SHARED MOBILITY SERVICES CREATING SHARED VALUE : CASE HSL CITY BIKES & BLOX CAR

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sharing economy is a globally growing phenomenon, where cultural change, technological development, environmental crisis and potential business opportunities are seen as its drivers. Sharing economy is a possible solution to organize the economy in a more sustainable way, maintaining the current wellbeing with less physical assets. Climate Change, accelerated by human activities such as transportation caused CO2- emissions, creates an example of the need for more sustainable economic solutions. Sharing economy could have the potential to reduce CO2-emissions caused by transportation, which in return could curb the Climate Change. Although, sharing economy can be seen as quite a new field of study, so there is no clear academic consensus of its actual effect on cutting down transportation caused emissions. This thesis aims to deepen the understanding of sharing economy as a phenomenon, focusing on possible providers and participants of sharing economy, as well as the shared untapped resources. Context of the thesis was chosen to be transportation, as it is one of the largest industries causing CO2-emissions. More specifically, shared bikes and cars, as they are the two most common vehicles in Finland that are used for transportation. Moreover, the study evaluates the value shared mobility can create for society besides the business value, aiming to address the research question: What shared value shared mobility services can create? The study is a qualitative multiple case-study, executed through semi-structured theme interviews and utilizing Shared Value, a novel strategic framework. Results of the thesis indicate that sharing economy providers and participants can be either private people, businesses or governmental providers, which supports classification of broad sharing economy. In addition, the thesis points out that shared resources are usually idling but they can also be specifically produced for the service use. The main characters of sharing economy include; favouring access over ownership, enabling citizens to be more than consumers and improving better utilization of resources. Thesis results support the argument that sharing economy can provide both economic and societal value and therefore shared mobility could support current transportation market towards more holistic sustainability.