A Sustainable Management Framework for City Administrations in the Age of Sharing

Sharing as a societal phenomenon has recently been investigated from different perspectives. The sharing economy seeks to commercialize sharing acts by connecting supply and demand through an Internet platform. Given the rising popularity of sharing services around the globe, public entities such as cities or metropolitan areas need to consider adopting an active approach to the sharing economy. In particular, they must understand the different motives for sharing to develop consistent policies around the various facets of sharing and the business models of the sharing industries. A two-step research design was employed to ensure that multiple stakeholders and perspectives relevant to public policy-making are considered. To guarantee the relevance of the studies, all the research was conducted in cooperation with a city government. To understand the nature of sharing within a public policy-making context, we conducted expert interviews. To understand personal motives for sharing, we asked individuals about their sharing motivations and intentions for use in various sharing scenarios. The results indicate that cities and urban areas can benefit from the sharing economy through the smarter use of resources. In our study, we identified three major factors that support a sharing economy in a public context: trust building, network building, and societal norms. To facilitate the achievement of sustainability goals, we provide a management framework with three approaches to sharing (restricting, feeding and living in a sharing economy) for cities in the sharing age.