportunities the

Internet offered such as GPS location, cashless payments, mutual direct after-experience

evaluations and engaging customer support. Based on the previous paragraph and some new

information, the complete business model is established:

Figure 11: Uber business model developed

4.5 Uber challenges

Throughout time Uber has received various serious concerns and doubts towards its

modern service offering filed by traditional taxi companies as well as governments. Much

commotion and discussion has made Uber´s future uncertain. Especially since Uber is

expanding and operating in many different countries, Uber already received 173 lawsuits and

is (partly) banned in several places as can be seen at figure 12 (Khosla, 2015).

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Figure 12: Places Uber is banned or partly from WashingtonPost 2015

Traditional taxi drivers are heavily protesting against Uber, as what happened for instance

in autumn 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. They have attempted to limit the popularity and growth of

Uber and legislators have tried to form new rules and regulations for ridesharing. Frankly, in

many countries legislation towards a service as Uber is lacking, partially covering or ambiguous

(Khosla, 2015). How Uber is operating now is often spoken about as an unfair advantage over

taxi drivers (Rogers, 2015). A reason for this is that traditional taxi service companies working

with traditional measures are paying large amounts for licenses, special cars and bureaucratic

means to be able to work while Uber does not require such expensive measurements to work.

Yet, Uber itself argues that it is a technology driven ride sharing company so that in fact it has

little to do with a taxi service offering.

Also, Uber would be a dangerous options for consumers in comparison to other taxi

services functioning under the traditional regulation (Rogers, 2015; Feeney, 2015). Yet despite

of many concerns, there is little evidence that Uber actually is less safe than other taxi services

and many concerns are solely driven by groups that have a great financial stake in the taxi

services. Even better said, the way Uber provides a service might lead to more safe taxi rides

as there is no cash available in the car representing all the payments of the passengers. Both the

driver and passenger are registered in a system, are identifiable even before the service starts

and are socially rated and even expelled when a rate goes below a certain rating (Rogers, 2015;

Feeney, 2015). In comparison to taxi´s, this advantage is often absent.

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At the same time, Uber does require a background check on the driver and the car – for

the last seven years - which have been reported to be stricter than for taxi drivers in the United

States (Rogers, 2015). The only thing that is not done are fingerprint scans as what is asked for

and does not conduct regular vehicle checks as traditional taxi companies do (Feeney, 2015).

Yet, what they do ask for is a vehicle of 2004 or newer and have a two-way rating system with

passengers indicating also the state of the car when using the service (Feeney, 2015). For this

reason, Uber does not seem to be falling behind on taxi´s either.

Another problem often mentioned is insurance as Uber drivers can literally be anyone

and passengers as well (Rogers, 2015; Feeney, 2015). In the end, are we dealing with

consumers, a company or peer-to-peer ridesharing? Uber has bought several insurance

packages to make sure all parties possibly involved – even third parties – are covered when

driving for Uber (Uber, 2016). Also, there is a service constantly available to help out drivers

and passengers. Many taxi drivers are switching to services of Uber to seemingly make money

in an easier and more efficient manner. What is interesting is to see if this American Business

Model is actually working for all kinds of countries it is operating in.

4.6 Uber operating in different economies

Uber is currently operating in 409 different cities all over the world all with their distinct

legislation, culture and socio-economic status towards this new company (Uber.com, 2016).

Many questions arise concerning Uber’s business model and its implications. Does Uber in all

countries actually offer the supposed job everyone can be accepted for and awaken a social

change for passengers as well as drivers? According to Rogers (2015, p. 86) Uber has labeled

itself in an inaccurate manner: Uber “describes itself as ‘ride-sharing, but that is a misnomer—

nothing is shared.” which is something subject to discussion as well which can mainly be

answered looking at the practical connotation of Uber.

Also, Uber might look completely different in various areas in the world for consumers

as well as drivers, in the end a Western Business Model is implemented in all types of countries.

According to some this could lead to possibly positive outcomes in many different economies

(Schor, 2014). Yet the present debate lacks to conclude about the actual impact Uber is making

on the societies and markets in which it operates (Rogers, 2015). The author does claim it can

better the usage of idle assets and improve societal well-being. For instance, Rogers (2015)

claims that Uber could possibly lead to consumer’s buying less cars, hence saving money and

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also polluting less. Due to less cars on the road, less parking spots are needed which can be

used for other goals. Also Uber could have a positive impact on the number of drunk drivers

and accidents. What these different outcomes look like and how Uber in the reality is shaping

the current market will be researched to obtain a clear understanding of how beneficial Uber is

actually in practice for all three parties.

5 ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

The analysis was done horizontally (as seen in bold) as well as vertically as which relates

to the three different countries the research has been conducted. For the overall structure, see

figure 13. This structure is also a guide to the order of the analysis as the interview transcripts

were organized in this manner.

Figure 13: Horizontal and vertical research structure concerning Uber interviews

The following three sections and three subsections will be established:

1. Interview Uber Company

2. Interview Uber drivers

3. Interviews Uber Passengers

Brazil

Hong Kong

The Netherlands

UBER Interviews

Uber Passengers

Brazil

The Netherlands

Hong Kong

Uber drivers

Brazil

Uber Company

Brazil

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This section will mostly dive into the topic of how the different parties connected to

Uber are participating in the sharing economy and how they see Uber in the current context and

ecosystem. The subparagraphs will dive deeper into the national contexts and Uber and how

this results into different perceptions about Uber and implications towards what is valued and

competing internationally with other companies that are part of the traditional ecosystem.

5.1 Uber company

The interview that took place with the Uber manager was done in full confidentiality.

The Uber manager in question was not able to speak officially in the name of Uber, yet solely

in terms of his opinion and experiences as taught at working at Uber. The following text is a

summary of what has been mentioned by the interviewee.

Uber has first started in 2011 by founder Travis Kalanick in San Francisco and from

there expanded to different locations in the North-America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa and

South-America (Forbes.com/2014). In June 2014, Uber got launched in Brazil because of the

huge potential the Soccer World Cup, organized in Brazil that year, would bring. Uber first

entered the Brazilian market in Rio de Janeiro and also in São Paulo. This was not the first-time

Uber entered the South-American market as before it was also established in Santiago,

Colombia and Mexico. Uber has established itself as a digital technology company, more

specifically an online platform connecting two sides: drivers (supply) and passengers (demand)

as represented in figure 14.

Figure 14: Uber platform sides and requirements

*Disclaimer: quotes stated are best-possible representations of what was said during the interview but the interviewee cannot

be held responsible for what is stated in this thesis. This is due to the requested confidentiality of the interviewee.

UBER DRIVERS

- suitable car

- drivers license

- proper driving record

UBER PASSENGERS

- creditcard/cash

- smartphone

UBER

Digital Platform

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According to the interviewee, Uber is not working with transportation, yet it is the

product that the platform is designed for. This shows that Uber company describes itself

fittingly to be part of the access economy as established in this work based on the academic

discourse. They are platform driven and provide access to rides and possibilities to work by

solely having a platform (Botsman, 2015). Uber provides access which translates to “the ability

to derive benefits from things. A bundle of powers, instead of a bundle of rights.” (Ribot &

Peluso, 2003, p. 153).

Uber does not own any vehicles. They solely have the platform where supply and demand

can sign up to make use of it and be connected to the other side. The representative explained

that the main issue Uber is trying to solve is to make transport as reliable as running water. It

should be “whatever, however and whenever” diminishing pollution as Hamari et al. (2015)

and Cannon & Summers (2014) were propagating. Next to that, an issue that might be more

overlooked in research is the fact that Uber also claims to have an urban mission towards

making cities better and giving more options of transportation of urban mobility.

“Uber wants to be part of this solution of urban mobility in Brazil.” #Interviewee1, Brazil

When talking about the Brazilian market, the interviewee specifically referred to Brazil

as interesting market due to the size of Brazil’s market, and population, next to that the

smartphone penetration is increasing and already well established which is important for the

usage of the Uber platform. Last but not least, it fits Brazil well because of its traffic problems.

