The Social Organization of the Sharing Economy

Existing research on the sharing economy has mainly focused on economic outcomes and consequences. In this symposium we pay attention to the social organization of the sharing economy and thus how social life shapes the sharing economy and is shaped by it. The symposium features four empirical studies from different socio-economic contexts: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Together the papers (1) shed new light on organizational practices with which organizations negotiate the boundaries of and their positions in nascent markets and how they manage the interface with users; (2) demonstrate how categories, institutions, trust, and community shape and are affected by the sharing economy; and (3) apply, probe and challenge existing organization and innovation theory to the sharing economy.