Start Date
10-12-2017 12:00 AM
Description
The sharing economy, relying on innovative technologies (e.g., mobile networks, online platforms, and cloud-based services), has created new business models (e.g. ride sharing, accommodation sharing, and crowdsourcing), and has threatened to disrupt the traditional industries. However, the process of such disruptions is messy, requiring the contestation between incumbents and new entrants to negotiate a new institutional legitimacy. Our study attempts to understand the dynamic process of new institutional legitimacy formation by surfacing the underlying issues of contestation in a sharing economy disruption. Using textual analysis techniques, we identify the institutional legitimacy issues surrounding Uber, a leading tech start-up in sharing economy, from news articles published between 2009 and 2016. Our exploratory findings suggest these issues broadly correspond to contestations in regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy, with different intensity at different stages of development and in different geographical regions. Implications for research and practice are then discussed.
Recommended Citation
ZHANG, Nila; Sia, Siew Kien; and Lee, Gun-woong, "Sharing Economy Disruption and the Quest for New Institutional Legitimacy" (2017). ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 13.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2017/IT-and-Social/Presentations/13
Sharing Economy Disruption and the Quest for New Institutional Legitimacy
The sharing economy, relying on innovative technologies (e.g., mobile networks, online platforms, and cloud-based services), has created new business models (e.g. ride sharing, accommodation sharing, and crowdsourcing), and has threatened to disrupt the traditional industries. However, the process of such disruptions is messy, requiring the contestation between incumbents and new entrants to negotiate a new institutional legitimacy. Our study attempts to understand the dynamic process of new institutional legitimacy formation by surfacing the underlying issues of contestation in a sharing economy disruption. Using textual analysis techniques, we identify the institutional legitimacy issues surrounding Uber, a leading tech start-up in sharing economy, from news articles published between 2009 and 2016. Our exploratory findings suggest these issues broadly correspond to contestations in regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy, with different intensity at different stages of development and in different geographical regions. Implications for research and practice are then discussed.