The challenges specifically for Uber in Brazil, were mainly in terms of

“Regulation, usage of credit cards and how to reach different income layers. These

problems are partly specifically for Brazil but we had to deal with the same in other

countries as in Indonesia and Peru for instance”. #Interviewee1, Brazil

On the one hand, there is a challenge for the demand side as lower social-income layers

might not have a credit card, data plan or smartphone to use the Uber service. On the other

hand, he mentioned a challenge from the supply side as the higher social-classes, maybe

especially the young people, don’t want to drive with their own cars for Uber as their parents

are providing them with money and a car. Last, concerning security people are also more warry

in Brazil as people have to trust the platform with their details, have to get in a car of someone

else which is a very intimate deed. This was indeed a trend that has been mentioned frequently

as a challenge for companies operating in the online spheres and in this example demonstrates

to indeed be on top of the agenda of the companies themselves to maximize the safety of the

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situation as claimed by Botsman (2012) and Fitzmaurice and Schor (2014). He mentioned that

these things all worked out in the end because of our referral system and evaluations but these

are the cultural challenges they had to deal with.

Yet these challenges at the same time also meant that Uber next to its environmental

and urban missions, also attempts to tackle social problems. This presents overlap with what

has been written in research as with Botsman (2012), who talks in her research about the access

economy to be able to increase social welfare. “These firms bring significant economic,

environmental, and entrepreneurial benefits including an increase in employment and a

reduction in carbon dioxide emissions (in the case of car sharing services).” (Summers &

Cannon, 2014, p. 1). The Uber manager explains that they attempted in Brazil to enable people

to get a new source of income

“A lot of people lost their jobs, we helped the people in the cities to get new jobs. They could

just get their cars and drive and be your own boss. In the end, they are our clients as well, if

they make their ends meet, they are more satisfied and we have to balance this between the three

parties involved”. #Interviewee1, Brazil

The surge or dynamic pricing is another way how Uber is trying to get more people on

the road. Partnerships with car lease and insurance companies offer a better service for

passengers as well as drivers.

5.2 Uber drivers

ACCESS AT ITS BEST

Uber drivers make up the supply side of the Uber platform as they offer availability to

pick up passengers and to drive them to their destinations. When talking to the drivers, Uber

seems to be a solution for almost everyone to start driving and make some money, which in

time of crisis is a warm-welcomed opportunity by many. Most interviewees report to see Uber

as a way to make extra money or as a temporary solution while looking for another job. For

instance, one interviewee worked at Uber in his summer break before he actually started

interning, while many others use it as an opportunity to gain an income after they were fired

and did not find a solution to start working elsewhere again. This is in accordance with what

Botsman (2012) and Summers and Cannon (2014) concluded, but also what the Uber company

has as an objective about the access economy: to increase the welfare of the society by providing

more opportunities for people to have an income.

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Due to the independent and transparent features of the Uber app, the drivers are able to

decide based on their own schedule and see how much they have worked and what they are

earning. This is mentioned by all interviewees as one of the biggest advantages of working with

the Uber platform and is also something Uber (2017) itself focuses on promoting its

characteristics with slogans as: “No office, no boss” and “Drive when you want.”. This accounts

for the working hours, the pressure to work and how much they earn. As presented by Botsman

(2015) the middlemen are taken away to connect the two parties and decentralization has put

the drivers back in control to decide upon their work (Botsman, 2015). We can conclude that

this traditional rigidness of working hours is part of the past and employees are gathering more

independence in how they want to divide work and when which shows to be rewarding and

have positive consequences on the lifestyles of the users of the platform (2013).

“The cool thing is that I can work whenever I want and wherever I want, if I do not want to

work, I do not work. You do not have a boss, nobody is pressuring you” #Interviewee2,

Brazil

“Sometimes I wake up early, sometimes I want to sleep more. I like to have this freedom, you

have autonomy over your own life. This is the best thing” #Interviewee13, Brazil

“When I email them, they respond within a day and pay us fairly. In Brazil, there are not a lot

of companies like that.” #Interviewee10, Brazil

Simultaneously, drivers report to see Uber as a good way to make a fair amount of

money without finishing a degree, which for many is very helpful.

“People can earn a lot with driving Uber, of course you have to pay your maintenance, the

car and fuel but you can earn more than someone that has studied for years to become a lawyer

and is working at a company. It is quite impressive how much you can gain with solely

the car and a driver’s license.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

Aside from the social economic benefits Uber is bringing and the apparent inclusiveness

of the platform, it also seems to offer a solution for a bigger problem as transportation is

considered pessimistic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Taxi’s had a monopoly before which

interviewees report to not be good for any situation. A monopoly does not offer any other

options so users had to use what was available out of necessity but not out of choice. The

academic literature does not cover the topic of disruptive urban implications due to companies

of the access economy but it clearly shows to present itself in practice. Solely Botsman and

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Rogers (2011, p. 1) touch upon it by reporting that it will “transform consumerism and change

the way people live.”

“Bus is bad, subway is bad, taxis are bad, everything is bad because of its busy, old and the

service is bad. It even improved the locomotion of the city, raised competition and improved

the service.’’ #Interviewee2, Brazil

“I think Uber is a good solution in Brazil for people that became unemployed but also for

passengers to not stay at the streets for a taxi or take the public transport. Taxi’s did not want

to take you if it was too far away or to close, now Uber takes care of all these things.”

#Interviewee13, Brazil

ONE BUSINESS LEADS TO THE OTHER

The idea normally propagated is that you can take your car and start working with Uber.

Nevertheless, this is not possible for everyone as their cars do not comply with the minimum

requirements defined by Uber.

“I could not drive my own car because it had only 2 doors, Uber requires 4 doors and it was

too old.” #Interviewee10, Brazil

UberBlack was the only Uber option available in Brazil and strict rules apply to be a

driver for Uber and use your own car. Uber company has already pointed out that this issue

might specifically relate to the social economic status of Brazil. Hence the idea that anyone can

participate in the access economy might not completely reflect reality as socio-economic status

is still an issue, the barrier to enter the platform might seem low but this shows that in certain,

mostly developing, countries that the perceived threshold to enter the platform. Uber has tried

to solve this by partnering with lease companies to enable potential drivers to rent a car for a

better price and participate on the Uber platform.

The issue here is that when drivers start leasing cars to drive for Uber that on the one

hand it improves the social welfare but on the other hand neglects the idea of maximizing

unused goods (Botsman, 2015; Gansky, 2012). Apparently, the main propaganda about the

access economy of more optimally using existing goods is sometimes surpassed to allow more

people to participate on the platform by Uber. It seems to be more part of a choice or option,

while traditional ways of participating are still present which removes some of the positive

implications Uber might have on society.

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“Uber has partnerships with three companies that rent cars in Rio: Movida, Localiza

another one whose name I can’t remember. So I got into contact with this Movida, and I pay

per month. I get the car, and its renewed, I just need to pay per month. For me this is very

good, because I don’t have to pay the maintenance costs. If my tires get old, I just go to

Movida, and they change the tires, that’s okay and they pay.” #Interviewee10, Brazil

Next to official Uber partnerships, what arises from the interviews is that cars used are

not necessarily in the ownership of the drivers themselves, but from unofficial partnerships.

Some people actually have made the Uber platform even bigger by becoming part of Uber in a

different way than buying their own cars. What they do instead is rent cars from someone that

has invested into Uber-eligible cars, who are registered as such and rented out. Just like a micro-

company with an investor and user of the product. In the end, the profit they receive from Uber

(80% for UberBlack and 75% or UberX) is divided equally between the driver and the investor.

As Schor (2014) has pointed out, it could be that the access economy in fact does not lead at all

to less consumption and more sharing, but to more consumption. In this case, this has proven

to be true in practice.

“It all started with my brother-in-law who invested in a fleet of cars. I followed because I saw

he was giving a lot of profit still to the drivers.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

There is next to that also another business model available that is applied. One is when

the car is still always part of the person that invested money to buy the cars but rents out the car

for a limited period of time.

“The other way is when the Uber driver is renting a car for a month, takes the car home,

works whenever and wherever he likes and can drive the car also privately. The profit is then

also fully for him though.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

The investment the drivers have to make themselves under these two last models is close

to nothing from the start. What is reported is that the flipside of the coin is that they share their

profit with the owner of the car. From this we can conclude that the Uber platform apparently,

does not solely have two sides but also owns improvised autonomic partnerships. Hence reuse

of excess capacity of goods as proposed by Gansky (2012) is something that is partly happening

in practice as new goods are actually being purchased for other people to drive for Uber.

