1. 1
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband Aidas for his support and
chivalrous take-over of my part of the daily burden. I would like to thank my two sons,
who were real troopers from beginning till the end of this process – their independence,
wit, wisdom and support make me one proud mamytė. Learning is a life-long process
and I hope you will understand my words and follow my footsteps when your time
comes.
Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Dr. Wendy van den Broeck.
Her advice was my guiding star in sometimes very dark nights of going through the
writing process. Dr. van den Broeck sets high standards and meets them!
I would also like to thank all the respondents, who found and gave their precious time to
share their insights, experiences and ideas. This research would not have happened
without you!
Finally, I would like to thank my friends who were happy and proud for me, who did not
forget me during a year of absence. To my friends, who felt inspired and motivated by
my choice to get back to studying.
Ačiū! Thank you! Dank je well!

2. 2
Index
List of tables, figures and appendices 5
Abstract 6
Introduction 8
Research question 9
Social and scientific relevance 12
Part 1: Literature Review 15
Chapter 1: Sharing Economy 16
1.1. Many faces of the sharing economy 16
1.2. Defining sharing economy 17
1.3. Categories of the sharing economy 22
Chapter 2: Motivation to participate in the sharing economy 25
2.1. Individualistic reasons for participating 27
2.1.1. Economic reasons 27
2.1.2. Status boost 27
2.1.3. Therapeutic benefit 28
2.2. Social- Environmental reasons 29
2.2.1. Sharing – natural behaviour 29
2.2.2. Sustainability 29
2.2.3. Enjoyment 30

3. 3
Chapter 3: Uber 31
3.1. Uber – a part of the sharing economy? 35
3.2. Creating new jobs? 37
3.3. Respecting passenger safety regulations? 37
Chapter 4: Who is the Uber user? 38
Chapter 5: Conclusions 40
Part 2: Empirical framework 42
Chapter 6: Methodological research design 43
6.1. Research Design. Qualitative research 43
6.2. Single Case Study 45
6.3. Data Collection 46
6.3.1. Convenience sampling 46
6.3.2. Semi-structured Interviews 47
6.4. Overview of Interview respondents 48
6.5. Data Analysis 51
6.6. Limitations and delimitations 53
Chapter 7: Results 55
7.1. The coding tree 56
Chapter 8: Concept 57
Chapter 9: Uber –positive motivation 60
9.1. Price 61
9.2. Innovation 62
9.3. Accessibility / availability 63
9.4. Trust / ratings 64

4. 4
9.5. Customer care 67
9.6. Application (app) 68
9.6.1. Ease of use 69
9.6.2. Travel expenses management 69
9.6.3. Time management 69
9.6.4. Route Transparency 70
9.7. Image 70
9.8. Socio-environmental impact 72
9.9. Concerns 73
Chapter 10: Uber-negative perception 76
10.1. Image 77
10.2. Socio-economic impact 79
10.3. Price 82
10.4. Customer Care 84
10.5. Trust / ratings 84
10.6. Innovation 85
10.7. Legality 86
10.8. Conclusion 87
Chapter 11: Strengths and key obstacles to success 88
11.1. Strengths 89
11.2. Weaknesses 90
11.3. Opportunities 91
11.4. Threats 92
Conclusion 93
Bibliography 98
Appendices 114

5. 5
Tables, figures and appendices
TABLE
Table 1: Description of the interview respondents 50
FIGURES
FIGURE 1: Coding tree 56
APPENDICES 114
Appendix 1 Audio files of in-depth interviews
Appendix 2 Transcriptions in-depth interviews
Appendix 3 Detailed Coding

6. 6
Abstract
This qualitative research focuses on understanding the reasons why certain people
choose to use Uber and the reasons certain people do not, as well as what lessons can
be learned by Users, similar services and Uber itself.
Uber is not only one of the best known actors among the newly emerged online
platforms, but with 10 million downloaded apps and operations in nearly 200 cities of the
world, Uber is often considered one of the most controversial online platforms. The
study focuses on determining what are the most important characteristics of this
platform that make respondents become customers or not to become their customers,
as well as what Uber’s key success factors are and on the failures to avoid.
This study has been built on 20 qualitative in–depth interviews with Uber users and non-
users. The main findings include price, image, trust, innovation and socio-economic-
environmental factors as the determining ones in respondents’ motivation and
perception regarding Uber. The researcher also discovered that the same factor (e.g.
mutual ratings) may play a motivating and a demotivating role insofar as the users’
choice to use this platform or not is concerned. The extrapolation of opinions is
seemingly clear – even seemingly homogeneous opinions divide at one point or
another.
The research allowed identifying that opinions diverge not only about Uber per se. Uber
is regarded as a part of the sharing economy, which subsequently evoked positive
motivation to participate or negative perception.

7. 7
Yet one more finding involves the concept of the sharing economy. The concept of the
sharing economy is so broad and multidimensional and overlapping, that it is not easy
to define it precisely. Multiple terms ( “sharing economy”, collaborative consumption”,
“pseudo sharing”, “on-demand consumption”, “access economy” etc.) are being used
to define a swarm of existing and developing activities use information technologies to
link service and good providers with service and goods seekers avoiding intermediaries.
However, what happens even more often is that all online-enabled activities of matching
supply and demand are swept under the title of the sharing economy, even though there
is no sharing collaboration involved. Having a single definition on what the sharing
economy is might contribute to a more successful regulation and administration of
platforms. Moreover, it might bring more clarity to user’s participation motivation.
Lastly, referring to the lessons that can be learned from the Uber experience, the main
finding involves the importance of customer care as well as adhering to the existing
laws and country-specific public relations when entering a new market or developing a
business activity.
Keywords: Uber, User, sharing economy, collaborative consumption, user,
user-motivation,
Number of words: 24761

8. 8
Introduction
The previous forty years of the contemporary world witnessed information becoming
one of the paramount features of society (Webster, 2002). Predominance of information,
abundance of information technologies, manipulation and creation of information,
overall use of information technologies in the life of an individual, group, country, parts
of the world led to its name – Information Society. Dynamised by the Internet and
ubiquitous smartphones, society has experienced a series of changes. New
technologies gave a different shape and speed to information flows, everyday life, policy
making, privacy, labour market and provided countless new business patterns and
opportunities to be taken up. The rapid adoption of new technology has transformed
many aspects of our culture, commerce, education and communication (…) (Wallace,
S., Clark, M., White, J., 2012:1). The recent explosion of social media and social
networking, the notion of “[…] anywhere anytime being connected” (Webster, 2002:3)
enabled users to become creators of information. The feeling of engagement and
empowerment, technological tools and an overall access to social media networks and
platforms even led to social revolutions, like the Arab Spring in 2011 (Castells, 2012).
Emerging from the Information Society, a new mode of development, based on digital
technologies, overcoming time and space limits, allowing users to manage their
interests and activities globally in real time, was crystallized at the end of the twentieth
century. Thus, according to M. Castells, three pillars: time, space and technology, are
the basis of the new social structure -Network Society, “a social formation “where
personal micro-networks (…) project their interests in functional macro-networks
through the global set of interactions” (1996:416). Contrary to the assumption of being
a purely technological system, networks, for M. Castells, are networks of digital
technology- enabled communication, “space of flows” and “timeless time” (1996:378),
globalization processes which “evolve from multinational entities to international
networks” (1996:192). M. Castells (1996), states that globalization is a result of

