The sharing economy (SE) has disrupted several sectors. Thus far, this has mainly occurred in consumer markets. Research has therefore focused on these sectors, leaving a research gap regarding the emergence of the SE in business-to-business (B2B) markets. We address this gap by first developing a literature-based framework defining the B2B SE as a service system composed of at least three actors (triadic + ), including an asset-light, intermediating platform that links at least two organizations, with one paying for temporary access to a physical asset from the other organization, for which granting this access is an ancillary service outside of the core business. We also delineate the B2B SE from related concepts, such as cooperatives and co-owning. Second, we provide managerial implications for platforms, incumbents, asset owners, and policymakers. Third, we outline areas for future research, for example, disruption trajectories, incumbent reactions, and the dark side of the B2B SE.

To understand the progression of retailing research, this article presents a topic modeling study of retailing- related research published in Journal of Business Research (JBR) over the past 50 years. We trace both where retailing has come from and where it is going. Building on 13 retailing-related research themes published in JBR, the authors identify five emerging themes growing in importance: Omnichannel retailing, Retail technologies (including point-of-sale (POS) systems, digital displays, robots and artificial intelligence (AI)), Experiential retailing, Online shopping behavior, and Social commerce. Seven themes, which remained stable in their importance over the last decades, are considered as core retailing topics: Retail atmospherics, Retail strategy & performance, Consumer perceptions, Sensory marketing, Retail store/brand image, Retail relationships & loyalty, and Organizational orientations. One theme, Shopping motives & patronage, is shown to have declined in JBR publications. Deeper dives into the five emerging topics showcase technology-infused retailing and help reveal avenues for continued research.

Due to digital innovations, retailing is undergoing radical changes. Scholars have proposed frameworks to address outcomes of implementing technology e.g., an increased customer experience, efficiency gains, consumer or employee acceptance. Existing frameworks concentrate primarily on the consumer perspective, focus on specific technologies (e.g., AI) and covering the customer journey. In contrast, this paper also focuses on the employee perspective, and how technology influences the employee journey. Since the convenience offered by online retailers puts offline retailers under pressure, this research focuses on in-store technology. Based on a comprehensive review of managerial and academic literature and expert interviews, we propose a framework covering customers and employees, and technology's function (increasing efficiency or experience), as also including more traditional and newer technologies, such as robots and AI. We identify and showcase technologies increasing efficiency for customers (quadrant 1, e.g., checkout options or autonomous stores) or for employees (quadrant 2, e.g., in-store robots), and enhancing the experience for customers (quadrant 3, e.g., retailer apps or communication) or for employees (quadrant 4, e.g., exoskeletons or smart wearables). Finally, for each of these quadrants, we identify future research opportunities.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

The Encyclopedia of Services is a ground-breaking resource that offers a unique overview of what constitutes the main source of wealth and employment in our contemporary economies, namely services. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

As the sharing economy has grown, externalities, i.e., "dark sides," have also surfaced. The intricacies surrounding these externalities and their regulatory measures have garnered significant scholarly interest; however, there remains a lack of comprehensive guidance on the appropriate regulatory approaches. Based on a systematic literature review of 99 papers, we provide an overview of two regulatory approaches (government and selfregulation) to address the sharing economy's economic, social, and environmental externalities affecting multiple stakeholders. We show that government regulation entails mechanisms based on avoiding, limiting, and guiding, while self-regulation entails mechanisms related to market entry, operation, and monitoring. We develop an externalities-based regulatory framework to suggest how these two approaches and recommended regulatory mechanisms could address each externality. Furthermore, we use our regulatory framework as a base to suggest a future research agenda and to discuss managerial implications.

The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively anonymous interactions through text-based messages. Informational asymmetries thus arise that can lead to exchange uncertainties between buyers and freelancers. Conventional marketing thought recommends reducing such uncertainty. However, uncertainty reduction and uncertainty management theories indicate that buyers and freelancers might benefit more from balancing—rather than reducing—uncertainty, such as by strategically adhering to or deviating from common communication principles. With dyadic analyses of calls for bids and bids from a leading online freelance marketplace, this study reveals that buyers attract more bids from freelancers when they provide moderate degrees of task information and concreteness, avoid sharing personal information, and limit the affective intensity of their communication. Freelancers’ bid success and price premiums increase when they mimic the degree of task information and affective intensity exhibited by buyers. However, mimicking a lack of personal information and concreteness reduces freelancers’ success, so freelancers should always be more concrete and offer more personal information than buyers. These contingent perspectives offer insights into buyer–seller communication in two-sided online marketplaces. They clarify that despite, or sometimes due to, communication uncertainty, both sides can achieve success in the online gig economy.

