Wheels of Change - How are bike-sharing schemes and bike kitchens institutionalising collaborative consumption and production in Barcelona?

Abstract: The collaborative economy represents a paradigm shift that could help to address the economic, social and environmental problems of our time. However, its ability to actually deliver that promise is highly disputed. This thesis aims to address the knowledge gap of the types of value that organisations based on collaborative consumption and production actually create, and the strategies that they use to institutionalise themselves in the context of powerful regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions. In order to achieve this objective, the study applies two analytical frameworks to six empirical case studies of bike-sharing schemes and bike kitchens in Barcelona. It was found that the environmental value these organisations create is closely interlinked with the social value they produce, and that this value significantly outweighs any negative impacts of their operations. All case studies were found to employ regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive strategies, but also to be subject to powerful institutions beyond the control of a single actor. Therefore, it is recommended that entrepreneurs, city officials, the public and other stakeholders should all aspire to become institutional changemakers themselves, by engaging in collaborative and open development processes to shape the emerging collaborative economy. This is the first step toward a larger paradigm shift.