9. 9
interconnectedness of culture, power, production and experience that are constantly
affected by technological innovations, and global markets are shaped and changed by
information technologies i.e. power is no longer a top-down process coming from
corporations or governments, power lies in the network (with the ability to include or
exclude) that connects the users and enables the information flow.
The low cost of using and the wide reach of global networks increases the advantages
of e-commerce - entitling and enabling the development of new economic concepts,
business models and new customer habits.
Research Question
Sharing, which went alongside humanity through all its developmental stages, has
recently become an important player in the economy, relying fully on the power of social
networking, and information communication technologies in building their services.
Sharing economy is quite new to users and to providers. However, it is present and is
growing rapidly, making us grow and change with it.
The discourse on the sharing economy saw the light of the day in the middle of the first
decade of the 21st
century, as the rise of social technologies enabled the appearance of
a new business model. It is a new addition to the world of economy, but also to the
vocabulary of technology research and development, consumer rights, consumer
psychology, marketing and, of course, legislation (PWC, 2015).
„Sharing economy (also known as shareconomy or collaborative consumption) refers to
peer-to-peer-based sharing of access to goods and services (coordinated through
community-based online services)” state J. Hamari et al., (2015:3) and “is the response
to the legacy economy where we tend to be reliant on resources from outside of our
communities” (Orsi, 2013:1).

10. 10
Information technology enables sharing economy to take a variety of forms – room
sharing platforms provide a possibility to access to rooms or venues (Airbnb,
Roomorama), cars and bikes (Wheelz, BlaBlaCar, Covoiturage), and taxi services
(Uber, Lyft) etc. Sharing economy differs from traditional markets because it is built on
peer-to-peer connections (Belk, 2014) and is aimed at providing individuals, enterprises,
and governments with information that enables the optimization of resources (Boyd &
Kietzmann, 2014).
Technological innovation and the development of the peer-to-peer economy has forced
more stagnant business models to look for ways to fix it in order to stay operable
(Geradin, 2015). The taxi industry is one of the best examples. Well protected by the
regulation of local authorities which limit the number of service-providing cars in nearly
any given district or a city, taxi services had barely no competition, which eventually
resulted in poor customer service, lack of vehicles, long waiting times, reluctance to
receive payment by credit card, to issue an invoice, absence of transparency in route
choice and price (Baanders and Canoy, 2010).
The author of the research, however, shares the opinion of J. Schor (2014) that
technology plays a role of a booster rather than of an initiator in the sharing economy. In
the sense, that ideas of sustainability, “utopian” (Schor, 2014:2) ideas of freedom from
corporations, communal living as well as decline of the full-time employment as a result
of the economic crisis in 2009 pushed people to diversify their income sources, look for
ways to make use of the idle assets as well as for ways to access them.
Until quite recently “it seemed that this [taxi] sector was not called to evolve and that the
users would have to put up with the service as it is” (Geradin, 2015:2). Lyft, Sidecar,
Jump, Zipcar and Uber car- or “online-enabled car transportation services” (Geradin,
2015:1), the online platforms that connect drivers and passengers, challenged the static
taxi industry.

11. 11
One of the best known actors (10 million app installations) in the online-enabled car
sharing economy is Uber. Its sleek, black, user-friendly mobile app, catchy name,
customer-oriented service and „competitive rates“ (Silverstein, 2014:1) „without the
financial, emotional, or social burdens of ownership“ (Eckhardt & Bardhi 2015:1) have
resulted in 10 million app installations.
Interestingly, despite the company’s popularity, consumers have seemingly divided into
two groups regarding Uber: trust-and-use or disparage-and-refuse to use it. Each group
seems to have very strong arguments and opinions. Based on the qualitative research
consisting of the twenty in-depth interviews the researcher tries to understand their
motivations by asking the research question:
“What are the most important factors that determine users’ decision to use Uber
or not to use it?”
As the research question may appear too broad, sub-questions have been added in
order to narrow the focus of the study:
Sub-question 1: What does Uber represent to the User?
The first sub-question is seeking to identify the perception of Uber by the users. The
researcher is interested in what aspects constitute a very positive and a very negative
image of Uber in people’s perception.
Sub-question 2: What lessons can be learned from the Uber experience?
The second sub-question seeks to crystalize a number of key success factors as well as
a number of key failure factors of Uber from the user perspective. It will look to find out
why and how and by what the users were affected by the company’s business routine
that motivated or, on the contrary, discouraged them from using this particular online

12. 12
platform, as the findings may potentially benefit other companies, or Uber itself as far as
business development, customer service or communication strategy go.
The researcher was asking on both sub-questions during the in-depth interviews.
However, the research itself is focussed on the first sub-question, i.e. motivations to use
Uber, aspects that prevent people from using Uber as well as aspects that influence
people’s perception of Uber, while the second sub-question which works as a support
for the first sub-question and would play a concluding role in the research.
Social and Scientific Relevance
„In traditional markets, consumers buy products and gain ownership. In recent years, a
transition from ownership towards accessibility can be observed across a wide variety of
markets. Whereas in the conventional situation consumers would buy products and
become the owners, in an accessibility-based system consumers pay for temporary
access-rights to a product” (Dervojeda et al., 2013:2).
With the economic crisis, unemployment rates have risen and the purchasing power of
consumers has dropped. Ubiquitous technology, environmentalist warnings, increasing
anti-globalist thinking, community building goals and micro-entrepreneurship ideas
(Dervojeda et al., 2013), have shifted consumers to peer-to-peer business models
which are centred on consumer needs as well as social relevance, from the perspective
of a service provider and consumer.
Sharing might be applicable to almost any consumer owned property and
skills/capabilities and, therefore, the estimated potential of the sharing economy is
significant, with potential annual growth exceeding 25 % (PWC, 2015).
„Research by companies in the sharing economy shows supporting evidence like: out of
1 billion cars in the world, 740 million are only occupied by just 1 person; an average

