Sharing Economy and Sustainability Logic: Analyzing the Use of Shared Bikes.
| Autor | Rechene, Suzenny T. |
| Cargo | Bicicletar project in Fortaleza, Ceara - Report |
Introduction
The complexities involved in the sustainability construct have been developing over the years (Claro, Claro, & Amancio, 2008). To be sustainable, from the entrepreneurial to the individual context, new behaviors and perceptions are required in order to address one of the main challenges of sustainable actions: the construction of a logic capable of institutionalizing these actions in organizations (Munk, Souza, & Zagui, 2012). The incorporation of new practices in this change of logic has given a new meaning to the context of development in society. Hence, new practices create variations of problem solving (Souza-Silva & Davel, 2007). In this way, the logic of capital accumulation and our way of using nature gives way to a new set of values for society, focusing on respect for the environment and on alternative development, which become important aspects to be considered in the market.
Therefore, the possibility of change "as an alteration of standards and rules to ensure conformity and reduce risks and uncertainties" (Carvalho, Andrade, & Mariz, 2005, p. 3) in institutional theory advances towards a sense of sharing organization, recognition that the actors involved will solve problems and make decisions based on a list of alternatives available in the current institutional logic (IL) (Lounsbury, 2007). Considering that different logics may exist in society, among which sustainability may be a focus, Silva and Figueiredo (2017) propose the institutional logic of sustainability (ILS). ILS can highlight a debate about how sustainability can be observed and practiced as a result of socially constructed actions and intentions (Silva & Figueiredo, 2017).
Regarding practice, according to Cavalcante and Bispo (2014), one must understand that "it goes beyond the notion of routine, individual action or simply doing a certain activity" (p. 7). It is a socially sustained action that enables conceivable social order (Gherardi, 2013). Thus, sustainability understood as a practice is "a phenomenon that occurs in the daily routine, in a particular and situated way, involving human and nonhuman elements that mutually influence each other in the conception of the organization" (Cavalcante & Bispo, 2014, p. 9). This perspective contributes to the understanding of the institutional logic and the practical identification of how sustainability can be understood as a verb, with a linked action, and not a noun (Silva & Figueiredo, 2017).
In this process of change and adaptation to a new social context, Barbieri, Vasconcelos, Andreassi and Vasconcelos (2010) emphasize that organizations have looked at innovation as a way to meet the three sustainability dimensions, and that this fact has institutionalized a new production logic based on sustainability. From this point of view, Gansky (2011) argues that resource reduction and increased urban density have forced traditional business models to find new practices in the use of technology and social networks. In light of this, collaborative market systems, including sharing economy (SE), have emerged as important alternatives to the capitalist format and can be paths that lead to sustainability (Heinrichs, 2013; Rifkin, 2016).
Sharing Economy has used market intelligence to promote a more collaborative and sustainable society (Frenken & Schor, 2017; Heinrichs, 2013). In this context, within the conceptual apparatus of organizational institutionalization (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), the concept of IL is a prolific field for the understanding of the meanings attributed by society to these practices within the sharing economy. Martin (2015) mention the relation of SE with a new IL and a fertile field within a socio-technical transition. There are several contexts that can be studied following this vision. Within the framework of SE, sharing vehicles appears as a prominent example towards sustainability (Heinrichs, 2013; Martin, 2016).
Thus, the implementation of shared bikes, the first sharing vehicle model in the city of Fortaleza-CE, is proposed to open the discussion about the formation of ILS, with the case of the Bicicletar Project, the object of this study. The project briefing presents itself as a "sustainability project" (Bicicletar, 2014, our translation), which is relevant to stimulate a debate around sustainability logic. Here, the shared bikes represent SE and contribute to sustainable mobility, following the station-based model (Vaskelainen & Munzel, in press). Therefore, the objective of this research is to understand the formation of ILS from the implementation of shared bikes in the city of Fortaleza-CE, Brazil.
This research is justified by the use of an emerging theoretical discussion that looks, through its dimensions (event sequencing, institutional entrepreneurship, structure overlap, and sustainability practice), to understand ways in which it will be possible to incorporate sustainability in different contexts. The research seeks to contribute to a greater consistency in the construction of theory related to sustainability, as well as to facilitate the understanding of the sharing economy as an economic system that can contribute to sustainability. To better understand the research, in addition to this introduction, discussions presented below will enable the identification of the research conclusions.
Theoretical Framework
This section presents the main elements that guided the research. For this, sustainability is understood as a solution to different environmental problems that affect both the economic and social issues of human life (Iyer-Raniga & Treloar, 2000).
The institutional logic of sustainability
Faced with the constant changes and uncertainties imbued with issues involving sustainability, the institutional perspective has proved to have a favorable theoretical approach for its understanding. With a movement that started in the 1970s, the institutional prism had economists and sociologists as precursors that deepened and solidified its theory (Carvalho, Vieira, & Lopes, 1999). For Guarido, Machado-da-Silva and Goncalves (2009), this is one approach to study one of the most prolific organizations. Thus, from the IL conception, the necessary contribution was found to support the selected perspective of the formation of a logic related to sustainability (Silva & Figueiredo, 2017).
The institutional perspective allows the recognition of different rationalities in the organizational space, and to consider sharing values in the environment as an object of organizational analysis, providing answers that traditional approaches don't allow (Carvalho et al., 1999). Thus, IL is an approach that considers both the material and the symbolic in its analysis and is an approach that seeks to understand how cultural aspects influence organizational change (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). The change process in organizations results in a logic based on the legitimacy given to the same set of structures and symbols by different actors.
From this perspective, it is necessary to consider that logic is understood by the ancient philosophers as an instrument that observes the way in which a reasoning was constituted, providing knowledge of something from another (Chaui, 2010). Thus, the construction of an IL occurs through a socially constructed identity that generates meaning to its reality (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). For Friedland and Alford (1991) and Thornton (2002), segments of society such as family, state, and corporations, amongst others, provide a varied set of logics, responsible for conflicts or institutional conformities, if we consider that these logics may diverge or complement each other.
Thus, IL can be understood as a meta-theory, capable of integrating the individual, organizational and institutional levels (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). In this sense, institutional logics are comprised of frames of reference or sets of material practices and symbolic constructions that constitute the organizational principles of an institutional order (Friedland & Alford, 1991), being defined by Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804) as "historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules, socially constructed". Such a view helps individuals (a) to produce and reproduce their subsistence materials, (b) organize time and space, and (c) generate meaning for their social reality.
By considering this perspective, the practice is considered one of the central elements responsible for institutionalization in organizations (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), since it is situated in their historical, social and cultural contexts (Nicolini, Gherardi, & Yanow, 2003). However, there is a concern about the loss of critical power when practice is considered as only what people do, restricting their meaning to the routine (Gherardi, 2013). It should be pointed out that the conception adopted in this paper is that "practices are not only recurrent patterns of action (level of production) but also recurrent patterns of socially sustained action (production and reproduction)" (Gherardi, 2013, pp. 108-109).
In order to conceive IL, it is necessary to consider important characteristics that are pointed out as central to its formation. This formation is understood as the action of constituting a whole from parts, or promoting a corpus by means of its attributes. In this way, characteristics considered essential for the formation of IL are: the economic system, sources of identity, sources of legitimacy, sources of authority, bases of mission, bases of attention, bases of strategy, institutional governance, institutional entrepreneurship, event sequencing, and structure overlap (Thorton & Ocasio, 2008).
These characteristics are accepted by Silva and Figueiredo (2017) as the basis for the design of the ILS. However, these authors postulate that to discuss this construct, it is possible to examine only three of these characteristics: institutional...
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