To Share or Not To Share? Essays on Business Model Transformation, Ubuntu and the Practices of the Sharing Economy

The sharing economy has become an established way of organizing within mobility and hospitality contexts, yet its underlying dynamics extend beyond platform technology or access-based exchanges. This dissertation examines how the sharing economy takes shape across different organizational, cultural, and practice-based settings, and how people and organizations participate and adapt within these evolving environments.
Drawing on four studies, the thesis develops a multi-level perspective that follows the sharing economy from hybrid mobility models and organizational transformation to culturally grounded meanings and everyday interaction. The first study explores how new mobility models emerge at the intersection of car-sharing, infrastructure, and integrated transport systems. The second study offers a longitudinal account of business model transformation within a hospitality platform, showing how service providers shift from hobbyist engagement to professional operations through episodic, non-linear change enabled by multichannel API strategies. Extending beyond Western contexts, the third study examines the sharing economy through the lenses of Ubuntu and Africapitalism, highlighting how relational values and local entrepreneurship inform hospitality practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. These perspectives challenge existing assumptions and illustrate how digital platforms intersect with longstanding community-based forms of exchange. The fourth study turns to everyday participation, analyzing rules, understandings, and teleoaffective structures in hospitality and mobility practices. It shows how calculative and emotional elements intertwine in shaping engagement, and how emotional energy helps sustain participation and meaning over time.
Taken together, the dissertation demonstrates that the sharing economy is not only an economic or technological phenomenon but also a social and relational one. Participation is supported by practical routines, cultural expectations, and emotional connections that influence why people engage and how organizations evolve. Business models in platform contexts develop through partial stability and punctuated shifts; cultural frameworks shape how value and responsibility are understood; and everyday practices carry both symbolic and emotional value.
For scholars, the thesis offers a framework that connects business model research with practice theory, interaction ritual theory, and non-Western approaches to exchange. For practitioners and policymakers, it highlights that continued participation depends not only on platform design or incentives but also on how sharing arrangements resonate with lived experience and local norms. Overall, the dissertation presents the sharing economy as a context-dependent and socially embedded system, inviting a more situated understanding of how sharing is organized, transformed, and made meaningful across diverse settings.