Also, Botsman (2015) proposed that the access economy enables people to surpass

middlemen, yet these new partnerships and micro-companies have in return led to new

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platforms being raised to connect the two parties which again are taking part of the money that

is supposed to lend in the pockets of the drivers. At this stage the drivers seem to encourage it

because it is enabling them to be part of the platform and to fill in the gaps where Uber seems

to not be able to work in.

“There are websites where drivers can find cars to rent and where the owners are

looking for a driver. This is apart from Uber but maybe even Uber has its own list to

connect people.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

CHARACTERIZATION OF UBER BY THE DRIVERS SIDE

When asking drivers why Uber would not fulfil such a need themselves, they respond

by showing they are aware of the risky position Uber finds itself in and what Uber offers and

cannot offer. They are aware of the difficulties with legislation that is limiting Uber’s business

as a sole technological platform, yet they do label it as such while referring to the fact that they

are primarily a platform.

“They have to be careful. They need to sell the idea that they are just offering a platform and

no other type of product or work in any other way. The moment they link themselves to a driver,

they can become a transport company and don’t want this.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

“Uber is an app that connects a driver to a user, I know abroad they do even more, there they

are like a logistics company.” #Interviewee10, Brazil

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

Uber drivers seem very well aware of their duty to deliver a good service. This

differentiation point of good service in comparison to the incumbents is something that is

making Uber drivers nervous of their colleagues. In times of high demand, a lot of more drivers

are hired and the quality sometimes goes down.

“It is the service that differentiates Uber, not the platform or that you can see picture of the

driver. We have plenty of taxis and it is often more practical to stop a taxi at the streets. This

service ended up going down because a lot of more people were hired at once without them

applying to the things Uber asks to make it into a service like offering water, a candy, opening

the door, ask if the air-conditioning is right and the music good.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

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CHALLENGES TOWARDS PLATFORM UBER

The drivers overall seem very confident and satisfied with the platform Uber is offering,

it offers security for the drivers as well as the passenger because you can see pictures, follow

them on the map and be your own boss. Yet, the challenges related to violence that the Uber

company representative was talking about to work and hesitation to work with a platform as

Uber as a driver are indeed part of the reality. The trust that is often spoken about in the

academic discourse is indeed an issue as Botsman (2012) claimed. As Uber connects supply

and demand by the online platform but the action takes place offline, people are uncertain if

they can trust the reputation of the other. Reputation building is spoken of as paramount for the

success these types of companies which has shown to be true in practice (Fitzmaurice & Schor,

2014).

“Some people are afraid. Afraid for someone strange to get in the car. They are afraid for a

bandit, especially women.” #Interviewee2, Brazil

DIFFERENT PEOPLE, DIFFERENT TASTES: DIFFERENT RATINGS

The evaluation system which makes up the control and reputation medium for Uber is

often referred to when speaking about how Uber works and what they think is beneficial for the

functioning of the platform. The evaluation takes place at the end of every ride from both sides.

When talking to Uber drivers about this issue, they show that they appreciate the system because

it is helpful. Nevertheless, the consequences are said to be quite harsh while they sometimes do

not seem to understand why the consumers seem to have evaluated them in that fashion. Also,

they report that it sometimes limits the Uber driver in their actions. For instance, Uber drivers

cannot reject a lot of rides because they will be suspended.

“I try to test sometimes what people want: I gave them a candy, water and asked them about

the radio but sometimes it does not make a difference at all. It makes me nervous sometimes,

when I take the wrong way, people complain easily which makes me even more nervous and

make more mistakes. It seems like people always want more.” #Interviewee13, Brazil

Evaluation of drivers is something considered positive by them, but some say especially

for the passengers. A frequent complaint seems to be that passengers do not seem to understand

what kind of evaluation to give and understand how much of an influence it has on drivers and,

simultaneously, that the drivers not receive actual feedback about what can be improved and

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what is important for the passengers to be delivered during an Uber service. We could conclude

that as people are sharing more and are more connected that an engagement is also becoming

more of a necessity (Torbenrick.eu, 2013). Uber drivers would like to know better how they

can improve then while this often lacks. The fact that the two parties are not more connected

might lead again to a social failure Piskorski (2014) is talking about as it would be beneficial

for both parties if they could engage more in giving and receiving feedback. Receiving a low

rating leaves the Uber drivers frustrated because it has significant consequences the moment

their evaluation falls below a 4.7 out of 5 average.

“I do not want to get just four stars because you did not like his face, he was not wearing a pink

t-shirt or his clothes did not combine with yours. It is a lack of information and compassion.”

(figuratively speaking) #Interviewee13, Brazil

“A friend of mine already thinks four stars is amazing. A lot of people think that, but it is not.

With an average of 4.7 you are already blocked from Uber and a lot of people don’t know this.

At the same time, a lot of people just give stars and no comments while the comments are the

most important. While the reason for it might be because they did not like the candy.”

#Interviewee12, Brazil

“I really think the rating is awesome, it solves problems. Even if I do not like clients, they do

not need to know that I do not like them and I put rating one so I make sure I won’t get them

again.” #Interviewee10, Brazil

Even though Brazilian users might not be able yet to use it properly because of a lack

of knowledge, sympathy or other reasons, all drivers see it is as something important and

valuable to the service Uber is offering. This evaluation system is paramount for Uber, as it

represents the control system of Uber drivers, cars and the experience. Aside of the checks that

are completed for someone to enter the platform and start driving, frequent checks is left to the

passengers and drivers itself are the ones that should make sure that all rides, cars and persons

involved is in accordance with the rules and information available about the driver’s name and

type of car for instance. If something is wrong, Uber will very likely only find out by the

passenger or driver indicating that something is wrong. Apparently in practice it already takes

place that information does not completely match.

“I already heard someone ordered an Uber and a guy arrived with a car from Oi (a telecom

company). People register in the beginning and after Uber does not have control over it. How

do you know the car is good and the driver is also in the same state as in the beginning? I know

some guys who work 24 hours per day.” #Interviewee12, Brazil

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Next to that, what can be improved is the fact that no rides can be scheduled yet which

apparently nowadays it does happen but outside of the Uber platform which Uber does not seem

to prohibit but does not enable yet on their own platform, leaving the Uber fee for the driver.

“I cannot schedule rides, imagine if I know tomorrow at 4pm someone needs to go home or go

to the airport and schedule an Uber for that. That would be great, right? If that happens now,

it happens apart from the Uber platform but then Uber does not earn anything.” #Interviewee2,

Brazil

“Because I can do trip for you without the app. I estimate the price with the app and charge it,

without the app. And we do this a lot here. We call it particular [private] rides, and Uber

doesn’t forbid this for us. And people tell us this is the only problem with Uber”

#Interviewee10, Brazil

Uber drivers also seem to fulfil another need that passengers address and Uber does not

offer yet in Brazil: mail delivery. This is also now done off the record by the Uber drivers. In

this way, we can see that even though Uber might not be able to offer or is not offering this

currently that this is already done in practice and excess capacity is being used (Botsman, 2015).

“The mail service in Rio is poor as well. Most of the time they offer poor service, and I know

that Uber has this service. because sometimes people, users, normal Uber users, ask us: Can

you go to my home and pick up a package at the front desk and bring it back to me here. And

you charge that like a normal ride. People do this already without the service.”

#Interviewee10, Brazil

SHARING AND SERVICE DO NOT COLLIDE

The actual idea of ride sharing took place in Brazil when Uber launched UberPool in

2016 where people are able to share rides based on their way to their destinations by an

algorithm of Uber. Sharing rides with others, is a possibility for people to not only save money

but also to make new social contacts and pollute the environment less by sharing cars instead

of taking cars individually, which has not been present in the Brazilian market before. Hence a

new way of sharing is presented as spoken of by (Belk, 2014). Overall, drivers demonstrate not

to be excited about this business models for them to gain more money. According to them, the

essence of the idea is great but rides do not get shared as much that it actually also becomes

beneficial for the driver. Another point that is criticized is the possible misfit with what Uber is

trying to portray.

