Research Purpose & Design

44 4. METHODOLOGY

In the following section, the methodological approach for answering the research question of this thesis will be introduced. As a first step, the research purpose and design will be

elaborated on. Subsequently, the empirical foundation of this thesis will be introduced.

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rigorous qualitative methods and data. In the second and third research papers (chapters III and IV) of this thesis, in-depth interviews and natural occurring data from app reviews are used to shed light on some of the tensions experienced by these partially-organized multi-sided markets in the Nordic countries and the United States. Furthermore, the first and fourth paper of this thesis, which are of a conceptual nature and based on illustrative examples from secondary data demonstrating the diffusion of this phenomenon (chapter II) and on the organization of multi-sided markets (chapter V), respectively, contribute to the further theoretical development of the sharing economy phenomenon.

Although it might be tempting to phrase the research design as a deliberate and rational process, the reality of this PhD dissertation is that the focus on the sharing economy phenomenon was sparked and grew out of the author’s involvement in the MISTRA Future Fashion project, which originally called for a PhD study investigating the barriers to the

consumption of sustainable fashion by young consumers in different retail environments. While trying to identify relevant alternative fashion retail spaces, sharing economy initiatives, such as the Copenhagen based fashion library Resecond, emerged as a new phenomenon. Initially, secondary research was conducted on the phenomenon to understand its framing in the media, identify its main actors, and map the different fashion-sharing initiatives.

This first stage of the PhD project provided not only the groundwork for chapters II and V of this thesis, but also for the consecutive empirical fieldwork. Following the initially exploratory study on Scandinavian fashion libraries (chapter III), extensive fieldwork was carried out on fashion initiatives in the sharing economy around the world, yielding a total number of 25

semi-structured interviews with representatives from fashion-sharing schemes and sharing economy experts from Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, UK, and the US, using an extended version of the interview guide developed for the fashion library research (see Table 2). So far, only a fraction of the data material collected through this fieldwork has found its way to publication, through the research papers contained within this thesis.

46 Table 2: Overview Sharing Economy Interviews

Name City Country Format Date Length

1 Resecond Copenhagen Denmark In person Feb-2013 69 minutes 2 Lånegarderoben Stockholm Sweden Skype Feb-2013 58 minutes 3 Helsinki Fashion Library Helsinki Finland Skype Feb-2013 50 minutes

4 Klädoteket Malmö Sweden Skype Feb-2013 72 minutes

5 Rentez-vous Paris & London England Skype Feb-2013 55 minutes 6 Fashion Hire Manchester UK Skype Feb-2014 25 minutes 7 Anywear Copenhagen Denmark In person Feb-2014 44 minutes 8 Kleiderkreisel/Vinted Munich Germany Skype Feb-2014 50 minutes 9 SwapAmok Copenhagen Denmark In person Mar- 2014 76 minutes 10 Twice San Francisco USA In person Mar- 2014 57 minutes 11 Poshmark San Francisco USA In person Mar- 2014 34 minutes 12 Trendsales Copenhagen Denmark In person Apr-2014 82 minutes

13 Grownies Barcelona Spain Skype Apr-2014 34 minutes

14 The Clothing Swap San Francisco USA In person Apr-2014 60 minutes 15 Le Tote San Francisco USA In person Apr-2014 40 minutes

16 Retroca Sao Paulo Brazil Skype Apr-2014 26 minutes

17 Yerdle San Francisco USA In person Apr-2014 37 minutes 18 Shareable San Francisco USA In person Apr-2014 52 minutes 19 Expert Sharing Economy San Francisco USA Skype Apr-2014 30 minutes 20 Expert Sharing Economy San Francisco USA In person Apr-2014 63 minutes 21 Expert Sharing Economy San Francisco USA Skype Apr-2014 39 minutes 22 Sharing Economy Lawyer San Francisco USA In person Apr-2014 37 minutes 23 ReFashioner New York USA In person May-2014 30 minutes 24 99dresses New York USA In person May-2014 40 minutes 25 Date My Wardrobe Boston USA In person May-2014 50 minutes

Despite a number of cases located in Europe, the majority of cases studied were clustered around San Francisco, which justified onsite fieldwork in the spring of 2014. This fieldwork provided not only the data material and illustrative examples from secondary data for chapter V of this thesis but also generated the idea to use natural occurring data connected to these platforms for gaining insight into how users experience the sharing economy (i.e., chapter IV).

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A qualitative approach has been chosen to study the new sharing economy phenomenon from within, i.e., from the perspective of the actors operating within this environment (Flick et al., 2007). This approach is seen as preferential in order to generate a better understanding of the social realities experienced by its actors and explore the processes, patterns and structures inductively, instead of testing hypotheses based on well-established theories (Flick, 2015).

While quantitative approaches would allow for a more objective and generalizable study of the phenomenon, the chosen qualitative approach is deemed particularly useful in the context of this underexplored phenomenon, which allows for a more open, holistic approach (ibid.). The rigor and robustness of the study - and transferability of the results - were achieved by

employing data and investigator triangulation, i.e., the combination of multiple cases, and thus multiple data sources, as well as two researchers collecting, coding, and analyzing the

empirical material (chapters III and IV). While the different steps of the research process and logic of the thesis and the individual research papers have been described in-depth

(contributing to the coherence, consistency, and credibility of this thesis), the results have to be considered as somewhat dependent on the context in which the data was gathered and

analyzed. Empirical material collected on tensions in the sharing economy will always reflect the status quo of the field, such as current law suits informing the public discourse or app updates informing the attitude of reviewers. While following the same procedures and reanalyzing the empirical material from this thesis might produce the same findings and conclusions, a renewed data collection of the studied cases will most likely produce additional or different findings, reflecting the developments and changes in the field.