Hugo Guyader conducted research on ridesharing practices through BlaBlaCar to identify mutually beneficial sharing styles. Through online observations and in-car interviews with passengers, he identified three sharing styles - communal, conspicuous, and opportunistic. Communal sharing involved pro-social and altruistic behaviors that benefit the community. Conspicuous sharing was self-interested but still followed platform rules. Opportunistic sharing exploited the system for personal gain through deviant practices. Further research is needed to promote communal sharing and understand how different roles impact the sharing experience.

1. Hugo Guyader, PhD Candidate in Marketing
Department of Management & Engineering
3rd
IWSE — 15 September 2016
University of Southampton, UK
P2P Service Exchanges
in a Quasi-Commercial Context
The Mutual Benefits of Ridesharing

2. Sharing Economy
• In general, (still) academically poorly understood.
• Marketing studies: too focused on B2B/B2C relationships.
• Few studies have conceptualized access-based
consumption, P2P renting, and non-ownership services,
as different from true sharing (Belk).
Research needed on what people actually do
when they interact and exchange P2P services.
Collaborative

3. Heart and Wallet paradox
• ‘Hybrid economy’ with ideological tensions:
1. a logic of economic market-mediated
exchange with aspects of profit-maximization,
negative reciprocity, independence between
parties who have self-interested motivations
2. a logic of non-market exchange with elements
of solidarity, mutuality, generalized reciprocity,
and communal norms establishing
interdependence between participants
Value cocreation practices are the result of both pro-
social (or communal) motives and monetary (or
utilitarian) self-interests.

4. ACTOR ACTOR
Service
(e.g. mobility)
Service
(e.g. cash contribution)
Sharing Practices
P2P Service Exchange
Study aim: Identify sharing practices that mutually benefit all actors.

5. Study Design
BlaBlaCar
‣ Netnographic pre-study
-> insights on the ridesharing culture,
social experiences and interactions
prior the actual offline exchange
between actors
‣ Participant observations
-> facilitates the exploration of
responses in context and the obtention
of in-depth information on a new
phenomenon

6. Pre Study
• Netnography:
online conversations, testimonials, opinion articles,
presentations, blogposts, forum messages, videos,
documentation (FAQ), and other artifacts
- published online between 2009 and 2015
(900 pages of text)

7. Main Study
• Participant observation:
Online interactions with 35 platform users
5 shared rides planned with 14 participants
Distance driven: 2250 km ≈ 277 km/passenger
• Ethnographic interviews:
11 passengers (2 cancel. 1 no-show)
31h in the car

8. Passengers could reserve by internal message and pay cash (💶),
or reserve and pay online with a “Manual Approval - guaranteed within 3h” (💳).
anonymised data

9. ID Gender Age
Nation-
ality
Facebook
Friends *
Ride
Pref. †
Signed
up
Experi-
ence ‡
Reputa-
tion §
E-messages
Exchanged
Booking
Ahead
Distance
Shared
Given
Rating §
Rueben M 29 German n/a BlaBla 1 year High Not yet 12 1 day 124 km n/a
Magda F 22 German 491 BlaBla 2 months n/a Not yet 12 1 day cancelled cancelled
Moundir M 27 n/a n/a BlaBla 12 days n/a Not yet 20 3 days cancelled cancelled
Allan M 29 Syrian n/a BlaBla 1.5 month Low Not yet 11 2 days 366 km n/a
Sofia F 22 German n/a BlaBla 8 months High 1.0 (n=1) 7 5 days 126 km 5
Yuliya F 22 Ukrainian 155 BlaBlaBla 1.5 year New Not yet 38 6 days 268 km 4
Omar M 19 German n/a Bla 6 months High Not yet 11 11 days 90 km 4
Omar +1 M n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Low n/a n/a 11 days 90 km n/a
Joseph M 24 German 1236 BlaBla 1 year High 1.7 (n=3) 26 15 days no show n/a
Nelia F 30 Bosnian n/a BlaBla 3 days New Not yet 10 2 days 224 km 5
Julie F 21 French n/a BlaBla 3 weeks Low Not yet 14 20 days 311 km n/a
Julie +1 M 21 French n/a n/a 1 year Low n/a n/a 20 days 311 km n/a
Marie F 20 French 277 BlaBla 3 weeks Low Not yet 6 8 days 508 km 5
Juiio M 23 Brazilian 1439 BlaBlaBla 3 months High Not yet 15 4 days 627 km 5
Information was gathered from BlaBlaCar and the discussions in the car.
* Each user must verify their phone number and confirm their email addess to access Blablacar services. Facebook is optional.
† Users indicate their chattiness level with “Bla”, “BlaBla” or “BlaBlaBla” depending on how much they enjoy chatting in the car.
‡ Users are either new to ridesharing (first time with me), or with low experience (1-2 trips before) or high experience (3 trips or more).
§ Users' average rating score from 1 to 5 (n = total of ratings). Ratings range from Very Disappointing (1), to Poor (2), to Good (3), to Excellent (4), to Outstanding (5).
anonymised data