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“I do not think it makes sense with Uber. The meaning of Uber is a private driver, a luxurious

car. In our culture these two do not combine. When you put multiple people in a car it is like a

van.” #Interviewee12, Brazil

From this discussion, another cultural aspect arises related to being with strange people

in a car as mentioned before why people sometimes do not like to work for Uber. With the

concept of ridesharing again issues arise related to security. The security is felt when completely

alone in a car with the driver or to be with multiple people in the same place as happens with a

bus. Sharing a car with complete strangers seems to lead to insecurity and unpredictability of

how the other passengers will be which does not seem to match the Brazilian culture, yet the

views are contrasting as some people do like the idea.

“People that are looking for a car do not want to share with other people. They do not feel well.

Brazilians. If they want to share, they will take the bus. It also has to do with the education of

people, when the first problem arises then you will never take it again.” #Interviewee12, Brazil

“I do not think people here will like UberPool because they do not feel safe getting with

strangers in the car. Uberpool is terrible.” #Interviewee10, Brazil

“People are confused about UberPool, but once you get used to it, it is good. It is

cheaper, good for the environment, if people are going the same way. Why would they

not share a cab?” #Interviewee9, Brazil

5.3 Uber passengers: Brazil, Hong Kong & The Netherlands

UBER TRIAL LEADS TO SUCCESS

The Uber passengers point out the variety of ways that they got to know about the Uber

platform and various reasons why they started using this unknown and, as some describe it,

disruptive platform. For some, it was the price, others because of the price and another group

did it more out of curiosity or a persuasive trial offer with Uber which is in accordance with the

reasons of trendiness, curiosity towards a new technology and economic reasons which Schor

(2014) summarized about why people participate in the access economy. The author also

mentions ideological reasons but these were not mentioned by the interviewees as the main

motivations to start using or use Uber.

“I switched to Uber because of the price. I got an Uber and saw it was so so much the opposite

of expensive.” #Interviewee9, Brazil

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“For me I had read about Uber on the internet before the platform arrived in Brazil. I wanted

it to arrive here because the service of the taxi here is horrible. In the beginning, it was not as

cheap as it is now, I tried it therefore for the new service and not for the price.” #Interviewee3,

Brazil

“I got an offer to try Uber with twenty reais discount and I liked the service, it is much

better than taxi’s.” #Interviewee5, Brazil

“In the beginning I felt a little bit apprehensive about using Uber as I worried if it

was safe. When I got my first ride, I realized it was safe and convenient.” #Interviewee16,

Hong Kong

CONTEXT MATTERS

How customers relate to Uber has shown to differ significantly per country because of

the context it is operating in. This can be seen in the characteristics interviewees mention to be

the best about Uber and the worst about Uber. First, the context in terms of Uber as an entity to

what was available to passengers before. What all countries agree on is that the Uber service to

be one of the best things about Uber. When comparing countries and asking about their top two

reasons, in Brazil they mostly talk about service and safety, in Hong Kong about service and

convenience, Dutch interviewees use it primarily because of the lack of other suitable options

of transport available and price.

“The service of the drivers is the best thing about Uber.” #Interviewee3, Brazil

“It’s just more reliable and safer. You can follow your route with GPS. They accept credit cards,

I never have money on me. You know how much it will cost and that they will take the faster

route. When I emailed them once about a problem, they responded within an hour. After my first

experience, I thought, I will never never never use a taxi again, just Uber.” #Interviewee4,

Brazil

“I also did not need to worry about payment, I did not need to have Hong Kong dollars with

me. Also, some drivers do not speak English and I do not always know how to go there so it is

convenient to just write the address in the application.” #Interviewee16, Hong Kong

“The service of Uber is not that much better than taxis. I expect it to be a friendly space, but the

convenience, user-friendliness and price really makes a difference. The fact that you can just

request it is good and you do not have to go to a specific place that is really good.”

#Interviewee17, The Netherlands

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This shows that the context in which Uber operates defines how Uber is seen by users

on itself. Second, the context matters because as already slightly touched upon, Uber is

compared to the competition. This can lead to the determining factor to choose for Uber.

Though Uber is attempting to offer an almost standardized and reliable service, all passengers

see the Uber service differently. For instance, in Brazil dealing with safety is a major issue of

every day’s life while in The Netherlands and Hong Kong this is actually not an issue at all.

When talking to Brazilian interviewees, the topic of security and safety surfaces many times

while interviewees in the other countries never even mention it. Many Brazilian interviewees

claim that the features Uber provides lends itself to have a safer ride than before as reported by

Brazilians because of the location sharing, information shared beforehand and rating system.

“It is safer to use Uber in Brazil as you can share your location with anyone so they can watch

you and follow your route and see your ETA.” #Interviewee6, Brazil

“I think it is safer, I know everything about the guy in advance and can check if that guy that is

opening the door for me is actually the driver that is supposed to be there. And if something is

bad I can complain and they will do something about it. Here we hear a lot about what’s going

on, especially for women it is better to be safer.” #Interviewee7, Brazil

In The Netherlands, Uber operates in a different context which again determines how

people look at the offering. Taxis are not available everywhere so the fact that you can request

it via an app seems to be making a difference for the passengers. This shows that the way the

transport is organized makes a difference how Uber is seen and evaluated. For instance, many

Brazilian interviewees refer to taxi drivers as the mafia that copy people’s cards or charge more

than necessary. While in Hong Kong, taxis are easily available and public transport well

organized so people view Uber more in terms of its service.

“It is good you can identify the driver. If you get a bad taxi driver, he can take out a gun and

bring me somewhere else, maybe he is not the driver and he just robbed the car. With Uber that

is more unlikely because you know who the driver is. Also if you lose something in the car you

can say exactly which car it was and use that as a reference. #Interviewee8, Brazil

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“I use Uber mostly when I see there is no tram stop close by to my destination, the public

transport does not go at that time anymore and because taxis are so expensive. #Interviewee17,

The Netherlands

“It is better to provide competition to the taxi drivers which are bad and it is always hard to get

a taxi in Hong Kong. However, the transportation system here is quite well developed (and

relatively cheap), so traveling via car/ taxi/ Uber can be taken as a luxury choice.”

#Interviewee15, Hong Kong

The issue of safety in Brazil related to using Uber also comes back in different ways

than mentioned before. In contrast, one Brazilian interviewee reviews Uber’s functioning

actually as being less safe. The views towards Uber and the ecosystem it is functioning in seem

to be significantly different between some people in the same country concerning security, in

this case Brazil. Everyone mention it is more comfortable and safer than the bus, but the fact

that the Uber drivers are strangers and you step in a random car actually causes some people to

feel less safe than being in a taxi. This issue of trust because Uber drivers are not registered

under a traditional company’s name but by an online platform shows to result into trust related

issues as Botsman (2015) claimed. The surpassing of middlemen in this case is seen as an issue

as they perceive that no entity is checking the Uber drivers and the cars they are driving in, so

a feeling of unsafety is experienced. In this case, the interaction cost as Piskorski (2014) talked

about is becoming too high and interaction might actually not take place.

“It is safer but not as safe as taxi’s, so I take a risk. It is not safer than taxi, it is not like a job

that a person is doing, it could be any freaking person, in any freaking car, it could be a stolen

car and there is not so much control.” #Interviewee9, Brazil

ACCEPTANCE OF IMPROVEMENTS IS NOT CULTURAL, IT IS UNIVERSAL

Asking about Uber fitting the local cultures, Brazilians claim that it does not seem to fit

well in terms of how Brazil works in general. They refer to the fact that people are not used to

a good service, so it is not something that fits the culture. Instead it is a novelty according to

the passengers, something that Brazilians are not used to as they say they are used to a bad

service and accept it. In Hong Kong the fit also seems to be there even though it is not

necessarily the culture people talk about. What they mostly refer to are the practical reasons of

using Uber to move around the city and the feel of the service. In The Netherlands, passengers

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mostly talk about Uber solving problems of the current ecosystem or traditional parties

involved. Taxis were expensive and inaccessible which Uber resolves, there are no parking

spots available or the public transport is not close.

“Uber is different than what Brazilians are used to. It is not something that combines with

Brazilian culture, it is an innovation here. Yet it does fit well here as an innovation, it would fit

everywhere in the world because people want a decent service which Uber offers.”

#Interviewee3, Brazil

“It makes a good service more accessible that’s why I like these kinds of companies. In Brazil

they have a lot of space to grow and they can make Brazil a more developed country.”

