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Master’s Dissertation Self-empowerment within the collaborative movement A study of the actors’ motivations for taking part in the collaborative movement and its effect on a personal level. Author: Coline Gabillard & Thomas van der Heijden Supervisor: Pr. Dr. Kjell Arvidsson Examiner: Pr. Dr. Philippe Daudi Date: 2015-05-31 Subject: Business Administration Level: Master’s Thesis Course code: 15VT-4FE74E Acknowledgement Firstly, we would particularly like to thank Pr. Dr. Philippe Daudi for his fruitful intellectual suggestions that he gave us during our path, and for giving us the opportunity to participate in his program. It enabled us to develop, to grow and to give birth to this thesis. Secondly, we are also very grateful to our tutor, Kjell Arvidsson. He guided us through our entire process, gave us relevant feedback and support, and showed great accessibility and availability. Thirdly, we would like to thank the entire tutors team for their help and encouragements during the feedback sessions, as well as Terese Nilsson for her support and her commitment during the entire year. Then, we would like to thank our friends and families for their advice, their support and for listening to our doubts and passionate speeches. Finally, and most importantly, we are very thankful for all the participants that shared their experiences with us: Casey Fenton, Gary Oppenheimer, Gee Chuang, Dan Newman, Laura Ericksson, Dano Pianesi, Félix Le Méhauté, Yonglin Jia, Pavel Reich, Thomas Garel, as well as Elena Denaro for her help and advice. Me, Coline Gabillard, would like to thank my dear friend Thomas, for our fruitful exchanges, his support, his laugh, his love and his enlightening presence. The path of our thesis would have been way more painfull without his energy and his drive. Thank you for making me evolve, grow, think and laugh. Me, Thomas van der Heijden would like to thank my friend and companion Coline. Working with you was enriching for me, both on personal and academic level. Our daily rhythm, good lunches and beautiful walks made me truly enjoy our intellectual path. i Declaration We hereby certify that this master’s thesis was written by our own. Furthermore, we confirm the proper indication of all used sources. Kalmar, 31th of May 2015 Coline Gabillard Thomas van der Heijden ii Abstract This thesis focuses primary on the actors of the collaborative movement and their motivations and reasons for participating in it. The notion of the collaborative movement was developed during our process as well as the notion of self- empowerment. Two series of interviews have been led with founders of organizations acting within the collaborative movement and users of one of these platforms. From the analysis of the collected data we tried to answer our two research questions: what does lead the actors of the collaborative movement to be part of it? To what extent do they empower themselves? The results indicate that the actors of this movement do empower themselves through their participation. However the level of self-empowerment would depend on the degree of involvement. Moreover, it appeared that self-empowerment is not only an effect of their participation but also the motivation for it. Keywords Collaborative movement, sharing, peer-to-peer platforms, self-empowerment, empowerment, development, leading oneself, community. iii Table of contents 1 Introduction 7 1.1 The context, cradle of our reflections 7 1.2 The path of reflection to our research 8 1.3 Thesis outline 10 1.4 Relevance of our research 11 2 Methodology 13 2.1 Our approach and our use of the grounded theory 14 2.1.1 Our approach 14 2.1.2 Secondary data 16 2.1.3 Primary data 17 2.2 Analysis procedures 25 2.2.1 Treatment of the quantitative data 25 2.2.2 Coding procedures 26 3 What is the collaborative movement? 28 3.1 Literature review of the associated concepts 28 3.2 The collaborative movement, its frame and its definition 31 3.2.1 It is not only collaborative consumption 31 3.2.2 It is not only access-based economy 32 3.2.3 It is not sharing economy 32 3.2.4 Definition of the collaborative movement 33 3.3 Typology of the collaborative movement 35 3.3.1 Literature review of the typologies 36 3.3.2 Classification according to the resources and to the exchanges 36 3.3.3 Classification according to the activity 38 3.3.4 Classification according to the life-cycle 38 3.3.5 Classification according to the sector 39 3.3.6 The retained typology 41 3.4 The drivers of the collaborative movement 42 3.4.1 Web 2.0 43 3.4.2 The resurgence of community 44 3.4.3 The idling resources 46 3.4.4 The growing environmental concerns 47 3.4.5 The diversion from the traditional leadership pillars 47 3.4.6 A shift in ideologies 48 4 Self-empowerment 50 4.1 Literature review of the concept of empowerment 50 4.2 Self-empowerment, its frame and its definition 54 4.2.1 