Service providers and retailers reselling branded have the discretion to set and adapt prices according to customers’ willingness to pay (WTP). Research often notes markup effects, such that WTP increases in response to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and markdown effects, lowering their WTP for corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). Theory suggests attitude changes to (negative) CSI are stronger than to (positive) CSR, but the extent and whether this difference holds for WTP and across various product types are unknown. Using experimental data, an incentive-compatible measure, and an actual purchase, this article reports on three studies that show that consumers mark up WTP for CSR and mark down WTP for CSI. The differential effects arise across brands; compared with WTP for a competitor brand, the acceptable price of a focal CSR/CSI brand is marked down more than it is marked up. Comparing the WTP for a focal brand relative to the average CSR performance of that brand does not produce any within-brand differential effects The evidence also indicates a product type effect: Consumer WTP adaptation for CSR or CSI is stronger for utilitarian than for hedonic products. These findings have implications for service providers, retailers and manufacturing firms, as well as for further research.

Consumers tend to hold a focal firm responsible for its suppliers' unsustainable practices (chain liability), suggesting that firms need effective responses that can mitigate negative consumer reactions. In applying psychological contract theory to investigate recovery efforts related to such chain liability, the current study addresses three broad focal firm responses: Do nothing, choose a nonsubstantive response that verbally clarifies its own and the supplier's roles in the incident, or substantively rectify the supplier's wrongdoing with sustainability-focused responses, such as termination, monitoring or development. With a vignette-based experiment, we examine consumer perceptions and behaviors in three stages: before the unsustainable supplier incident (pre-incident), after the incident (post-incident) and after the focal firm has responded (post-response). A nonsubstantive, clarification response decreases consumers' purchase intentions; substantive focal firm activities increase purchase intentions, though not fully back to pre-incident levels. For consumers, termination, monitoring and development seem like equally adequate responses. Although combining several substantive responses offers even greater effectiveness for recovering purchase intentions, it still falls short of reaching pre-incident levels. Thus, our findings demonstrate the focal firm's capacity to address suppliers' unsustainable practices substantively and recover, at least partially, its damaged relationship with consumers.

Independent store managers—who constitute a substantial portion of the retailing sector—often have limited resources with which to practice the formalized, data-driven pricing processes prescribed in the literature. On that basis, this article addresses how independent convenience store managers arrive at prices and whether their practices are effective. To begin with, 33 interviews with independent convenience store managers identified six common beliefs and ten practices underlying managers' intuitive decision making. Based on point-of-sale survey data from 1,504 customers of two convenience store chains at petrol stations, a second study compared market-oriented managerial beliefs with actual customer price perceptions and buying behaviors. The combined insights from these studies reveal that managers base their pricing decisions on beliefs that are only partially accurate and suggests how managers might benefit by altering their price-setting practices.

The phrase the “customer is always right” assumes that customers provide universal benefits for firms. However, in recent years, customer deviance is on the rise and the academic literature has provided little insight into the drivers of deviance, the actual behaviors, and strategies for how managers can better manage a customer base that cannot be classified as universally benign. This article addresses customer deviance ranging from classic examples like shoplifting to engaging in hostile anti-brand behaviors on social media or even breaking established norms such as trespassing in stores after closing hours. In an effort to spur new research into customer deviance, we propose a customer deviance framework encompassing the triggers, behaviors, and consequences of customer deviance with attention given to differentiating firms, employees, and other customers as the possible targets of deviant behaviors. We outline prevention strategies that comprise social, design, and technological-oriented factors, which in turn can help firms better manage deviant behavior. In doing so, we identify gaps in the literature and close with an actionable agenda for future research that can help firms curtail these negative customer behaviors.

Carsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental-friendly alternative to individual car ownership. However, various carsharing programs have displayed limited success in the past. An initial field study of a new carsharing service is such a story of failure: The introduction of this new service at a medium-sized German university generated unexpectedly low adoption rates so that the service was eventually scaled down and then suspended. Quantitative field study results as well as additional qualitative focus groups reveal that missing compatibility is a key barrier to adoption. Drawing on extant conceptual frameworks of user participation in sharing business models, a factorial survey identifies the importance of different dimensions of carsharing business models for their acceptance. The results reveal that a set of convenience and lifestyle dimensions influences usage intentions, including mode of drive, pickup and drop-off mode, service level, price model, availability, and type of market mediation. In contrast, vehicle fleet does not appear to influence carsharing models' acceptance. These findings contribute to research on business model configuration as well as the attitude-behavior gap in the sharing economy by determining relevant dimensions of a carsharing business model that can bridge the gap between basically positive attitudes and usage resistance. Thereby, they also serve for concrete managerial recommendations.