#Interviewee5, Brazil

“Uber fits well in Hong Kong because a lot of people do not have cars.” #Interviewee14, Hong

Kong

“The expat community here is the perfect target market.” #Interviewee16, Hong Kong

“In NL hardly anyone in my age category takes a taxi somewhere. It's too expensive to use and

very old school (you have to call for a taxi to come). Most people in NL dislike the public

transportation but there's no better alternative. Uber provides this. I think Uber solves this

problem and makes taking a taxi accessible to everyone.” #Interviewee19, The Netherlands

ENGAGEMENT MEANS COMMITMENT

The control system Uber has, to make sure the drivers are delivering the service Uber is

supposed to have and that the passengers are also not violating any rules, overall is done by the

evaluation system: at the end of the ride every passenger and driver will evaluate the experience

they had with each other anonymously. This is done by stars from 1 to 5 and comments can be

added. Overall passengers of all three countries show to be very satisfied towards engaging

with the platform as Torbenrick (2013) proposed as people are sharing more, they are more

connected and want to engage even more. As Botsman (2015) also claimed in the sharing

evolution pyramid, people share even more and they are getting used to being connected.

“The evaluation is the most important in my opinion as it obliges people to serve well. If not

and this happens frequently, the driver gets fired. He knows he has this responsibility. This is

especially important for women maybe, the driver knows he cannot do anything wrong as she

has all his information. And this also accounts for the passenger, so that he or she acts like an

idiot.” #Interviewee3, Brazil

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“I think people are dissatisfied with the services we have here, now if I have a bad experience I

can give a bad evaluation or positive then also, you can give your opinion and nothing will

happen to you. With taxi drivers, you can call the taxi company but then they will do nothing

with it.” #Interviewee6, Brazil

“I am not sure what they do with negative feedback. I had really crappy drivers but I do not feel

like they do so much with it. I think it is really good you have this of mutual evaluations though

because a lot of people use it when going out and they do not pay when they get drunk or

something. So that is good.” #Interviewee17, The Netherlands

For Uber drivers, the fact that passengers do not seem to understand how to evaluate is

an issue with major consequences as Uber drivers can get blocked from the platform and even

fired when the ratings remain to be low after several warnings. Although some passengers seem

to express that they are aware of these consequences, they mention that the Brazilian culture

does not allow them to really rate someone very low. The issue drivers talked about that

passengers do not know how to rate shows to be a cultural matter.

“I hate it when they take the wrong way, and they do this all the time. Here in Brazil

we have pity for someone who is trying to do his job, you feel pity, you sad for him

because it he did something wrong, and you don’t want to – so maybe the grading in

Brazil doesn’t work, but it does work. I have never given lower than a 3 or a 4 and

that is when the service was really, really bad.” #Interviewee6, Brazil

YOUR DRIVER, YOUR CAR, YOUR PERSONAL RIDE

The Uber passengers all agree on the fact that having a good service is one of the major

plusses of Uber. The most important seems to be the idea of having a private driver and being

able to control it to your own personal taste without feeling uncomfortable asking. Although

this point has not been mentioned to be one of the reasons to be part of the access economy. As

drivers have it in terms of flexibility to decide on their schedule, passengers have access to

customization during the ride by deciding upon the air conditioning or putting their own music

on in the car. This personalization trend shows to be part of the access economy.

“It is not like oh do you want a beer or massage but I want a nice service. I can have the air-

conditioning, water, the car is clean and I can listen to my own music if I want and the driver

will not complain.” #Interviewee4, Brazil

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“Uber drivers are so much nicer, if you take a taxi here in Brazil it feels like you are doing the

taxi drivers a favour. First I was like “Oh God I need to take a cab” and now I am “Yes I am

taking an Uber, it is fun, I don’t know it is just a relaxing time. It is a moment I have for myself.”

#Interviewee11, Brazil

ONE COMPANY - MULTIPLE IMPLICATIONS

When asking about why it was important for Uber to enter the different countries, the

answers refer mostly in Brazil because it shook up the monopoly which didn’t provide

acceptable services according to passengers, hence again the disruptive nature of the access

economy is pointed out (Botsman, 2015). In Hong Kong, some people also started using it

because it solves the possible language barrier which is in accordance with what Rogers &

Botsman (2011) claim about that it will improve social welfare and how people live.

“I know Uber will not solve all the traffic problems but at least I know when I take an Uber I

will be more comfortable in the traffic. Also, it provides an alternative to the horrible

competition. It is an opportunity, maybe one of the best markets for Uber to enter.”

#Interviewee3, Brazil

“It is good that Uber entered Brazil because the taxi’s here can be considered a monopoly and

because of that you have to accept the service that is given to you. So when Uber comes in, the

industry shakes. That is the whole thing with innovation, for those who want to keep the status

quo, just get wiped out.” #Interviewee4, Brazil

“I started using Uber in Hong Kong because I wanted to avoid using cabs. I was new to the

area and felt like it was more confusing to talk to the cab driver where I needed to go because

he did not speak English very well.” #Interviewee16, Hong Kong

“Uber is handy to use because you do not need to know the language, you do not need to call

the taxi agent and also not need to know where you are exactly.” #Interviewee18, The

Netherlands

“I think it fits well in the Dutch taxi market, because I think this market is dominated

by big companies with old-fashion service, incapable taxi drivers and high prices.”

#Interviewee18, The Netherlands

“Uber initiated transparency and an online platform to make use of taxi drivers.

I think people are more safe and act upon what is ok and not ok,

see where they are going.” #Interviewee17, The Netherlands

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HOW TO IMPROVE WHEN YOU ARE ON THE TOP

The Uber passengers seem very enthusiastic about the service Uber is offering and the

options it provides as part of its service. Overall, they often mention that a good driver is the

most important aspect, someone that knows the way and is friendly. Next to that, the car has to

be clean and comfortable (with air-conditioning provided for instance and water offered). Yet,

things like candies don’t really make a difference for most of them. What is mentioned by

passengers in Brazil is related again to security and more active engagement. They prefer to

take more control over the platform and the way they are dealing with the service. For instance,

by inserting a code at the end of the ride to authorize the payment what other platforms are

already offering such as Easytaxi and 99Taxi, or to be able to chat about your ride and

communicate directly about the driver and the ride a passenger just had. The digital platforms

connection the two sides leads to more engagement (Kenney & Zysman, 2015). As Belk (2014)

proclaims, sharing is definitely gaining new connotations in the current era.

As Harald (2013) demonstrates in his article, a mutual benefit is created when the two

sides are connected and when information about goods or services is openly shared, the value

increases for everyone. The social failures as spoken about by Piskorski (2014) get eliminated

and people want to share even more to improve the service which is beneficial for both in the

end (Botsman, 2015).

“With Uber we do not need to allow the driver to charge us. The driver stops it and we

do not have to say or do anything. I think this could happen in Brazil. The more developed

country, the less likely this will happen but it might be people will be dishonest in the future and

charge you more. Some people need to do that to earn more money, it does not justify it but it

happens a lot with taxi’s.” #Interviewee5, Brazil

“I think we should be able to tell our opinions more in the app. Engage more. If we could have

a chat and just ask them right away and give our opinion, that would be nice.” #Interviewee11,

Brazil

Another aspect is also related to security in Brazil that seems to be also an issue with

the route. The GPS of Uber is reported by passengers to sometimes not work very well or

calculate routes that are inconvenient. In The Netherlands or Hong Kong this is only referred

to by passengers as something that is a bad thing but does not necessarily lead to dangerous

practices. Yet, in Brazil this could result into driving into areas of the city that could be

dangerous when the driver does not know the city very well to drive.

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“Uber drivers that are unexperienced and don’t know the city well they sometimes just follow

their GPS and end up going into favelas. It happened to me once and then I said not this way

and we went back and took another route. It is the worst thing when a person does not know

where he is.” #Interviewee6, Brazil

“Drivers rely on Uber map which doesn’t seem to be good at finding the most efficient route.”

#Interviewee16, Hong Kong

The passengers point out that it is not necessary for Uber to change certain things now,

but some future opportunities that Uber can tap into such as working together with

other brands, the possibility to schedule rides as was also mentioned

by drivers before.

“It would be great if they ask you in the weekend: do you want a Heineken? They can

say, hey water is for free but you can have a Heineken for 5 reais or Uber Sandwich.’’