13. 13
house is filled with USD 3,000 worth of unused items, and 69% of interviewed owners
would be happy to share these items for a refund; and 80% of people indicate that
sharing makes them happy” (Contreras, 2011:1).
„The sharing economy is covering many different industries, each with its own market
potential” (Dervojeda et al., 2013:7) – peer-to-peer lending, transportation, logging, skills
and task performance are among the most popular, funded and growing spheres
(Dervojeda et al., 2013).
Apart from the direct creation of new jobs through the hiring of new staff, companies
operating in the sharing economy also generate substantial amounts of indirect
employment (Dervojeda et al., 2013). Uber alone, for example, had 160,000 drivers in
2014 whereas in 2012 there were 0 drivers (Solomon, 2015).
Uber is regarded as the most controversial among the new business model
representatives. Several authors criticize Uber and Uber’s position in the sharing
economy: even though Uber would like to be called a representative of the sharing
economy, the ride or the car are not truly shared (Geradin, 2015), it is an access
economy rather than a sharing economy (Eckhardt & Bandhi, 2015) and „sharing“ for
Uber is „a gift from PR heaven“ (Teffer, 2015:2); Uber cultivates the approach “shoot
first, argue later“ in new markets and circumvents the rules protecting both employees
and customers“ (Hooker, 2015:2); lags behind on customer data security rules
(Mueffelmann,2015). Furthermore, due to lack of an accurate definition, it is unclear
whether Uber is a representative of the sharing economy or simply “taking advantage of
the positive and progressive connotation” [of the sharing economy] (Meelen & Frenken,
2015:2). Claiming to be a high-tech company, Uber claims to have a right to not follow
taxi and labour regulations. On top of that, despite being banned in several European
cities and major cities of Brazil, Uber continues being the leader of Internet-enabled
services, grows and generates profit.

14. 14
Uber is one of the most popular among the online-enabled transportation platforms, it is
considered to be a controversial company: evokes different opinions about it and,
subsequently, attracts a lot of media attention. These reasons, in the opinion of the
researcher, make Uber an interesting case to study.
Implications of this research could help Uber and other sharing economy businesses
tailor their communication and branding as well, as it may help potential users to make
an informed decision.
In the Literature Review chapter the researcher will focus on the different definitions of
the sharing economy, on people’s possible motivation to participate in the sharing
economy. Also, the researcher will present a case study of Uber as well as the profile
of the Uber user. Next the researcher will focus on the empirical research in which the
researcher has conducted 20 in-depth interviews with people who have a strong
negative and a strong positive opinion about Uber. The following chapter is built on the
SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. Lastly, the
researcher has presented the main conclusion of the research.

15. 15
Literature Review

16. 16
Chapter 1: Sharing economy
1.1. Many faces of the Sharing Economy
The Internet, presented as “the Great Transformer” (Manyika & Roxbourgh, 2011:1) has
opened new ways for economic interaction, like online shopping. New technologies are
said to have made communication faster; information more accessible, reduced
transaction costs and stimulated growth of online consumption, allowed new business
concepts, markets, and activities to appear. “Boosters claim the new technologies (…)
yield utopian outcomes – empowerment of ordinary people, efficiency, and even lower
carbon footprints” (Schor, 2014:1).
The first examples of online sharing were founded on more idealistic (creating a
community, contributing to the ecology) grounds. Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia,
was found on the grounds of communal collaboration and contribution, with the goal of
creating communal access rather than an economic access. Later on, one might notice
a shift in motivations to creating economic value. Public relation companies, individuals
might be actually paid to contribute to Wikipedia. It might be interesting to observe a
general trend of creating an economic value in the modern sharing economy
representatives.
The birth of first the peer-to-peer market-places like eBay at first seemed like an odd
idea – because “(…) people were worried about security” (Standage, 2013:3.) and there
were a lot of differences with the regular shopping idea: instead of the habitual mode of
shopping interaction (where the customer and the seller are in real time personal
contact, the immediate and physical exchange of goods for money, the physical
presence of the shopping venue), the online shopper was left to wait and expect to
receive the paid-for purchase within a certain amount of time by postal delivery.
However, good overall online buying experience – 24 hour shopping option, access to
multiple shopping sources, return (sometimes even free return e.g. Zappos. com) and

17. 17
refund policy stimulated buyers to explore online shopping and e-commerce companies
to grow – Amazon.com, Ebay.com. The information and commerce advantages
provided by the Internet were quickly taken by a plethora of establishments (private and
governmental (http://lrv.lt/en), small (www.restaurant-centenaire.be), local
(http://efarmz.be) and global corporations (www.sony.com) worldwide offering goods
and services round the clock online.
The 2009 recession changed the buying habits of many – “renting assets became more
economically attractive and similar initiatives proliferated” (Schor, 2014:3), which gave
start to the new economy- sharing economy, with big names in the industry like Uber,
Airbnb, Lyft, Lending Club, Blablacar, etc. R. Botsman and R.Rogers suggest that the
priority of the economy shifted to having access, rather than owning (2010).
Subsequently, five sectors which, according to the Price Waterhouse Cooopers
estimate, are the main revenue generators are peer-to–peer finance, online staffing,
accommodation, car sharing and music and video streaming, with 15 billion US dollars
in revenue by year 2015 and an estimated revenue of 336 billion US dollars by 2025
(The Sharing Economy, 2015-2016). The sharing economy grew to the extent, that
every fourth respondent in the combined research in the Unites States, Canada and the
United Kingdom had used collaborative consumption products or services at least once
in 2014 (Owyang, 2014).
1.2 Defining Sharing Economy
Sharing economy, in the words of J.Hamari et al., is an “(…) umbrella concept that
encompasses several ICT developments and technologies, among others collaborative
consumption, which endorses sharing the consumption of goods and services through
online platforms” (2015:3).

18. 18
The engine of the traditional economy, according to R.Belk, is the transfer of ownership,
which defines a person, and works as an “extension of a man”, whereas the Internet
opened new ways to self-expression that try to prove the transfer of ownership being
rudimental (1988). Paradoxically, the Internet-enabled technologies gave a “second
chance” to archaic activities like sharing, swapping and collaborative vs individual
consumption. In addition, the Internet provided access and immediacy. Given a boost
by the global trends of anti-consumerism and environmentalism, it became a global
phenomenon and an economic trend.
As mentioned earlier, the concept of sharing is not novel. As a joint use of space or
resources, one might say, sharing was at the foundation of society. R. Belk defines
sharing as “the act and process of distributing what is ours to others for their use and/or
the act and process of receiving or taking something from others for our use”
(2007:126). The reasons for sharing can range from economic to ecological as well as
it can be acts of selflessness and kindness.
Subsequently, one may conclude, that sharing may have various aspects and has
somewhat became a constituent part of the society.
The definitions diverge upon what sharing economy is and what aspects of sharing are
more important over the others. Following the terminology established by R. Belk
(2010), sharing can be divided into “sharing in” – an act which would take place among
friends and family, friends and close circle of people and would result in “the recipient
becoming a pseudo-family” (2014:1596) enriching the recipient; “sharing out” (or,
according to J.Schor, “a stranger sharing” (2014:7)) – can be outlined as a process
taking place outside the close circle of people and is “intended as a one-time act”
(2014:1598), for example holding the elevator doors, lending a pen or contributing to a
charity event.
R. Belk (2010) insists that sharing may be furthermore sub-divided into “demand
sharing” – when the request cannot be rejected, for example when a child is asking

