Sharing economy: becoming an Uber driver in a developing country

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze why people have become suppliers in the sharing economy (SE) as Uber drivers in a developing country. Design/methodology/approach From a background on SE, car sharing and gig economy, the authors carried out a qualitative research. The analysis was bas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Revista de gestão 2019-05, Vol.26 (2), p.143-160
Main Authors: Valente, Eduardo, Patrus, Roberto, Córdova Guimarães, Rosana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automobile drivers
Car pools
car sharing
Collaboration
Commodities
Consumption
Developing countries
Gig economy
Internet
LDCs
Linux
Production capacity
Qualitative research
Ride sharing services
Sharing economy
uber
Unemployment
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Summary:Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze why people have become suppliers in the sharing economy (SE) as Uber drivers in a developing country. Design/methodology/approach From a background on SE, car sharing and gig economy, the authors carried out a qualitative research. The analysis was based on 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with Uber drivers, and on the authors’ participant observation as Uber drivers and passengers in the third largest Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte. Findings Empirical evidence shows that becoming an Uber driver is more a matter of solving unemployment on a more permanent way rather than a search for a temporary and flexible work to supplement income. Although there are benefits related to flexibility, income and social interactions, negative externalities identified herein lead to the conclusion that the overall work relations and conditions are negative. Originality/value Much in the literature of the SE is focused on understanding consumer behavior; this research, on the contrary, is focused on understanding producers, which indicates an incipient perspective. The contributions of this paper show that the SE merges into different distributive decentralized means of production that are seeing as profit/income generated from shareable assets.
ISSN:2177-8736
1809-2276
2177-8736
DOI:10.1108/REGE-08-2018-0088