#Interviewee4, Brazil

“People like to have private particular drivers. They want to have a guy for 6 or 7

hours, like schedule a ride and have a private driver for a couple of hours a day.”

#Interviewee11, Brazil

“Maybe one thing, it is not possible to book a taxi in advance. But this could be fixed, when

there is guaranteed 24/7 Uber service.” #Interviewee18, Brazil

Next to that, to be able to use Uber the requirements are to have a smartphone that is

able to download the Uber app and a credit card to pay. For some layers of society where Uber

entered, this is not possible as they cannot ask a credit card request from the bank. Since the

end of 2016, a cash option is available in the Uber app in Brazil but an interviewee offered

another solution.

“They could shape it better to Brazilian conditions. Like a debit card you can load with credit,

and you can buy this somewhere, prepaid, yes exactly. I think that almost everyone has a

smartphone. Even the C and D classes have smartphones, although they might be simple ones.

But almost everyone has WhatsApp, so they could download Uber.” #Interviewee8, Brazil

DEALING WITH MODERN PROBLEMS IN MODERN BUSINESS

Uber’s business model works with surge pricing. This mechanism makes sure when the

demand is higher than the supply of Uber drivers available that the price will go up for Uber

passengers to make sure that more Uber drivers will hit the road to drive and straighten the

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imbalance. Yet this is not received well by all passengers. Passengers report to not understand

it and is one of the moments, despite the preference for Uber, that passengers prefer to take a

taxi. As Piskorski (2014) claims the economic reasons of the interaction cost becomes too high

and people prefer to go for another option.

“The problem is that Uber has its dynamics when the demand is too big and supply limited that

the price can go up a lot. Then the price limits Uber, when the price goes up too much like with

carnival I do not take Uber but take a taxi.” #Interviewee5, Brazil

“I don’t really like the tariffs, I cannot fight against it because it is just that way, I really don’t

like it.” #Interviewee9, Brazil

“In the area where I live, Uber has no 24/7 service and i don't understand why Uber is changing

their rates when it's busy.” #Interviewee18, The Netherlands

DISRUPTIVE NATURE IN REALITY

Uber if often spoken about as a disruptive company. Not only because of its business

model and its features of surge pricing; mutual evaluations; GPS tracking and identification of

drivers by passengers, but also because of its entry in the existing markets and ecosystem, just

as Rogers and Botsman (2011) and Botsman (2015) described. The traditional way to drive

people individually around in all countries was by taxi and most of the time this involved a lot

of bureaucracy for taxi drivers to get licenses and their own taxi’s whilst Uber drivers seem to

escape this, this is the reason why aggressive behaviour is sometimes outed towards Uber

drivers. Disruption of the current structures and ecosystem leading to protests of the

incumbents.

“Sometimes I can hear from people that they feel a little bit uncomfortable and especially

insecure and unsafe to go on a ride with Uber because of taxi drivers. In some cities, especially

in São Paulo and Rio, the drivers, the taxi drivers they threaten and hit the Uber drivers

sometimes.” #Interviewee5, Brazil

The passengers often speak about the reliability and standardization of the service that

makes Uber so attractive in comparison. Not only did Uber offer a service that is completely

new but also did it change the incumbents by them changing into a company offering a better

service.

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“For a long time, I think taxi drivers had no need to do anything, there were people in the street

who needed to get some place and they didn’t want to take a bus because the buses here are not

good either. I can tell you that before Uber, there were many more, especially old, old cars in

the street. And the government didn’t do anything about it. So, I think that because we have had

so many bad experiences with cabs, we don’t want to give a chance of having that bad

experience again. We just want to take Uber, because it easier and because you know its

reliable. The Brazilian community was used to a bad service and Uber came to change this.”

#Interviewee6, Brazil

“I think it is important for Uber to provide a standard service.” #Interviewee14, Hong Kong

“The easy way of using this service by your smartphone, it's cheaper than regular taxi

companies, clean and new cars, friendly drivers and cashless use. But most of all, they're

reliable. They drive the fastest route and everything is transparent.” #Interviewee18, The

Netherlands

Uber has entered the market in many countries as the first-mover of its kind and as stated

before by drivers as something that is accessible for everyone with a driver’s license and a clean

slate according to the requirements of Uber company to start working for the company, also

passengers mention this point that next to the service offering that has improved, the ecosystem

changed and also the economy benefits from it.

“I think Uber is a great business, that’s the only reason it needs to operate anywhere. It’s a

good business, a good idea, and normal people can do it. They don’t have the certificates to

drive. Anyone can do it. It’s helping the economy. People right now don’t have jobs, but they

have a car in the garage, so they can work. I think it’s helping the economy.’’ #Interviewee6,

Brazil

UBERTIZATION

Uber and the way its model works with evaluations is something that is a novelty for

many companies currently operating but reportedly especially in Brazil. As much as passengers

connect this evaluative system to a proven better service, they even stretch this concept of

personal and direct evaluation of service providers to other services currently available in the

market. Hence from this again can be concluded that these new concepts introduced by the

companies in the access economy are truly disruptive in nature as it also being compared to

other industries where such systems could work well, as the evaluation mechanism Uber has.

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“I think Brazil is the perfect place for it to work, because you have bad service everywhere.

They could make an Uber for restaurants here in Rio that would be good. So when I call a waiter

in the app that I can evaluate him afterwards. For São Paulo it would also be good because

Uber is fancy and people want to look fancy all the time. ” #Interviewee6, Brazil

5.4 Synthesis of the research results

After an analysis of the interviews, an overview of the results of the analysis is given

here, based on the framework of characteristics of the access economy applied to the case of

Uber to the three parties interviewed: company, drivers and passengers. Passengers is further

divided into Brazil (BR), Hong Kong (HK) and The Netherlands (NL). The synthesis can be

reviewed on the next pages in table 10 and 11.

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Access over

ownership

Fixed to variable

costs & matching

supply-demand

Market mediated

access

Online social

platform & offline

markets

Zero

marginal Costs

Mutual

Benefit

Social failures

& solutions

Uber

Company

Uber is helping to

better utilize idle

capacity of time

and goods.

Threshold is low to

enter the platform.

Partnerships are

being made with

car lease companies

so more people

have access

over platform.

Uber allows people

to use their own

car, be their own

boss and make as

much money as

they like. Demand

and supply is

seamlessly

connected on the

platform.

Uber is a platform

to connect both

sides to access each

other: passengers

and drivers. Uber

does not own any

cars itself.

Uber is a technology

driven company

owning a platform

connecting two

sides on the

platform. The

product is transport.

Uber encourages

anyone to enter the

platform by asking

solely for drivers to

have a eligible car,

driver’s license and

good record. For

passengers, they need

to own a smartphone

and a credit card. In

some countries, a

cash option is

available.

Uber’s platform is

aimed at

providing a

service that is as

reliable as

running water.

Uber has tapped

into many different

contexts with social

failures and

solutions. Not only

from a job-

providing aspect but

also to be the

platform and bridge

connecting the two

parties.

Drivers Two official

options to drive for

Uber: your own car

or by leasing a car

from Uber partners.

Unofficial micro-

companies are

raised by people

investing in cars

and leasing out for

Uber drivers. The

barrier to enter the

platform is seen as

low.

Uber is highly

appreciated by

drivers as they can

determine their own

workdays, hours

and how much they

will earn. The

application

provides

transparency and

simplicity to be

autonomous and

flexible

Currently Uber is

connecting the two

parties but new

platforms are being

created next to the

Uber platform to

connect another two

sides to access each

other: drivers and

investors/owners of

cars.

Uber drivers often

would like to

facilitate the

feedback received

by the passengers to

adjust their service

for the better. More

extensive evaluation

is demanded as

drivers are punished

for bad services.

Uber drivers think the

platform asks for fair

measures to enter the

platform and were

recommended by

peers to participate

on the platform as

driver.

Uber drivers have

a more flexible

source of income,

are autonomous

and want to offer

a good Uber

service. They

realize this is

important for the

success of the

platform. Good

evaluations are

key.

Uber drivers did not

have a possibility

before to work this

autonomously and

to find their clients

that easily. Uber has

provided a social

solution. Uber is

still missing out on

some opportunities

according to drivers

as scheduled rides

or mail services are

still impossible.

