Sharing Business Models
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Lunds universitet - Internationella miljöinstitutet |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 800 000 |
| Project duration | November 2018 - February 2020 |
| Status | Completed |
Purpose and goal
Sharing Business Models is a strategic project by Sharing Cities Sweden on novel business models for the sharing economy in cities. It investigated the impact of new sharing business models in cities by building on a metaphor of ecological dynamics in natural ecosystems the ‘ecologies of business models’ framework. It did so via an empirical focus on sharing platforms, starting with mobility and carsharing. It analysed ‘ecologies of business models’ for carsharing business models in Gothenburg, Malmö, Stockholm and Umeå (Sweden), as well as in Manchester (UK).
Expected results and effects
We first analysed carsharing initiatives in Gothenburg, Malmö, Stockholm and Umeå. In these four Swedish cities, cooperative models, business-to-consumer models and peer-to-peer models evolved. We also investigated trends in public transport and car ownership. In the UK context, carsharing were initially user-led innovations, but there has been a recognisable development of carsharing since around 1999, and the establishment of a national coordination body Carplus from 2000. Different car sharing models have emerged from co-operative sharing to commercialised services.
Planned approach and implementation
To influence carsharing, during the project, a variety of potential roles for local decision makers in cities became clear: ‘governing by provision and authority’, where the local government initiates the issue at hand; ‘governing by partnership and enabling’, where the issue is initiated and run collaboratively between the local government and others, and ‘governing through volunteers’ (e.g. NGOs or citizens), where the process lies in the hands of other actors than the local government and the role of the local government is mainly to support or facilitate these processes.