Call for Chapters

Handbook on the Sharing Economy, Edward Elgar

In the past decade there has been spectacular growth of commercial ventures in “the sharing economy,” “collaborative consumption,” and “access-based consumption,” as well as growth in smaller scale non-commercial sharing organizations. Names like Uber, Lyft, Didi, Airbnb, CouchSurfing, BlaBlaCar, Zipcar, Bag Borrow and Steal, Rent the Runway and many others have become global phenomena. Municipal bike sharing, car sharing, tool sharing, toy sharing, food sharing, and ride sharing ventures have spread, fizzled, and flourished. Underlying these developments are a host of behavioral, theoretical, managerial, legal, and ethical issues that we envision this handbook addressing, from consumer, managerial and regulatory perspectives. We welcome empirical, conceptual, and case study approaches. Both basic and applied treatments are sought. Since the sharing economy is an evolving moving target we are interested in chapters that show depth, scope, and historical understanding of developments including sharing of both tangible goods and services and things that can be shared online. Together the chapters should comprise a comprehensive, cutting edge, multi-disciplinary take on various aspects of the sharing economy, although individual chapters may be situated within only one or a few disciplinary perspectives. We intend this book to be relevant for a variety of audiences, including scholars across disciplines, students, marketing practitioners, entrepreneurs, and governments.

Examples of possible topics include, but are not limited to the following.

• The roots and nature of sharing and collaborative consumption
• The role of digital technology
• Industry changes and disruptions (e.g., music, film, transportation, hospitality, food, banking)
• Economic aspects
• The nature of work in the sharing economy (labor issues ; legal/tax issues)
• Social, environmental, and public policy issues
• Design and sharing
• The nature of luxury in the sharing economy
• Trust and reputation economies
• Alternative forms of ownership
• Consumer behavior in the sharing economy
• Privacy, reputation and surveillance in the sharing economy
• Consumers as entrepreneurs/prosumers
• Creating value
• The nature of ownership in the sharing economy
• Virtual sharing
• Distributed Autonomous Organizations
• Winners and losers

Procedures and timeline

Chapter Proposals : A 1000-word summary of a proposed chapter should be e-mailed to all three co-editors by September 15, 2017. Summaries should describe the scope of the chapter, relevant theoretical, managerial, and/or social perspectives, and the discipline or disciplines whose work the chapter will draw upon. The goals of the chapter should be clear in the proposal. Proposals should represent new, unpublished work.

Chapter Proposal Feedback and Invitations to submit : November 1, 2017

Chapter Drafts Due : June 1, 2018. Chapters should be 8,000-12,000 words and follow the Edward Elgar style sheet available online.

Chapter Draft Reviews and Editorial Decisions : August 1, 2018

Chapter Revisions : November 1, 2018

Publication : 2019

Editors (Contact us for further information)

• Russell Belk, rbelk@schulich.yorku.ca
• Giana Eckhardt, Giana.Eckhardt@rhul.ac.uk
• Fleura Bardhi, Fleura.Bardhi.1@city.ac.uk