10. Data Analysis
• Framework analysis
• Practice Theory
Procedures, ‘explicit know that’, rules, principles
Understandings, ‘tacit know-how’ of what to say and do
Engagements, commitments, emotionally charged purposes

11. Ridesharing Practices
• Delivering (i.e. driving)
• Saving costs
• Paying online/offline
• Rating peers
• Trusting strangers
• Conversing
• Coordinating with others
• Individualistic activities
(i.e. no-shows, sleeping
in the car)
• Making money
• Professional marketing
activities (i.e. pricing,
competition)

12. Sharing Styles
Communal
Sharing
Conspicuous
Sharing
Opportunistic
Sharing

13. Styles Practices
Communal Sharing
elements of ‘true’sharing, courtesy,
pro-social orientation, altruism and
generalized reciprocity
Delivering
Saving costs
Paying
Rating peers
Conversing
Coordinating with others
Greeting new members
Trusting strangers
Conspicuous Sharing
individuals seek status and
convenience, following a lifestyle trend,
with minor commercial interests
Delivering
Saving costs
Paying
Rating peers
Conversing
Coordinating with others
Greeting new members
Professional marketing activities
Opportunistic Sharing
individuals seek personal benefits from
deviant practices, regardless of the
sharing culture and norms
Delivering
Saving costs
Paying
Individualistic activities
Making Money
Professional marketing activities

14. Communal Sharing
Pro-social context: actors share with others without expecting anything
in return. They act altruistically for the benefit of the community at
large as well as others with whom they exchange directly.
Benefits of a feeling of social belonging and community values of
ethics, egalitarianism, transparency and generosity.
Close to true sharing-in (Belk) and a generalized sense of
reciprocity in altruistic transactions (Price; Sahlins).
“We are in it for the long haul”
Even though actors feel indebted in a dyadic exchange (direct
reciprocity in a market logic), they also feel part of a bigger
community (generalized reciprocity in a social context).

15. Conspicuous Sharing
Market logic of resource exploitation and profit maximization.
Self-interest and utilitarian motives (convenience,
cost-saving), and lifestyle trend orientation (seeking
status and variety).
In line with Schor et al. (2016) who argue for
distinguishing practices among sharing actors
seeking to achieve high-status and efficiency by
acting with professionalism.
Yet, conspicuous sharing practices are performed in a context
regulated by platform rules and community norms, which make
P2P service exchanges also embedded with sharing out (Belk).

16. Opportunistic Sharing
$$$ Actors take advantage of being able to do something that
they could do to a business corporation, but not to friends.
$$$ Individualistic and opportunistic practices are performed
to yield personal benefits by abusing the trust of a
community.
$$$ Such mis-sharing practices manifest in deviant behavior in P2P
file-sharing (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2007), opportunistic
behaviors in commercial car sharing (Bardhi and Eckhardt,
2012), egoism and distrust in other community members (Hartl
et al., 2015), and misbehaviors in access-based services
(Schaefers et al., 2016).

17. Further Research
➡ Investigate what attributes influence P2P service
satisfaction in the sharing experience, and how to raise
participation likelihood of communal sharing practices
in future exchanges.
✓ Quantitative methodologies could measure the
difference in sharing styles, comparing grass-
roots movements to “Big Sharing” unicorns.
➡ Investigate the various roles enacted by
sharing actors and how it impacts the
overall experience.

18. Thank you!
Any questions? remarks?
Hugo Guyader
hugo.guyader@liu.se