Digital sharing platforms : A study on potential barriers for successful establishment

Abstract: The rising trend of over consumption has led to threatening environmental consequences. A solution to this would be collaborative consumption, as it promotes environmentally friendly sharing behaviors. Collaborative consumption can be enabled with digital tools, such as digital sharing platforms. The purpose of this study is to generate knowledge about how digital sharing platforms can be successfully established in order to build a good foundation for collaborative consumption. This qualitative research, influenced by grounded theory as a method, aims to explore the question “what are the barriers for establishing a digital sharing platform?”. Based on related research and by investigating a digital sharing platform called Umigo, we conducted six semi-structured interviews based on three technological frames and identified multiple barriers. With this research we make two main contributions. Our first contribution is that digital sharing platforms are unique in comparison to other platform types and should therefore be studied further. We also found an overview of the barriers that could prevent the successful establishment of digital sharing platforms.