Consumers patronize different store formats to purchase products. Prior literature describes store and format choices for big, multi-item shopping baskets, but limited insights determine consumers' unique shopping routines when they seek to buy just one or a few items while on the go. Such shopping situations might affect consumers' format selections for both search and experience goods. This study uses multi-attribute utility theory to develop a framework, tested with a scenario-based experiment. For search goods, a format's economic utility (price level, speed) is more important; its functional utility (quality, variety) and psychological utility (atmosphere, service) become less important considerations. Furthermore, the tolerable range of formats is larger for search goods. The level of on-the-go purchase and consumption frequency moderates these effects. Therefore, this research helps to clarify what drives consumers' format selections in on-the-go shopping situations, with useful managerial insights for how retailers can compete in the growing on-the-go market.

Kollaborativer Konsum, der durch eigentumsersetzende Dienstleistungen ermöglicht wird, ist eine Form der Markttransaktion, die zunehmend verbreitet ist. Im vorliegend Beitrag wird zunächst kollaborativer Konsum von verwandten Konstrukten abgegrenzt. Hierzu werden drei Kriterien herangezogen: (1) Anzahl und Typ von Akteuren, (2) Art des Austausches, (3) Direktheit des Austausches. Durch systematisches Aufarbeiten der Literatur wird ein Bezugsrahmen entwickelt, der die Rollen der Akteure im kollaborativen Konsum nach drei Dimensionen beschreibt: Motive, Aktivitäten und Ressourcen sowie Fähigkeiten. Basierend auf einer qualitativen Studie mit Wissenschaftlern sowie mit Praktikern werden abschließend Forschungslücken herausgearbeitet.

Trading communities provide non-commercial members with an online platform on which to exchange goods. Its success depends on member participation; however, little is known about its drivers. Based on literature we identify five drivers. To capture their impact over time,we test a latent growth curve model with longitudinal data, comparing the effects at an initial point of time with their impact on the growth of member participation over three subsequent periods. The results show that providers’ responsiveness and community identification have a positive effect on the initial level, but not on growth. Members’ enjoyment has no level effect, but a growth effect. Only role clarity has an impact on level and growth. Interestingly, co-members’ cooperation weakens member participation, which leads us to conclude that too much cooperation – which appears as professionalism in a trading community – ‘kills’ member participation. We conclude with theoretical and managerial implications.

Purpose The collaborative economy (CE), and within it, collaborative consumption (CC) has become a central element of the global economy and has substantially disrupted service markets (e.g. accommodation and individual transportation). The purpose of this paper is to explore the trends and develop future scenarios for market structures in the CE. This allows service providers and public policy makers to better prepare for potential future disruption. Design/methodology/approach Thought experiments – theoretically grounded in population ecology (PE) – are used to extrapolate future scenarios beyond the boundaries of existing observations. Findings The patterns suggested by PE forecast developmental trajectories of CE leading to one of the following three future scenarios of market structures: the centrally orchestrated CE, the social bubbles CE, and the decentralized autonomous CE. Research limitations/implications The purpose of this research was to create CE future scenarios in 2050 to stretch one’s consideration of possible futures. What unfolds in the next decade and beyond could be similar, a variation of or entirely different than those described. Social implications Public policy makers need to consider how regulations – often designed for a time when existing technologies were inconceivable – can remain relevant for the developing CE. This research reveals challenges including distribution of power, insularity, and social compensation mechanisms that need consideration across states and national borders. Originality/value This research tests the robustness of assumptions used today for significant, plausible market changes in the future. It provides considerable value in exploring challenges for public policy given the broad societal, economic, and political implications of the present market predictions.

One of the most striking recent developments in the professional services market has been the emergence of digital job platforms that connect freelancers to buyers. Drawing on language expectancy theory, this study demonstrates that it is the (un)conventional use of selling influencing tactics relative to buyer expectations that determines bidding success. An empirical text-mining study using more than 580,000 freelance bids demonstrates that excessive use of information exchange and ingratiation in bid formulations reduces bidding success, whereas for recommendations and inspirational appeals it increases the chance of landing the job. In contrast, the conventional use of promises increases bidding success. Further, both the level of freelancers’ experience and their ability to adapt the bids’ linguistic style to the buyers’ call-for-bids increases the range of normative bandwidth such that any violation in SIT use improves the chances of winning the bid.