Table 10: synthesis of qualitative research: company and drivers

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Access Over

Ownership

Fixed to variable

costs & matching

supply-demand

Market mediated

access

Online social

platform & offline

markets

Zero Marginal

Costs

Mutual

Benefit

Social failures

& solutions

Passengers

Brazil

Uber has provided

access to a better

experience for

passengers without

them owning a car

themselves.

Uber is preferred

when people are not

in a rush or when

surge pricing does

not affect the value

too much.

Transparency about

the costs is key

factor.

Uber is by most

perceived to be

creating a safe and

friendly environment

that can be

personalized. Due to

the cashless payment,

service level of

drivers and

application.

Passengers like to

engage even more

than just the feedback

that they are asked

for to give online.

Mutual indirect

evaluation is seen as

something beneficial.

People were drawn to

the platform to try it

out because of

attraction to a new

technology,

interesting trial offers

and economic

benefits.

Passengers are very

excited about Uber as

it offers a quality

service offering.

Also, because it

disrupts the taxi

monopoly, changed

traditional taxis and

passengers want to

always take Uber.

Don’t want to go

back to traditional

forms because easy to

find the drivers and

its safer by having

information available

in advance about the

car, driver, route and

price. Giving

feedback is seen as a

great way of keeping

the service level high

Hong Kong Owning a car is

expensive in Hong

Kong and having

Uber available is

helpful.

When unsure how

much taxi’s would

otherwise calculate

because of language

barriers, Uber is

preferred. This

variable cost

calculated by Uber is

seen as very

beneficial.

Passengers see Uber

as a convenient and

quality service option

to overcome

problems related to

language or

uncertainty towards

location.

Evaluations are

highly appreciated

because Uber is

mostly preferred

because of service in

Hong Kong. The

taxis can be old, Uber

should be a luxury.

Luxury and the

convenience is main

motivation. Entering

the platform is

because of the many

expats that already

knew the platform

before.

Hong Kong

passengers like Uber

service because they

have a more

luxurious offer and

can request the

service online

without going to the

streets

Due to the big expat

community, social

barriers are removed

and interaction costs

are taken away as

language.

The Netherlands Uber provides access

to places where

public transport does

not reach or taxis are

not present.

Uber is preferred

because ordering a

taxi is overly

expensive and it is

not clear how much

you will pay in the

end.

Dutch interviewees

access Uber primarily

because of the lack of

other suitable options

of transport available

and price.

Mutual evaluations

are seen as fair also

because people use

taxis especially after

going out so if the

passengers

misbehave, the taxi

drivers have rights as

well.

Trial offers are the

main reasons people

have tried it and

because they have

used it abroad. Even

though price remains

an issue for some it is

now preferred.

A service as Uber is

offering was not

available before and

they are filling a gap

in the market as taxis

are not available

everywhere on the

streets.

Before Uber it was

difficult and

challenging to get a

taxi at night or arrive

in a cheaper fashion

than taxi at the

destination without

taking public

transport but now

Uber has filled this

gap.

Table 11: synthesis of qualitative research: passengers in Brazil, Hong Kong and The Netherlands

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6 CONCLUSION

6.1 Uber in reality

This study was aimed at revealing the implications of Uber, as a representation of an

access economy company, and its significance on the people participating in it. Uber was held

as a case study with interviews from three parties involved, companies, drivers and passengers,

of which the latter in three different contexts and triangulated with observations from secondary

sources. The topics addressed were grounded in literature to understand what is already known

about the subject in practice. Unfortunately, due to the novelty of the topic practical studies are

lacking in the academic discourse, only in newspapers the practical implications are often

reflected upon (Böckmann, 2013). So this study achieved fulfilling this gap in research by

exploring the reality of the practical consequences of Uber on the parties involved in different

contexts.

This work has succeeded to shape a realistic image about the practical implications on

a micro-level by gathering data that has been in accordance, go beyond and contradict the

existing literature. The promising practical implications resulting from the interviews show to

have social, economic and urban transport consequences of which the latter especially had not

been addressed before in literature. Other aspects such as environmental impacts show not to

be of significant importance for either of the three parties (company, drivers or passengers)

which is one of the major findings that proof the literature to be too optimistic. The conclusion

will be structured according to these three implications and its relation to the academic

discourse.

Urban Transport From the study, we can conclude that Uber has significant effects on

how people make decisions based on transport and how other ways of transport are functioning.

Different contexts show to determine how people make these choices and why Uber is chosen

and even preferred. Also, the ecosystem seems to be significantly affected by the entry of Uber

in the market which also has made traditional ways of transport enhance their level of service

according to the interviewees. In accordance with literature, we can conclude that Uber has

entered traditional markets internationally in disruptive ways by surpassing middlemen,

shaking traditional competition, reshaping the ecosystem, offering social solutions and enabling

more people to have access without owning products (Botsman, 2015). Hence from this can be

proven that social platforms proof to be universally applicable and relevant.

86

What does make a difference internationally is how people make use and perceive the

platform. Here context matters and demonstrates to make a difference. The passengers from

different countries show to have overlap within their nationalities concerning the motivations

behind participation on the platform. Nevertheless, between the different countries Uber is used

for different reasons and certain features become more important resulting from the type and

quality of competition in that ecosystem and how life is organized. For instance, in Brazil safety

was mentioned over and over again as the reason to use Uber over other services, while in Hong

Kong and The Netherlands safety is not an issue so other factors as price and convenience

become more important. All three contexts Uber did enter a gap in the market which is

interesting to notice as it seems that Uber was apparently filling a gap that was present

universally, yet this is often not referred to in literature.

Economic versus Environmental Uber is reported to significantly affect drivers life by

enabling them to work when they want, how much they want and for how long they want with

the possibility to drive in their own cars. The threshold to enter the platform is low and the

conditions are flexible which has shown to be a major factor for drivers to work with Uber.

Also, passengers report to experience a better, more reliable and convenient service. Yet despite

these positive consequences, if in the end we will actually see less cars on the road, hence less

traffic jams, less pollution and less space necessary for vehicles is doubtful as Schor (2014). .

In fact, what Schor (2014) has argued this research confirmed: we might actually start

consuming more due to access economy companies. The commonly-held positive view might

be too utopian to believe that access economy companies focus specifically on solving problems

as environmental damage and pollution, as in reality full optimization of capacity is still

underutilized as economic prosperity and service quality seem to go first.

We found that a reason behind this is for instance that many Uber drivers are not using

their own cars to drive but are able to hire cars from Official Uber partners. Hence the idea of

access over ownership and therefore having less cars on the road diminishing environmental

damage shows to not be top priority for the Uber company as well as drivers or passengers.

Uber is not solely a two-sided platform but has grown far beyond that. Also, even though the

Uber drivers might be excited about this new type of flexible employment and it has shown in

this research to be an economic solution for unemployed people for instance, Uber has reported

to start the investment of self-driving cars (Newcomer, 2016). Hence it remains uncertain if the

future will also include providing employment or will focus more on the passengers and service.

Uber is still not completely able to cover the market because of the legal limitations of

the tech-driven platform. The digital platform is trying to fight two evils by limiting itself as a

87

digital platform, whilst simultaneously missing out to fill social failures and market

opportunities which are now solved beyond the Uber platform as claimed by interviewees. First,

some Uber practices go beyond the platform with “Unofficial Uber services” such as mail

service or scheduled rides. Second, drivers are connecting to investors on a newly created

platform or website to have an “Unofficial Uber partnership” to be able to rent a car and

participate on the Uber platform as can be illustrated in the extended graph towards how Uber

functions in practice.

This extra branch that has been developed aside of the Uber platform is discussed by

Eisenmann (2007) as free riders. The investors represent the free riders which are not actually

connecting directly to the Uber platform, but are solely profiting from the opportunity by

offering the cars they have invested in for potential Uber drivers draining profits. As some

drivers are not able to use their own cars and buying a new cars requires a large investment

which is very probable the reason behind the presence of free riders (Eisenmann, 2007).

Obviously Uber attempted to avoid this by licensing new providers, as the car hire companies,

to avoid this concept of free riders, yet as shown this is not fully covered. See figure 15 as an

illustration of what we concluded about the structure of the Uber platform and the parties

involved.

88

Figure 15: Uber in practice is not solely a two-sided platform.

