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We witness rising tensions between online gig-economy platforms, incumbent firms, regulators, and labor unions. In this chapter, we use the framework of institutional logics as an analytical lens and scheme to understand the fundamental institutional challenges prompted by the advent of the online gig economy. We view gig-economy platforms as corporations that organize and self-regulate markets. In doing so, they span two parallel markets: the market for platforms competing to provide intermediation services and the market for the self-employed competing on platforms to provide peer-to-peer services. Self-regulation by platforms also weakens the traditional roles of the state. While the corporation and market logics empower the platform, they weaken self-employed suppliers as platforms’ design constrain suppliers to grow into a full-fledged business by limiting their entrepreneurial freedom. At the same time, current labor law generally does not classify suppliers as employees of the platform company, which limits the possibility to unionize. The current resolutions to this institutional misalignment are sought in “band aid solutions” at the level of sectors. Instead, as we argue, macro-institutional reform may be needed to re-institutionalize gig work into established institutional logics.

This chapter explores how classic and institutional entrepreneurs in the sharing economy (SE) frame and make sense of the emergent, plural, and contested SE concept. The authors address this question through an investigation of an attempt to institutionalize the SE as a separate field in France, through data collected among SE entrepreneurs gravitating around OuiShare, a leading institutional entrepreneur for the SE. To analyze the plurality of discursive framings within the SE field, we explored how classic entrepreneurs affiliated with the SE and institutional entrepreneurs made sense of the concept and its related practices by referring to different theories and narratives. The results reveal that classic entrepreneurs used and combined four distinct theoretical currents (access economy, commons, gift, and libertarianism) to frame their projects. This framing diversity was further reinforced at the meso level by specific forms of institutional entrepreneurship which reflected and actively built on such framing diversity. However, over time, such heterogeneity negatively affects the internal coherence of the field. Based on these results, the authors discuss the impact of enduring framing diversity on the SE organizational field emergence and development.

Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) has caused revolutionary changes in various industries of South Asia, including financial services. Financial inclusion has been recognized as an important driver of economic growth. The combination of financial inclusion and the industrial revolution offers exceptional opportunities for business. The present chapter delves into the significance of financial inclusion within the framework of IR 4.0 in Asia and its potential to stimulate growth, innovation, and societal influence. It includes the discourse regarding challenges and opportunities for business in a new era of financial inclusion and the industrial revolution. Based on a thorough discussion, we give practical insights and best practices for businesses aiming to maximize the opportunities offered by financial inclusion in the era of IR 4.0. This chapter provides an in-depth understanding of Asia’s expanding financial inclusion landscape and empowers companies with the information and tools needed to prosper in this dynamic market.

Introduction: Lending is an age-old concept, and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending is not new. The reduction in the issuing of loans by banks has made people switch from traditional to online mode. The introduction of the online P2P lending industry is in its nascent stage of growth. As this industry is relatively new, understanding user experience, sentiments, and emotions would be helpful for the industry to innovate as per customer requirements.

Purpose: To explore the patterns in the sentiments expressed by users of ‘Cashkumar’ based on Google reviews.

Methodology: Sentiments have been analysed using user experience in risk, cost, ease of use, and loan processing time. Python application was used for sentiment analysis of Google reviews.

Findings: The sentiment analysis results showed that the average sentiment score was 0.7144, which indicates that the user sentiment towards ‘Cashkumar’ is positive. The reviews reflect that the users, especially borrowers were satisfied with the platform’s services and happy with loan processing time. The other factors – ease of use, cost, and risk – were not given much importance by users. Both lenders and borrowers faced a few issues, but the results of the lender’s sentiment analysis could not be generalised due to a smaller number of posted reviews.

Independent actors operating through peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms co-create service experiences, such as shared car-rides or home-stays. Emotional labor among both parties, manifested in the mutual enactment of socially desirable behavior, is essential in ensuring that these experiences are successful. However, little is known about emotional labor practices and about how sharing economy platforms enforce emotional labor practices among independent actors, such as guests, hosts, drivers, or passengers. To address this research gap, we follow a mixed methods approach. We combine survey research among Airbnb and Uber users with content analysis of seven leading sharing economy platforms. The findings show that (1) users perform emotional labor despite not seeing is as necessarily desirable and (2) platforms actively encourage the performance of emotional labor practices even in the absence of direct formal control. Emotional labor practices are encouraged through (hard) design features such as mutual ratings, reward systems, and gamification, as well as through more subtle (soft) normative framing of desirable practices via platform and app guidelines, tips, community sites, or blogs. Taken together, these findings expand our understanding of the limitations of peer-to-peer sharing platforms, where control over the service experience and quality can only be enforced indirectly.

In this chapter, the authors review emerging literature on multidimensional, information age-related phenomena across different disciplines to derive common themes and topics. The authors then proceed to analyse recent developments in these fields to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the most disruptive challenges for multinational companies (MNCs) competing in the modern information age. These challenges include more efficient peer-to-peer communication between stakeholders, crowd-organisation, globalisation of value chains and the need to organise knowledge resources. The aim of the chapter is not to review all age research, but to identify fundamental uncertainties for MNCs and discuss strategies of tackling such information age phenomena from an international business perspective.

The sharing economy is a collection of economic and social activities where participants of the community share properties, resources, time and skills across online platforms. In this chapter, we start by identifying all the stakeholders and their characteristics within such an ecosystem. We then categorise factors leading to success in the sharing economies where the existence of these platforms has disrupted traditional businesses. To do so, demographic information about the community participants, specifications of the business models, enablers of the ecosystem, growth drivers and hindrance factors are explored in detail. From there on, we examine whether such success factors are applicable in the Turkish business environment where Internet retailing is in its infant stages, trust among people is quite low and economic welfare is lower than that of more developed economies. Finally, an assessment of the sharing economy landscape in Turkey is provided at the end of the chapter.

To outline the future of the sharing economy in Turkey, success indicators in the Turkish market are compared and contrasted with those of the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil. A quick analysis reveals that despite its huge potential, Turkey still has not reached its full capacity in Internet usage, online or mobile retailing. That said, notwithstanding the low levels of trust among people, Turkey has a great potential of sharer base, given the demographic structure of its citizens. Recommendations for policy makers, incumbent firms, the sharing economy startups and marketers are provided in the chapter.