19. 19
his/hers parent to be fed – a sub-division of “sharing in” in this particular example; a
stranger’s request for directions –“a demand sharing” as a sub-division of a the
“sharing out”.
“Open sharing” – all supplies are at the requester’s disposal without asking, for example
“when we tell a guest “My house is your house” (2010:1596) - a sub-division of “sharing
out” which by its spirit would be more expected among the close circle of people.
In general, sharing to R.Belk (2014) may be perceived in two ways – “transfer of
ownership and reciprocal exchange (…)”.
Y.Benkler, on the other hand, insists that sharing has a more idealistic meaning, it is an
act of “non-reciprocal behaviour” (2004:278). Importantly, neither of the mentioned
activities creates debt, notices R. Belk (2014).
N.A. John observes, that “sharing is a constitutive activity on Web 2.0” (2012:113) and
adds that “sharing” is “the word that describes the mode of our participation in the social
network sites and digital communication generally” (2013:3). Hence, as the sharing
economy became a communication feature in providing information about the potential
optimization of resources – goods and services, increases the value of them, it
becomes a type of economic activity – sharing economy.
“The term “Sharing economy” was first used by Professor Lawrence Lessig at Harvard
Law School in 2008” (Kim et al., 2015:2). However businesses and consumption
patterns that were based on the concept of where access to the item became a
commodity rather than an item itself had different names.
L. Gansky (2010) uses the term “The Mesh” to describe companies that use every
possible digital social platform to extract data in order to provide people with goods or
services they need without the responsibility and burden of ownership.

20. 20
Bardhi and Eckhard (2015:2) (2012) suggest using terms of “access economy” or
“access-based consumption” as “when sharing is market-mediated – when a company
is an intermediary between consumers who do not know each other (…).[Instead of
buying,] consumers are paying to access someone else’s goods or services for a
particular period of time”
Furthermore, “pseudo-sharing” (Belk, 2014:1597) is suggested as the name for those
activities where “they often take on a vocabulary of sharing but are more accurately
short-term rental activities”.
J.Orsi finds it “difficult to define” (2013:1) what sharing economy involves but she goes
on with “it encompasses a broad range of activities, including worker cooperatives,
neighbourhood car-sharing, food cooperatives and renewable energy cooperatives.
These activities are tied together by a common means (…) and a common end (…)
(Orsi, 2015).
J.Schor admits, that “coming up with a solid definition (…) is nearly impossible” and as
the reason for that she mentions “that there is a great diversity among activities and
baffling boundaries drawn by participants”. Interestingly, without reinventing the wheel,
the author suggests to use the definitions provided by the innovators themselves, i.e.
“self-definition of the platforms” (2014:2) and definitions provided by the press (2014).
In the case study of K. Dervojeda et al., one can find a very practical and succinct
definition of the concept, as follows : ”This type of business model is not limited to
specific industry sectors, because it can, in theory, act as a broker between consumers,
for any consumer owned product or service” (2013:3). Simply, consumers perform roles
that were a businesses’ prerogative in the traditional economy.
R. Belk sees sharing economy as “use of contemporary access non-ownership models
of utilizing consumer goods and services as well as their reliance on the Internet, and
especially Web2.0, to bring it about” (Belk, 2013:1595).

21. 21
H.Heinrichs (2013) sees the sharing economy as inevitably built on one important
platform that is social media and information technologies, which gave start to online
networks and interaction within them.
Furthermore, R.Botsman and R. Rogers (2010) summarize the fact that participating in
sharing economy allows participants to experience the advantages of ownership without
being the owner, as well as to reduce costs, responsibility and contribute to minimizing
effects on the environment; they add the importance of peer trust and reputation as
being the core drivers in the sharing economy. In addition to that, a customer “(…)pays
for access instead of ownership” (Botsman, 2015:4) and altogether may benefit from the
sense of community, contribution, being a part of something meaningful and humane
(Botsman, 2015).
R.Botsman (2015) later on argues that it is peers who interact directly with the service
or goods providers, circumventing traditional economic institutions with the website as a
third party.
John, N.A. finds sharing in connection with the Web 2.0 vocabulary, where it is common
to share photographs, music, and video games knowledge. The author notes, that “the
rhetoric of sharing in Web 2.0 implies interpersonal relations on the basis of trust,
understanding, openness (…) (2013:117). Furthermore, he adds “Sharing economies
are those in which money, or more specifically, the ability to make it, is not a relevant
factor in motivating participation” (2013:118) and gives Wikipedia as an example.
Even though the role of the Internet as the enabler of networks and consequently of the
sharing economy is obvious, Y.Benkler argues, that “technology does not determine the
level of sharing. It does, however, set threshold constraints on the effective domain of
sharing as a modality of economic production” (Benkler, 2006:121). Y.Benkler adds,
that “In a broad sense, the Internet itself is a giant pool of shared content that can be

22. 22
accessed by anyone with the internet connection, a browser, and a government that
allows access to most of the Web content” (2014:1595).
From the presented definitions, one may conclude that the main drivers of the sharing
economy are information technology, which enables social media and online networks
as well as access to assets like time, space, skills and items (Botsman & Rogers, 2010)
rather than ownership-oriented market transactions. In addition to that, J. Kim et al.
(2015) suggest that benevolence is an important pillar in the sharing economy
foundation, allowing transactions like peer-to-peer crowdfunding and Food Swap to
happen.
The definitions are multiple and an individualistic interpretation of what sharing economy
is and what it is not may be observed. As there is no one official definition, it is quite
difficult to determine if a certain peer-to-peer platform might be regarded as belonging to
the sharing economy. For this Master’s Thesis, the researcher takes her own stand-
point. Based on the above-mentioned definitions, the researcher personally considers
“access” and “non-ownership model” (R. Belk (2013)) and the importance of peers who
interact directly with service providers, with the help of website circumventing traditional
economic institutions (Botsman, 2015) as the main elements in defining sharing
economy of services. As Uber is in line with these aspects of the sharing economy,
Uber, in this case, might be regarded as a part of the sharing economy.
1.3 Categories of the Sharing Economy
The amount and variety of terms correspond to the amount of new business’s aspects,
i.e. the new, creative ways assets and resources are being shared and accessed.
Sharing Economy is a vast subject, containing diverse activities and aspects of these
activities. It is somewhat necessary to divide the subject into categories that may lack
accuracy and/or may seem incomplete. This is, however, understandable and even

