New article: Organisational Response Strategies to COVID-19 in the Sharing Economy

By li [dot] strandberg [at] iiiee [dot] lu [dot] se (Li Strandberg) - published 30 March 2021

The earth looking like a corona virus. Illustration.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, but has already greatly affected countries, economies and actors around the globe. While studies are emerging about impacts of the pandemics on organisations, there is a lack of understanding as to how organisations in general and sharing platforms in particular respond to the crisis.

In this study the authors combined systematic literature review with qualitative web analysis of 30 mobility, space, and goods sharing platforms of different business models and geographies. From this data we developed a novel empirically-driven framework of organisational responses to a high-impact, low-probability crisis such as COVID-19.

It comprises eight overarching response strategies targeting the organisation, users, and society. We also discuss the long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sharing economy, and explore how this may impact future responses among sharing platforms in the society that seeks sustainability.

The learnings of this study have real-world significance. Sharing platforms can learn from each other about how to continue to respond in the face of the ongoing pandemic, and consider actions for future preparedness to potential forthcoming crises.

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