How Consumer Orchestration Work Creates Value in the Sharing Economy

Sharing economy platforms have become increasingly popular, but many platforms do not create all the value that is possible because consumers face challenges while cocreating their experiences. The authors situate the origin of these challenges in the sharing economy's hybrid cocreation logics, which combine competing communal and transactional logics. Using a qualitative study of Couchsurfing, a platform for sharing free accommodation, the authors find that consumers engage in orchestration work to overcome cocreation roadblocks and extract greater benefits from sharing economy platforms. This orchestration work consists of many actions reflected in four overarching mechanisms: consumer-to-consumer alignment, rewiring relations, trust investment, and network experimentation. The authors connect these mechanisms to known sources of value for firms (i.e., complementarities, efficiency, lock-in, and novelty) to make recommendations for how platform firms can foster consumer orchestration work and unlock the full value of consumer cocreation in the sharing economy.

Automated summary

The study found that consumers need to engage in orchestration work on sharing economy platforms to overcome co-creation challenges and extract greater benefits. Through qualitative research on Couchsurfing, a platform for free accommodation, consumers' orchestration work is reflected in actions such as consumer-to-consumer alignment, rewiring relations, trust investment, and network experimentation.