23. 23
expected to a certain extent, because the subject of the sharing economy is still
developing and the time will tell where it will end up.
Firstly, it is important to note that peer-to-peer activities should be divided into
monetized and non-monetized. These initiatives are aimed at community or
neighbourhood building. The example of non-monetized activity could be communal
gardens or community centres, where volunteers offer activities to neighbourhood
children. J. Schor uses the tool-library initiative as a non-monetized peer-to-peer
activity example. She states, that “these efforts are typically neighbourhood-based in
order to enhance trust and minimize (…) cost (…)” (2014:3).
J.Schor (2014): has suggested four broad categories that sharing economy may fall
into “recirculation of goods, increased utilization of durable assets, exchange of
services, and sharing of productive assets” (2014:2).
The category of recirculation of goods is best illustrated by company names like eBay
and Craigslist, providing consumer to consumer and business to consumer sales
services via internet. They have introduced (J.Schor 2014) what later on became
characteristic to the sharing economy - reputational information of a service and/or
goods provider. Popular ideas stimulated the rise of similar platforms, such as ThredUp,
Threadflip. Online free exchange websites, like Swapsyle.com and Freecycle rapidly
found their way into the online community (Schor, 2014).
A second category of platform opened the doors to using durable goods and other
assets more intensively (Schor, 2014). Spare rooms, unused cars or an almost-never-
used chain-saw or even a photo camera, etc. made more sense to be rented out rather
than just standing idle, especially in time of recession. The examples include Airbnb,
Roomorama (matchmaking between travellers and those who offer a short term
accommodation); Uber, Lyft, Jump (pairing those who need a ride with the ones
providing a ride within the city limits); Covoiturage and BlaBlaCar (providing a platform

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for those who need and offer “an inter-city transit”) (Freiberger & Sundararajan, 2015:3),
Funding Circle and Fixura (providing short term loans).
A third category, being service exchange is, as its title suggests, pairing service
providers and service seekers – TaskRabbit and Handy are the best known platforms to
serve as an example.
Sharing assets or space in order to enable production is the fourth category of the
sharing economy. Spaces like Betacowork or The Library – a co-working space in
Brussels. Initiatives like Sharebox.com - a tool sharing service; Skilshare.com – an
educational site providing access to skills and knowledge (J. Schor, 2014) could serve
as good examples of this category.
From the market orientation perspective, sharing economy platforms could be
categorized into “for-profit” – Airbnb, and “non-profit” – Data.gov and FoodSwaps.
Another possible categorization of the sharing economy is according to the market
structure, i.e. peer-to-peer platforms – lending platforms like Upstart and Funding Circle,
crowdfunding platforms – Kickstarter; business –to–peer platforms could be illustrated
with the example of Zipcar or BMW carsharing (Schor, 2014).
The concept of collaborative consumption may be regarded as a form of the sharing
economy, where traditional market activities, like lending, sharing, trading, swapping,
bartering (Botsman &Rogers, 2010) are „being reinvented” and accelerated through the
latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces(…)” (Botsman &Rogers, 2010:4;
John, 2013)”.
R.Belk emphasizes that in the definition of collaborative consumption one should always
include people “coordinating acquisition and distribution for a fee” (2014:1597).
Furthermore, R.Belk calls collaborative consumption “a middle ground “(2014:1597)
between sharing and traditional market ownership exchange and/ or “faux sharing” or
“pseudo-sharing”, because, despite the fact that there is a word “sharing” in the title

25. 25
(e.g. ride sharing), the business model they are operating on is that of short- term
renting (2014).
As far as Uber is concerned, we see that Uber fits in to the categories II (use of durable
goods and assets) as well as category III (pairing service providers and service
seekers). On top of that, Uber is, following the above mentioned categories, a “for –
profit” peer-to-peer platform. Uber also fits into the frames of the collaborative
consumption, or, more precisely – “faux sharing”, where the platform is taking a fee for
coordinating the driver/passenger pairing. However, if we assume that collaborative
consumption is a part of the sharing economy, the researcher chooses to accept that
Uber is a part of the sharing economy despite inconsistencies in the semantics and
terminology.
The next chapter is built on description and illustration of the motivations (individualistic
and socio-environmental) people might have in order to participate in the sharing
economy.
Chapter 2: Motivation to participate in the sharing economy
The public stance towards ownership and consumption has changed over the past
decade. The societal, environmental, developmental, ethical problems and concerns
(Hamari et al., 2015) boosted users’ and service providers’ motivation to look for
alternative ways to consume. Financial restraints due to economic crisis of 2008
encouraged people to look back at communities and the opportunities they can provide
as well as to find new ways to generate income. Idle assets, spare time, skills and the
guaranteed exposure to the Internet created a new wave -- the sharing economy –
around the world. Access-driven businesses accelerated, became the “mega - trend”
(Alsever, 2012). Forbes has estimated that “revenue flowing through the sharing

26. 26
economy directly into people’s wallets will surpass 3.5 billion US dollars, with growth
exceeding 25%” (Geron, 2013:1).
As discussed earlier, sharing has been an integral part of society on a smaller or
grander scale; sharing has been important in order to survive and in order to grow, to
progress as a society. Sharing should not only be associated with pre-modern
societies; such practices are still used in families and close networks, it is especially
common in financially disadvantaged communities, as well as minority communities
(Schor, 2014).
Introduction of Internet enabled smart technology (the Internet itself is fundamentally
based on the concept of sharing and collaborative consumption) gave a new boost to
the concept of sharing, and made sharing trendy and fun. Moreover, sharing turned into
movement, a response to overconsumption, excess, anti-capitalist, calling for pro-
environmentalist thinking (Schor, 2014).
However, J.Humari et al. notice, that “despite of the evident importance, there is a lack
of quantitative studies on motivational factors that affect consumers’ attitudes and
intentions towards the collaborative consumption” (2015:3).Nevertheless, Humari et al.
(2015), single out two main camps among the collaborative consumption communities -
one would be driven by the obligation to help people and the environment, and the other
would be economic reason, which is regarded as “individualistic reason for
participating” (2015:3).
2.1. Individualistic reasons for participating
2.1.1. Economic reasons
In times of economic difficulties, low cost becomes a priority, to which, being very
dynamic and quick to react, collaborative consumption platforms can offer.

