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Teaching Insights
These slides provide a definition of the sharing economy and a listing of its key characteristics. They also illustrate the impact of this emerging economy upon both brands and customer relationships. These slides should be useful for instructors seeking to explain the nature and impact of the sharing economy and how it is changing the way we think about and conduct marketing.
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Related Marketing Courses:
Brand Management; Consumer Behavior; Digital Marketing; Innovation/New Product Development; Marketing Strategy; Principles of Marketing, Core Marketing, Intro to Marketing Management; Services Marketing; Social Media Marketing
Full Citation:
Eckhardt, Giana, Baojun Jiang, Mark B. Houston, Cait Lamberton, Aric Rindfleisch and Giorgis Zervas (2019), “Marketing in a Sharing Economy,” Journal of Marketing, 83 (5), 5-27.
Article Abstract:
The last decade has seen the emergence of the sharing economy as well as the rise of a diverse array of research on this topic both inside and outside the marketing discipline. However, the sharing economy’s implications for marketing thought and practice remain unclear. This article defines the sharing economy as a socioeconomic system that is technology-enabled and access- oriented with five key characteristics (i.e., temporary access, transfer of economic value, platform mediation, expanded consumer role, and crowdsourced supply). It also examines the sharing economy’s impact upon marketing’s traditional beliefs and practices in terms of how it challenges three key foundations of marketing: institutions (e.g., consumers, firms and channels, regulators), processes (e.g., innovation, brands, customer experience, value appropriation), and value creation (e.g., value for consumers, value for firms, value for society) and offers future research directions designed to push the boundaries of marketing thought. The article concludes with a set of forward-looking guideposts that highlight the implications of the sharing economy’s paradoxes, maturation, and technological development for marketing thought . Collectively, this article seeks to help marketing scholars to not only keep pace with the sharing economy but also shape its future direction.
Special thanks to Kelley Gullo and Holly Howe, Ph.D. candidates at Duke University, for their support in working with authors on submissions to this program.
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Giana M. Eckhardt is Professor of Marketing, King's College London, UK.
Mark B. Houston is Professor of Marketing and Eunice and James L. West Chair in Marketing, Texas Christian University, USA.
Baojun Jiang is Associate Professor of Marketing, Washington University in St. Louis.
Cait Lamberton is Alberto I. Duran President's Distinguished Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Aric Rindfleisch is John M. Jones Professor of Marketing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Georgios Zervas is Associate Professor of Marketing, Boston University Questrom School of Business.