How Facebook digital features contribute to the re-emergence of subsistence markets in developed countries

Florence Benoît-Moreau, Eva Delacroix and Béatrice Parguel ()
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Florence Benoît-Moreau: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Eva Delacroix: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Béatrice Parguel: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Over the last decade, the sharing economy that covers systems of organised sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping among communities of peers on Internet platforms has emerged as a major disruptive pattern in capitalist economies (Botsman and Rogers, 2010). Prior research on the sharing economy has mainly concentrated on young, well-educated urban users and therefore particularly underlined "noble" motivations for participation, such as hedonic, environmental, and political reasons. This research looks beyond this "hipster" view of sharing entrepreneurs and focuses on French deprived mothers who use peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms to survive. Drawing on the literature on subsistence markets in developing countries (e.g., Viswanathan et al., 2014), it investigates Facebook buy-and-sell groups as a new form of subsistence markets in developed countries. Using a multi-method approach involving in-depth interviews, netnography, and participatory observation on Facebook buy-and-sell groups, it more particularly explores how Facebook specific digital features participate in these emerging markets. The findings indicate that subsistence markets' emergence in developed countries on Facebook is founded on new digital features that (re)create structural, cognitive and relational forms of social capital. This research thus offers interesting contributions and implications for public policy makers engaged in the regulation of the sharing economy.

Keywords: digital entrepreneurs; subsistence market; empowerment; social capital; peer-to-peer platforms; Facebook (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-07
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Published in Global Marketing Conference, Jul 2018, Tokyo, Japan

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01905723

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