27. 27
Circumventing the middlemen, peer-to-peer platforms allow to keep prices lower, which
attracts customers, and provides an opportunity to earn money, which attracts service
providers (Schor, 2014). The possibility to maintain one’s lifestyle (for example,
travelling or using a taxi) at a lower cost is the primary reason why people stick to this
business model (John, 2013) -“Individuals tend to choose the relationship that
maximizes their benefit” (Kim et al., 2015).
In addition to the economic advantages, users discover benefits of time saving and
absence of owner responsibility (Seign & Bogenberger, 2012)
2.1.2. Status Boost
The desire to increase social connections is also a common motivation” (Schor,
2014:6). J. Kim et al. notice (2015), that sharing economy provides the opportunity to
interact with other users, thus may serve to start, maintain and increase belonging to
the community, network, where everybody else is, as well as meeting new people or,
possibly, to come to know your neighbour, are well marketed, hence an important
impetus to participate in the sharing economy.
Hars and Ou add one more important motivator to participating in collaborative
consumption – it is self-marketing (2001). Thus, an active participant may be driven by
self-based reasons like status and name recognition within the community.
Gaining reputation among like-minded people is an important external factor
determining participation. Anthony et al. note that reputation is often followed by a
commitment to the community (2009). These two reasons are among the main
motivations, for example for Wikipedia editors and blog-writers. Reputation has an
impact on trust (Kim et al., 2015); therefore trust is crucial in the micro-entrepreneurial
world of the sharing economy: it is a customer trust and customer base building tool. If
customers are going to trust the service provider, the skills or space he/she is offering

28. 28
depend on the built reputation. R.Botsman (2012) says that reputation and trust is the
currency of collaborative consumption. Subsequently, getting, promoting and protecting
one’s reputation are crucial in activities built on interpersonal relations.
2.1.3. Therapeutic benefit
Lastly, an individualistic reason to participate in the sharing economy is that of
therapeutic origins. Sharing nowadays implies a “digital transfer of information (mostly
via internet)” (John, 2013:122).The reasons for explicitly sharing information may have
therapeutic origins. Therapeutic discourse is “the term [] used to refer to the spread of
the principles of psychology into personal relationships (….). (…) the idea that the way
we solve interpersonal problems is to talk about that and them repeatedly” (John,
2013:122). Therefore, one may say, that behind the ads, posts, links, updates there is
also another aspect of sharing - sharing of emotions (John, 2014). The feeling of
relatedness allows people to feel enjoyment, therefore it is also relevant as a motivating
factor, state Hamari et al. (2015).
From the Uber perspective, the therapeutic benefit might be understood from two sides:
the driver, who might feel valued for his/her skills and time that the driver shares; as well
as from the passenger perspective – a sense of belonging to a group of like–minded
people with whom the user is able to share the Uber experiences. The importance of
relatedness and the spread of information as well as emotions about it might be
illustrated with the example that it is rather common among new Uber users to share
their User discount code in the social media.
To summarize, reputation, self-marketing, desire to expand the network positively
influence attitudes and behavioural intentions to participate in the sharing economy.
Deeper emotional / psychological urges are also met via the network of the sharing
economy community.

29. 29
Motivations to participate in the sharing economy might be also built on the basis of
social reasons. They will be discussed in the next subchapter.
2.2. Socio – Environmental Reasons
2.2.1. Sharing - Natural Behaviour
First and foremost, according to R.Botsman and R. Rogers, who see sharing as a
timeless concept that has been an integral part for each and every one of us: “based on
natural behavioural instincts around sharing and exchanging” (2010:213). R.Belk
supports the statement - “sharing is a phenomenon as old as mankind” (2014:1595).
As J.Schor research shows, “a commitment to social transformation is an important
factor” (Schor, 2014:6). This idea, less promoted by the profit-oriented companies,
works on non-monetized grounds with charity organizations or community centres with
volunteers.
2.2.2. Sustainability
Even though the actual impact of the sharing economy on the environment has
not been evaluated yet, environmental reasons are very important for
consumers. It is assumed that, in many ways, sharing is less resource-
intensive (Schor, 2014). In addition, following the same logic, participants may
believe that consuming less means creating less waste.
The development of a social network system is increasingly deployed as a
means to stimulate the progress of a certain idea or ideology (Oh et al., 2013).
Facebook, Twitter were the primary means to connect with the like-minded and
to report during the Arab spring, Occupy Wall Street and the 2008 U.S.

30. 30
presidential campaign (Wattal et al.). However, Hamari et al. argue, that
ideology and ideas do not necessarily have to be linked to political ideas; in fact,
ideology may go in any possible direction, for example, green consumption
(Eckhard et al.. 2010), anti-consumerism or anti-globalism.
2.3.3. Enjoyment
Contrary to individualistic reasons for sharing that were mentioned earlier, similar
contribution, for example to the open–source initiatives, may be led by somewhat
altruistic reasons. In this case, enjoyment is related to the social or interest-group
experience, even-though the researcher acknowledges the possibility of personal
enjoyment. Enjoyment in the social context might be understood as “contributing to
finding a solution to a problem” (John, 2013:121) or “(…) enjoying shared access to a
commonly owned good” argues N. John (2013:119) for example, information sharing on
the Internet.
Hamari et al. give an example of free-“software developers who contribute to the open-
source projects” (2015:10), which illustrates a different aspect of enjoyment - providing
access to a commonly owned good by enjoying the activity itself
R.Botsman and R. Rogers state, that the motivation of participating in collaborative
consumption is to get the pleasure of ownership without the burden of ownership at a
lower personal and environmental cost (2010). The latter statement could be applicable
to the positive feeling of using Uber – its accessibility (as well in the economic sense)
and wide availability allows users to enjoy the benefits of having a car (or, perhaps, a
driver) without actually having one.
Having discussed the concept of the sharing economy and the motivation people find to
participate in the sharing, in the next chapter the researcher discusses Uber and how it
fits within the frames of it.

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Chapter 3: Uber
Uber is an “online-enabled car transportation service to connect passengers with
drivers” (Geradin, 2015:1) generally, for a lower price than regular taxi services.
Acting as an intermediary between the service seekers and service providers, the
platform “owns” these relationships; it defines the rules, guarantees and regulatory
framework, and allocates liabilities and risks” (Dredge& Gyimothy, 2015:11) thereby
making a financial profit from social control and trust.
A ride–sharing platform, Uber provides taxi-like services in which drivers use their own
cars to drive customers in order to generate income. Having started in 2009, the smart-
phone application-based service with more than 50 million installations is available in
300 cities in nearly 60 countries worldwide (www.Uber.com, 2016). “Uber (and Airbnb)
is considered to be the most valuable sharing economy company in the world by
valuation” (Shead, 2015:2). The official site of the NASDAQ Stock Market states that
Uber is now a bigger company than Ford, general Motors and is valued over 50 billion
US dollars (2015).
Operating on the peer-to peer principle, which is enabled by the geo-location equipped,
dedicated smartphone app and a central-dispatcher (online platform), Uber connects
customer and the service-provider. A digital taxi spin-off (“for almost a century (…)
passengers can hire a taxis by queuing at a cab stand by hailing them in the street or by
making a telephone reservation “) (Geradin, 2015:1), Uber was founded altogether with
the wave of many “peer-to-peer rental firms in the aftermath of the global financial crisis”
(All eyes on the Sharing Economy, 2013). The platform has presented many
practicalities that were somehow omitted by the traditional taxi services: the platform
operates with the help of a sleek-looking, simple-to-use app, online network based
rating and recommendation system helped to build a feeling of trust between the two
involved parties. The online payment system allowed the monetary transaction look

