Platforms are intermediaries that support the economic exchange between two groups of agents. Digitalisation has given rise to numerous digital platforms that either represent new business models or make traditional business processes more efficient, which often has disruptive effects on existing industries. Business models span all industries, from the classic exchange of goods (e.g. ebay, Etsy) to the networking of people (e.g. Facebook, Xing) to the exchange of services (e.g. Airbnb, Uber). The aim of our research is to analyse consumer behaviour on such digital platforms. Currently, our focus is on sharing services (e.g. car sharing, bike sharing) and electromobility (incl. charging infrastructure platforms).
In the area of the sharing economy, we analyse the consumer decision between buying and sharing and which drivers lead consumers to use sharing alternatives, i.e. to rent products only when needed instead of buying them. In a current project, we use observational data to investigate how context, price and competition influence the booking and prolonged use of a sharing service.
- Sharing Economy
- Electromobility
- Carsharing Anbieter
- Stadtwerke München
- Carsharing-Experten.de
- DFG
- Internet Business Cluster e.V.
