Does Sharing Economy Create Social Value:A Case Study Of Uber

The foremost goal of “sharing economy” is to allow access to under-utilized assets in an efficient and convenient manner.The phenomenon is a double edge sword.Despite the benefits offered by sharing economy,it still remained controversial.Opponents highlighted the harmful consequences brought about by sharing economy for the individuals and society,as a whole,whereas proponents described its benefits.The aim of this study is to look at the insights of the values of the society influenced by sharing economy.The study focused on both the benefits and flaws of sharing economy by utilizing the case of renowned sharing economy platform “Uber” to come up with a holistic perspective of these effects from both the facets.Within the study,we not only tried to look at the impact of sharing economy on the values of society but also through quantitative and qualitative analysis of data obtained by means of the grounded theory analysis and survey approximately estimated the extent to which sharing economy had that influence.In this study,we have reviewed the literature about sharing economy and studied the development of Uber.Then interviews with 12 drivers and passengers of Uber have been conducted,and grounded theory was applied to data obtained through interviews to find out the effects of Uber(positive and negative)on the society.The 6 prime factors found by qualitative analysis were cost effectiveness,efficiency,resource preservation,security issues,market issues,and regulatory issues.These variables served as our independent variables,among them,3 were representative of positive aspects of SE and 3 were representative of negative aspects.Next,based on these selected factors we designed hypotheses and on the basis of hypotheses questionnaires were developed and distributed among 220 drivers and passengers of Uber.Each variable itself is a broad category,which is composed of several values of similar nature.In our research instrument,each variable contains 5 questions related to it.To check the impact of these variables on the values of society,we introduced a dependent variable called Sustainability.The reason for selection of this variable is due to the fact the common aim of SE is to achieve sustainability.Also,scholars emphasized that SE has the ability to provide sustainability to the current economy,showing that it has significant importance in SE.In this study we used the case of SE platform Uber only therefore,we called our dependent variable Sustainability.Findings suggested that,when only drivers were inquired about positive and negative effects of SE,positive effects were dominant.Also,when passengers were asked their opinion was also in favor of positive effects.From quantitative data analysis,the major factor significantly influencing the sustainability of the sharing economy was “efficiency”.“Security issues and regulatory issues” were the prime negative factors,though again there was not enough statistical evidence to validate their significance.We hereby conclude that the positive contribution of SE is more,and it is increasing the values of the society.And the positive effects were twice significant than the negative effects.Theoretically,the study contributes to finding both the helpful and harmful effects of SE on the values of the society.Practically,it suggests that governments should allow growth of SE under proper regulations.And car-sharing companies should focus on solving the security issues and regulatory issues.Moreover,they should not compromise on the efficiency of service as it is their main positive characteristic.