What self-empowerment is not 54 4.2.2 Definition of self-empowerment 56 5 Analysis 57 5.1 Analysis of qualitative data: First series of interviews with founders and an employee of the collaborative movement 57 5.1.1 Description of the categories 58 5.1.2 Relations between the categories 61 5.1.3 Analysis of the categories in a theoretical lens 63 5.2 Analysis of quantitative data: questionnaire amongst users of Couchsurfing 67 5.2.1 Demographics of our sample 67 5.2.2 Motivations 69 iv 5.3 Analysis of qualitative data: second series of interviews with users of Couchsurfing 71 5.3.1 Description of the categories 72 5.3.2 Relations between the categories 74 5.3.3 Analysis of the categories in a theoretical lens 76 5.3.4 Summary of the analysis 79 6 Conclusion 81 6.1 Bringing answers to our research questions 81 6.2 Reflections about our path 84 6.3 Suggestions for further researches 85 References 86 Appendices I Appendix A Questionnaire addressed to users of Couchsurfing I v Table of tables Table 1: Interviewees of the first series 19 Table 2: Interviewees of the second series 21 Table 3: Different terminologies and definitions of the related concepts of the collaborative movement. 29 Table 4: Different classifications of the collaborative movement 36 Table 5: Drivers of the collaborative movement 42 Table 6: Different terminologies and definitions of the related concepts of self-empowerment 50 Table 7: Categories created from the first series of interviews 71 Table 8: Summarized motivations and their links to theory 79 Table of figures Figure 1: Gansky’s matrix 37 Figure 2: Life-cycle of the collaborative movement 38 Figure 3: The collaborative movement’s honeycomb 40 Figure 4: Relations between the categories related to the first series of interviews 63 Figure 5: Logic links leading to the connection between self-development and self-empowerment 65 Figure 6: Gender of the respondents of the questionnaire 67 Figure 7: Age of the respondents of the questionnaire 68 Figure 8: Occupation of the respondents of the questionnaire 68 Figure 9: Relations between the categories related to the second series of interviews 76 Figure 10: Logic links leading to the connection between positive outcome and self-empowerment 78 vi Self-empowerment in the collaborative movement – Introduction 1 Introduction This chapter aims to give the reader an overview of the context in which our reflections grew, the path of these reflections and their relevance from an academic point of view. 1.1 The context, cradle of our reflections In 2008, the American tires company, Goodyear, decided to lay off 400 of its French employees, due to the general difficult economic context for western countries. Five years later, the site of Amiens, in northern France, definitively closed its doors, leaving about 1200 persons unemployed (Gumball 2013). Led by a labor-union, the former employees gathered and intended to buy their factory and to create a Scope, a cooperative and participative firm status (Aizicovici & Rodier 2013). Goodyear’s workers are not an isolated example. The employees of My Ferry Link, Hélio Corbeil or les Atelières had already struggled to gain ownership of their company, turning their back to the traditional leadership and engaging themselves in a self-governance experience (Aizicovici & Rodier 2013). The economic crisis of 2008 did not only weaken the Western economies but also highlighted ethical and moral issues. The financial institutions were blamed for their lack of judgment, of ethical considerations and for their greed (Cable 2012). However, the crisis did not put an end to these drifts and misconducts. The global economy has been tarnished by many other scandals ever since, such as the recent Libor scandal or the general discussion around some of the CEOs’ high wages and bonuses. Furthermore, the political sphere has also been touched by discreditable behaviors, increasing the mistrust in the political power and its leaders (European Social Survey 2012). Similarly to the employees of Goodyear, who organized themselves to reverse the leadership of their firm, other initiatives have been observed, but outside the boundaries of the organizations, to bypass the traditional leadership pillars and fulfill their missions themselves. These pillars involve institutionalized organizations such as firms or governmental institutions. Indeed, one can see an increasing number of actions that stimulates and facilitates the exchange of goods and services without passing by classic organizations, especially since 2008. The search of new financing means, for instance, has been found in systems such as crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending, avoiding resorting to banks or other financial 7 Gabillard & van der Heijden Self-empowerment in the collaborative movement – Introduction institutions (Lin 2009).

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