32. 32
easy and seamless. Lastly, generally lower fares made this “online-enabled car
transportation service” (Geradin, 2015:2) very attractive.
The simplistic description of Uber’s business model would be as follows: driver’s license
holders can apply to be an Uber driver. Having passed the background check, they are
entered in to the system and given an Uber iPhone, through which the driver and
passenger (having downloaded the Uber app) connect. The iPhone serves not only as a
connecting intermediary, but also as a GPS, according to which the route is set and the
fare estimated and the billing is done, which allows the cashless-transactions and
archiving the invoices. The fare is divided between the two parties - around 80 % is
taken by the driver and 20 % - by Uber. Uber drivers use their cars and are not
considered Uber employees. Acting as an intermediary between the service seekers
and service providers, the platform “owns” these relationships; it defines the rules,
guarantees and regulatory framework, and allocates liabilities and risks” (Dredge&
Gyimothy, 2015:11) thereby making a financial profit from social control and trust
While the phenomenon of Uber is still taking its first steps, it’s economic and cultural
appeal led it to where we are now, the numbers will serve as an example:
Founded in San Francisco in 2009, “The urban transportation platform Uber, which
introduced its service in New York City in 2011, is now city’s largest non-taxi car service
with over 15000 active vehicles in the city (There were about 13000 yellow cabs in New
York city at the end of 2014)” (Freiberger & Sundararajan, 2015:4). According to the
statistics, provided by uber.com (2016), Uber operates in more than 60 countries in the
world and is valued around 40 billion US dollars (Ciaccia, 2015).
Uber’s closest rival in the US market, Lyft, operates in 200 cities across the USA and is
valued 2.5 billion US dollars (Zach’s research team, 2015). The European long-
distance destination ridesharing startup, BlaBlaCar, is valued 1.2 billion US dollars
(Cook, 2015).

33. 33
Another online giant – the lodging sharing “Airbnb had over one million listings on their
site, whereas Intercontinental Hotel group, the world’s largest hotel chain by room
count, has a little over 600,000 rooms worldwide” (Freiberger & Sundararajan, 2015:4).
While Uber fans were celebrating the new era of a cheap, friendly, innovative and
available taxi service, simultaneously a strong opposition to Uber was forming and
growing rapidly. “The arrival of Uber in Europe has triggered massive protest from taxi
drivers and companies on the ground of that Uber does not comply with taxi regulations
and therefore, in the words of Matthew Field (as cited in Geradin 2015:2), “engages in
an unfair competition” (Geradin, 2015).
Uber is probably the most famous example of the so–called “sharing economy” state
Maselli & Giuli (2015), P. Marshall (2015), Schor (2104). According to data provided by
Uber.com, they do 1 million rides a day and in 2013 they provided 140 million rides .
“Uber is a mobile app that allows booking and paying for a car ride with a few clicks on
a smartphone” (Maselli and Giuli, 2015:1), allowing peer-to-peer operations to be more
efficient and profitable (Maselli and Giuli, 2015). Depending on a country, Uber offers
different levels of service -the low cost service – UberPop, based on spontaneous and
non-professional drivers, Uber Black,the company’s original service (high-end cars and
professional drivers), Uber SUV (proving a service for a larger group of people for an
extra cost), Uber LUX (top-of-the-line option, operating in posh rides) (Pullen, 2015).
The idea of the platform is very simple, state Giuli and Maselli (2015:1), “people have
skills, customers look for affordable services, and Silicon Valley matches the two by
allowing physical assets to be disaggregated and consumed as services”. P.Marshall
(2015) adds that new technologies allow overcoming many transaction costs, thus,
according to Pullen (2015), making the rates 26 percent lower than a traditional taxi.
Smooth operation of the app and price are very important, but not the only advantages
that users find, according to Pullen (2015). It is a combination of a catchy name,
excellent social media marketing, technology and potential to do much more than to
offer rides.

34. 34
To become an Uber driver, one needs to have a car, insurance, driver’s license and
background check. A short list of requirements and a well-advertised possibility to earn
money at your own pace attracts a lot of people of different backgrounds (Pullen, 2014).
However, it is put forward that Uber is a technology company and not a taxi company,
therefore Uber should not be subject to taxi regulation, involving a taxi licence for the
drivers. As the service and the drivers are considered to be illegal in some jurisdictions
(Robinson, 2014), Uber has been banned in several cities (Brussels and Paris are
among them). It has been banned from airports (e.g. Sydney airport), moreover, the
company is dealing with multiple law suits from its own drivers who demand to be
treated as full time employees (Teffer, 2015).
It may seem, that the company has troubles of being accepted onto the playing field –
criticism is coming from every direction: unhappy customers, who are unsure of their
safety and fairness of the price, and data protection; furious taxi drivers, whose strictly
regulated yet guaranteed business is suddenly under threat; Uber’s own contractors
(drivers) who demand to be treated as employees, and, of course, governments and
municipalities, who watch the money flow, but not into the tax coffers, who witness the
company circumventing regulation or taking advantage of lack of thereof.
3.1. Uber - A Part of the Sharing Economy?
Consumers seem to be getting more and more involved in collaborative consumption,
they seem to be benefitting from the new ways to save and make money, and they
seem to be getting used to the ease, access and speed brought out by the sharing
economy. Uber is often used as a taxi synonym in the urban context; it even gave start
to new words like “to uber” and “ubered”, “uberification”, which seem to be more and
more finding their way in our vocabulary.

