DO NOT COPY FROM ANOTHER CHEGG EXPERT

Did you use Airbnb rather than a hotel the last time you traveled? Or use Uber to get home rather than take a taxi? Or decided to rely on Zipcar instead of bringing your car to campus? If yes, you are a part of the Sharing Economy, heralded by sources ranging from Fortune magazine to President Obama as a major growth sector. The sharing economy represents a major shift in lifestyle for consumers: consumers no longer want to own, but prefer to access goods and services. That way, they do not have the obligations and burdens of ownership, such as finding a space to park their car or having to deal with the upkeep of their bicycle, when a bike sharing service is more convenient. But what is sharing? Sharing is a form of social exchange that takes place among people known to each other, without any profit. Sharing is an established practice, and dominates particular aspects of our life, such as within the family. By sharing and collectively consuming the household space of the home, family members establish a communal identity, for example.

My colleague Fleura Bardhi and I are interested in whether the form of exchange happening in the "sharing economy" is really sharing. We have found that when sharing is market-mediatedwhen a company is an intermediary between consumers who don't know each otherit is no longer sharing at all. Rather, consumers are paying to access someone else's goods or services for a particular period of time. It is an economic exchange, and we have labeled this access-based consumption.

Our research on Zipcar, the world's leading car-sharing company, illustrates some of the characteristics of access-based consumption. Consumers don't feel any psychological sense of ownership over the cars, nor do they feel a sense of reciprocal obligations that arise when sharing with one another. They experience Zipcar in the anonymous way one experiences a hotel; they know others have used the cars, but have no desire to interact with them. They don't view other Zipsters as co-sharers of the cars, but rather are mistrustful of them, and rely on the company to police the sharing system so it's equitable for everyone. Finally, consumers do not want to be a part of a community, with either other Zipsters or with the company itself. Thus, our research challenges the romanticized view of the sharing economy as being collaborative and altruistically motivated.

It is important to highlight the benefits that access provides in contrast to the disadvantages of ownership and sharing. These consist of convenient and cost-effective access to valued resources, flexibility, and freedom from the financial, social, and emotional obligations embedded in ownership and sharing. There is still a lot to learn about sharing, access, and ownership, though, and we are currently researching how these concepts may vary across generations, across cultures, and across social classes.

How Drs. Eckhardt and Bardhi's research and view on consumption and the sharing economy reflective of consumption?