In recent years, technological developments in mobile communications and increasing social concerns about the (un)sustainability of a consumerist society have contributed to the creation of Internet-enabled peer-to-peer platforms, with the consequent rise of a new paradigm, namely the sharing economy.
Within this paradigm, users collaboratively share and make use of underutilized resources on a massive scale upon payment. The success of Airbnb and Uber, two peer-to-peer platforms in the contexts of hospitality and car transportation respectively, and currently the two most valuable startups worldwide, has certainly contributed to the rapid growth of the phenomenon.
Our research project aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of the sharing economy paradigm in the hospitality industry.
Specific research questions are:
(i) how incumbents strategically react to the growing presence of sharing economy players;
(ii) how the strategic interactions between the two types of players can shape market structure and outcomes.
In this project we plan to take advantage from pooling partners'complementary competences in order to bridge such gaps, as well as to establish relevant findings that will contribute to advance the extant knowledge of the sharing economy phenomenon and the relative impact on the hospitality industry
IMPACT ON SOCIETY
Findings are relevant to industry players, consumers, and regulators.
First of all, understanding the way sharing economy players and their characteristics influence different incumbents¿ short-term and long-term strategies and how the strategic interactions between the two types of players impact on market structure and profitability as well as on consumers¿ choices can provide both managers in the hospitality industry and owners of sharing economy platforms owners with useful guidelines for profit maximization.
Second, results can increase price awareness of consumers exposed to intense rivalry within the hospitality industry. The sharing economy paradigm enables consumers to become suppliers of underutilized resources upon payment. Then, the multitude of providers enabled by the sharing economy will benefit from our results as they will be informed about the market potential for their underutilized resources.
Finally, unraveling the effects of Airbnb and hotels' strategic reactions on consumer surplus and social welfare will provide policy makers with important insights on how to create more favorable conditions for the entire system to benefit from the sharing economy model.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
o Dissemination through scientific publications in the form of theoretical papers (addressing the formalization of a theoretical framework underlying collaboration objectives C.1 and C.2) and empirical papers (addressing the empirical validation of the predictions of the theoretical papers, as well as unravelling how the growth of sharing economy initiatives influence consumers¿ choices, i.e., collaboration objectives C.3).
These publications and the overall research project will significantly increase the value of the scientific activity of the proponent by opening a novel and promising research stream, beyond the time horizon of three years. The aim is to submit one paper to a top journal (GOLD) by the end of the first year and to submit another paper to an outstanding journal (GOLD STAR) by the end of the second year.
o Dissemination through workshops and/or seminars, with the additional aim to activate and strengthen the collaboration with other researchers, and favor the exchange of competences (e.g., analytical/theoretical versus empirical backgrounds), thus adding further significant value to the scientific activity as well as to the career development.