Social Some conclusions can also be drawn that go beyond the existing literature. Such

as the framework of Piskorski (2014) who talks about the traditional social and economic

reasons of interaction costs. Belk (2014) and Botsman (2015) claimed that people are getting

more and more used to sharing and trust is becoming the new currency and Piskorski (2014)

has not put much emphasis on how this actually works out in the current environment. From

the research, we found that overall both sides of the platform are enthusiastic about connecting

and sharing, for instance by communicating their feedback about the experience they had for

the better of the platform and service. Both sides even report to want to engage even more to

improve the service overall and build reputations (Fitzmaurice & Schor, 2014). As Piskorski

(2013; 2014) concludes, many people interact on social platforms to meet new people and to

interact with network. It shows that even on a platform as Uber, which is not that focused on

social interaction but more on connecting two economically beneficial sides, that this urge for

engagement and interaction is high.

89

Going deeper into the social aspect, this work also concluded that some of the existing

frameworks fall short on the current trends and innovations leading to new challenges which

should be addressed. The Internet has changed the interaction between people significantly and

some models such as Piskorski (2014) concerning interaction costs does not address issues

found in this research (Schor, 2014). What is found is that interaction costs and sharing should

focus more the issue of trust as the Internet removes some of the conventional costs of

interacting: social and economic, as proposed by Piskorski (2014) which makes the framework

outdated. For partakers in the access economy the challenge of trust has become paramount

and, as seen in this study, which in certain contexts is even a larger issue than in others.

Overall it is important to note that Uber has set the bar higher for incumbents but also

new entrants to deliver a service and employment like Uber. Though its current existence in the

markets and newly entered markets is still under heavy discussion, it has shown to have shaken

them up for the better mostly speaking from a passenger and driver point of view. What is

important to remember is that Uber is currently still establishing itself in most markets, fighting

legal but also social matters whilst it is also trying to go along with new trends as self-driving

cars.

Uber as we know it today, with its current impact and practical implications shows to

be received differently everywhere despite its fairly standardized service. And as dynamic as

the company is, it is always looking for improvement and progression in the new trends that

Uber will face which might reshuffle the complete practical implications it had been

manifesting before. Hence as much as the practical implications are analysed now, research has

to frequently be conducted to keep track of how Uber is affecting the market and the market

Uber. The future remains uncertain on how new companies taking advantage of new

technological advances will determine the market and our lives in the short and long term. What

has shown is everything and body is affected by these new types of companies, changing lives

and markets. It might just be possible that in the future we look back on the way we are living,

conducting business and valuing things now, and laugh how old-fashioned and inefficient that

was. Companies as Uber might set a first small step in the right direction of us realizing that to

satisfy our needs ownership offers nothing more but access will, and that these companies will

actually lead to the giant leap for a brighter, better and cleaner future ahead of us.

90

6.2 Theoretical implications and future research

This study has some theoretical implications, despite its practical nature. What has

shown in this study is that in theory the access economy is spoken about as too promising in

many ways. The facts still have to be confirmed to see how Uber can improve the environment,

economy and social welfare. What has been proven with this study is that socially it has a huge

impact as it filled a gap in the market and because of its features is offering benefits that require

the current literature to extend their current frameworks. As discussed before, Piskorski (2014)

points out interaction costs to be of significant importance but trust has not sufficiently been

addressed. This also accounts for the framework of sharing by Botsman (2015) which could

already add another layer of sharing and engagement.

To place this phenomenon in full academic context, it is paramount that future research

should focus on what changes the Internet has brought and how the companies that make

optimal use of all its opportunities, as part of the access economy and Uber is doing, are

practicing their business. Despite the fact that it is built on trends in the past, the access economy

seems to still be insufficiently addressed in the academic discourse. Practice seems to go ahead

on the academic literature that is currently available and the framework that seem to become

outdated more quickly than ever before. Though this study has attempted to give an answer to

this, it would be very interesting to read a comprehensive research with other studies

specifically on how this all comes together in practice: how Internet has shaped the current

business environment before and after, related to the companies operating online and using

these opportunities in practice and how this is affecting the existing ecosystem and

As concluded before, research reflecting reality is currently limited in the academic

spheres and much can still be explored. A few examples of this is how the context affects how

people interact and share, a quantitative research on how the environment and economy is

affected, if the Internet is really allowing everyone to become part of this economy in practice

or that certain social classes are still more privileged than others. In other words, how inclusive,

accessible and beneficial the access economy truly is in practice and how this works out in the

different global contexts.

6.3 Managerial implications

The practical implication of this work come from the honest and sincere comments made

by the interviewees concerning their work as driver and experienced service of Uber. For

91

instance, what has shown that Uber has actually fulfilled a gap internationally. What can be

learned from this case is that it is possible to actually offer a standardized service and fulfil

market failures in different contexts in various ends of the world. How people interact with a

company depends on the context the company will enter, yet Uber made use of a new

technological advancement and designed an innovative business model which in fact arose

because the owner himself experienced the problem himself in his daily life.

Many companies part of the access economy are, maybe surprisingly, based on

something the founders experienced in their personal lives and they tried to solve by making

use of the features of the Internet. Hence the managerial implication of this is that it is very

important nowadays to think as a company about something you might be dealing with in your

personal live and could potentially be solved with a social platform. The access economy in its

many different forms has shown to work out in different ways so it is not that solely one way

of using the Internet for your company might be the solution. Take care that network effects are

well considered before deciding upon the final design as this could be used in beneficial ways

but also could hurt the company.

Uber also acts with supply and demand in a different manner which is also an important

managerial implication to address. Uber employees continuously expressed their gratitude and

appreciation of the no-boss system that Uber operates. The platform does not oblige anyone to

work but solely recommends when it is best to work by surge pricing. Uber employees are their

own boss and many use it as side jobs or temporary jobs, but the way Uber is applying this to

balance supply and demand is an interesting implication to consider for other businesses and

might be another trend to watch out for in the future.

92

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APPENDIX A

SCRIPT - QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS

UBER EMPLOYER

Introduction

1) Hi, Can you tell me a little about you? how you got to Uber, what your role is? How

long are you working at Uber right now? Were you at the start of setting up Uber in

Brazil?

Uber history and foundation

2) Can you tell me about Uber in Brazil? Its history, foundation, business model, financing,

competitors, positioning, promise.

Development Uber Brazil

3) After its start how did it further develop in Brazil? Did Uber expand in Brazil?

Uber in Brazil

4) Do you believe the Brazilian culture affects Uber? Do you think Uber fits Brazil? Are

there any limitations for Uber operating in Brazil? How does Uber Brazil fit the social-

economic status? Did Uber implement the exact same business model/requirements as

in other countries?

99

Comparison to other countries

5) In your opinion, how is Uber in Brazil different than other countries? What are the main

challenges now for Uber in Brazil? Different from other countries? In other richer and

poorer countries?

Consumer and Uber Brazil

6) How do you think the drivers perceive Uber in Brazil? How do you think consumers

see Uber here in Brazil? What are the main complaints?

100

DRIVERS

1) Hi, can you tell me a little about you? How you got to Uber, what your role is? How long

are you working at Uber right now? Why did you start working for Uber? How did you first

get in touch with Uber?

2) Could you describe your average day with Uber?

3) How do you see Uber? Can you name three positive and 3 negatives things about Uber?

4) According to you what does or does not work with Uber in Brazil? How can Uber improve?

In what way does Uber do things well according to you?

5) In your opinion, do you think Uber fits Brazil well, its culture?

6) Are there certain rules or ways of Uber you think should not be there? Can you tell me about

something that limits your work with Uber? What are the most important rules or guidelines

of Uber?

7) Why do you think Uber should operate in a country as Brazil? Will it be successful

according to you?

101

PASSENGERS

1) Hi, can you tell me a little about you and your history with Uber? How long have you

been using Uber right now? Why did you start using Uber? How did you first get in

touch with Uber?

2) Could you describe your average ride with Uber?

3) How do you see Uber? Can you name three positive and 3 negatives things about Uber?

4) According to you what does or does not work with Uber in Brazil? How can Uber

improve? In what way does Uber do things well according to you?

5) In your opinion, do you think Uber fits Brazil well, its culture? What do you think

people value most?

6) Are there certain rules or ways of Uber you think should not be there? Can you tell me

about something that limits Uber? What are the most important rules or guidelines of

Uber?

7) Why do you think Uber should operate in a country as Brazil? Will it be successful

according to you?