Internationalization in sharing economy : a business model approach

2018

With the rise of the sharing economy, we witness a significant heterogeneity in the

internationalization process of sharing economy companies. While some of these companies

spread globally in a relatively short time, other companies seem to be locally bounded. This

raises the question as to what facilitates or hinders the internationalization process of sharing

economy companies. Noteworthy established theories in the field of international strategy do

not sufficiently explain the process of internationalization of sharing economy firms, as those

theories were mainly developed in an era dominated by manufacturing and product-oriented

firms. Thus, to date, extant studies have not been able to explain this phenomenon. Hence the

aim of this research is to understand the internationalization process of sharing economy

companies and develop a theoretical framework that could explain this process.

To tackle this issue, we adopt a business model perspective and develop a framework that

dimensionalizes the propensity of sharing economy firms to expand globally. We test our

proposed model against six different sharing economy companies belonging to three different

sectors. We find that the level of flexibility in each component within the business model

design will impact the internationalization prospects of the sharing economy firm. In particular,

we discover that the companies that: 1) depend on wide range of key partners to conduct their

key activities 2) are able to replicate or transfer their key resources, distribution channels,

customer relationships in new markets with fewer investment 3) develop a broader value

proposition and rely on wider target segment are able to internationalize swiftly and

successfully than the rest.

Consequently, our research is among the first to provide first-hand evidence into the

internationalization process of sharing economy companies and hereby foster research at the

intersection between business model and international strategy. In turn, our thesis opens up a

new agenda for the future research to understand the vast ranging implications of choice and

design of business models for the success and global expansion of sharing economy firms.

Furthermore, our research offers noteworthy implications for the entrepreneurs and managers

of sharing economy companies as it provides inspiration on how to design their business

models for successful internationalization.