Which opportunities do cooperative models and blockchain technology offer to the platform economy? What are other potential pathways toward a more sustainable platform economy?
Today, new digital platforms for sharing, swapping and other ways of collaborative consumption are widely associated with positive economic, ecological and social effects. At the same time, existing platforms like Airbnb and Uber are increasingly criticized in public debate for having negative effects on people, local economies and our planet. As a counter model, new decentral models combining alternative organizational forms (such as platform cooperatives) and new technologies (such as Blockchain technology) are discussed and tested. These and other alternative models promise to better reach social-ecological goals and offer potential to transform the sharing and platform economy.
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Organizational Forms and the field of the Platform EconomyHow do we get a comprehensive understanding of the sharing economy?To develop a comprehensive and holistic picture of current research on the sharing economy, researchers from different disciplines presented their work at the 5th International Workshop on the Sharing Economy at the University of Mannheim in 2018. Dominika Wruk, member of platforms2share, Achim Oberg and Indre Maurer have published the Best Paper Proceedings to the workshop, that comprises a selection of short papers. The volume is published with Cambridge Scholars Publishing. | |
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Does digital economy really bring its promised progress for all or does it rather bring enormous power and profits to a few? Will digitalization inevitably lead to more inequality? How can we create a framework, which enables everyone to benefit from this progress? Under the concept #DigitalCapitalism, the congress of the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung in Berlin (October 29-30, 2019) will examine various aspects of digital change and present approaches to fair digitalization in business and society.
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On October 22nd, platforms2share co-organized an event that aimed to support a local initiative of former Deliveroo riders. The event brought together ormer Deliveroo riders and supporters at SUPERMAKRT Berlin in order to discuss the next steps of building a local food delivery network and for getting it off the ground. | |
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At this year’s LABOR.A conference, organized by the Hans Böckler Foundation (HBS), platforms2share performed a scenic play that raised the question of how the cooperative form could be made fit for the digital age in order to reorganize platform work. The scenic play was followed by a WorldCafé round, in which the current situation as well as possibilities for action for improving the conditions for platform cooperatives for state institutions, politicians, trade unions and platform workers were discussed. | |
Contact platforms2share
 | Prof. Dr. Dominika Wruk Institute for SME Research and Entrepreneurship (ifm)
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