35. 35
Altogether with growing market share and profits, the sharing economy is starting to
face criticism from various directions. Uber’s belonging to the family of the sharing
economy activities is questioned and negated:
“Make no mistake about it, today’s sharing economy is a big business, involving lots and
lots of money and all kinds of players motivated powerfully by financial gain”, says
Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn (Walsh, 2014).
J.Orsi states, that new business model companies like Airbnb, Uber and Lyft want to be
identified as sharing economy representatives, “they should change their business
model. For now, these companies are privately owned, venture-capital funded
corporations” (2013:1). D.Baker supports J.Orsi’s statement and adds that he sees Uber
as a traditional economy model in disguise – that has market capitalization in the
billions, “employs professional operators, who outperform the amateurs – just like the
rest of the economy (…)” – which conveniently takes advantage on the lack of
regulation for Uber drivers in a strictly regulated taxi environment, which eventually
“could harm all drivers' ability to earn even minimum wage” (2014:1). This opinion is
supported by Giuli and Maselli who say “the only novelty lies in the capability to mobilize
underutilized capital and to create a new division of work by exploiting a technology”
(2015:3).
P. Teffer draws attention to Uber’s dominating position in the market and notes that
digital sectors (…) have a tendency of becoming network based monopolies, which are
close to impossible to compete with. On top of that, P.Teffer questions the term
“innovative” in the concept of Uber. He argues that the word helps them gain “sympathy,
when discrediting as outdated the laws which hinder their businesses” (2015:2).
G. Eckhardt and F.Bardhi (2012) argue, that Uber is, first and foremost, not a sharing
economy representative; the sharing economy should be built on the basis of personal
relationships and community spirit, Uber puts social interaction into the lowest position
and meanwhile promotes low cost and accessibility to the top place. To which
E.Morozov adds that Uber-like companies abuse their position of lack of regulation for

36. 36
the new economy model and therefore they successfully avoid taxes and insurance. He
also declares that the euphoria of Uber’s success lies in the crumbling economy and
lost jobs and not innovations or the new generation business model (2014).
The researcher’s own stand-point, with the focus on access, non-ownership model,
peers who interact directly with service providers, with the help of website circumventing
traditional economic institutions may serve as the answer to the critiques mentioned
above. The researcher acknowledges the fact that Uber is becoming a “multi-million
dollar venture company”, which would indeed contradict the idealistic vision of the
sharing economy pioneers and is toying with the concept of sharing (R. Botsman (2015)
suggests calling Uber an “On–Demand Services”, i.e. the platform that instantly links
service providers and consumers in need of the service). However, Uber has not
stopped providing Internet-based access to someone else’s underutilized assets and
the service is provided from peers to peers, the cornerstones of the researcher’s own
sharing economy’s definition. “Uber turns two forms of underutilized assets (driver’s car
and time) (…) into potential profit” (Maselli & Giuli, 2015:2) but the fact that the driver
can be nearly anyone from the community, in the broader sense of the word, and be at
a service to the community (although for a fee), may be attributed to the social part of
sharing (Maselli & Giuli, 2015). Importantly, the criticism about Uber being disruptive to
the transportation system might be opposed with the example of numerous US taxi
drivers who eagerly use Uber provided access to ride-seeking passengers without
giving up their taxi licence. Lastly, the example of UberPool, where a small group of
passengers sharing the same ride, may be considered a representative of the sharing
economy might serve as an answer to the doubts if Uber is a part of the sharing
economy.

37. 37
3.2. Creating new jobs?
As the answer to Uber’s declaration that it is creating new jobs, P.Marshall says, that
“there is a possibility that some jobs are created, however the probability is that jobs are
displaced, i.e. having lost jobs elsewhere and replaced with Uber drivers (2015).
Uber, like many sharing economy companies is blamed for disrupting the mature
transportation industry and, in addition to that, has an overall effect of bringing wages in
all jobs down (Eckhardt & Bandhi, 2015).
G.Eckhardt & F.Bandhi argue that Uber’s approach to leave drivers’ social security and
overall wellbeing in their own hands contributes to the disruption of the social security
system (Eckhardt & Bandhi, 2012). Moreover, in Uber’s own words “the partner driver is
to some extent an Uber client, who uses Uber service to get clients of his own”.
Eckhardt (2012) notes that such conditions not only prevent drivers from earning more
but also from having health insurance and sick leave.
3.3. Respecting passenger safety regulation?
In his article, P.Teffer quotes Antoine Aubert, director public policy EU strategy at Uber,
who says that “user safety and security is pretty much key”, and that “lots of regulation
(Uber) is designed to create a trust relationship and consumer protection” (20115:3),
which implies that Uber’s rules are of higher importance and therefore there is no need
for government’s safety regulation. Moreover, Uber’s own review system can replace
the independent regulatory framework” (2015:3). However, P.Marshall insists, that
”Uber driver’s background check do not involve fingerprinting and is not conducted by
law enforcement, which is undercutting public safety” (2015:5). Moreover, as long as
there is no regulatory framework requiring and defining those checks, Uber can change
the scale, frequency of them or even stop doing them completely (P. Marshall, 2015).

38. 38
Inasmuch as Uber is criticized for its obscure position on passenger safety whilst in an
Uber car, Uber is criticized for its abuse of customers’ data protection “even if you close
your account, the company keeps your personal information” (2014:1); and invasion of
privacy using so called “God’s View”, “which allows the company to see a history of
customer’s rides and destinations” in real time (2014).
Chapter 4: Who is the Uber User?
The information about who is an Uber user is limited mainly to the user’s demographic
profile in the US. The statistics by www.globalwebindex.net used in the Felim McGrath’s
(2015) blog article show that the in the US, 3 % of online adults are using Uber at least
once a month. The provided statistics reveal that most active Uber users are urbanite
16-34 year olds in the United States, which makes 70% or „makes up almost three
quarters of Uber’s US user base, with only a small minority being from 45-64 group“
(McGrath, 2015:1). As might have been expected, Uber services are used mostly
among urbanites (56%) – a mere 5% of users live in suburban areas.
The survey issued by Price Waterhouse Cooper (The Sharing Economy, 2015) states
that 44% of US consumers are familiar with the sharing economy and 19% of the total
US population has participated in the sharing economy. Furthermore, 9% of adults who
have participated in the sharing economy participated in the entertainment and media
branch (9%), in the automotive and transportation – 8%, hospitality and dining – 6%.
An important figure to mention is that Uber users are educated people. “More than 80%
of all ridesharing passengers hold a bachelor’s degree or higher” (Bellefeuille, 2015:2).
The data shows, that 46% of users are females and 54% of users are males.

39. 39
As Uber is considered to be a cheaper means of transportation and hypothetically
chosen primarily for its lower price, surprisingly 26% of Uber users in the US market
represent the top income quarter and 34% belong to the mid income quarter.
The statistics presented in the blog article of James Bellefeuille (2015) confirm the data
with more detail – “at least 56% of all rideshare passengers reported a household
income of $71,000 or higher (the mid income quarter), with nearly 40% of all
passengers making at least $100,000” (the top income quarter) (Bellefeuille, 2015).
In addition to the figures describing Uber passengers belonging to the top income
quarter, according to the PWC (The Sharing Economy, 2015) data, the most
enthusiastic about the sharing economy, once they have tried, are households from the
same, mid-income, range with 50,000 to 75,000 US dollars.
From the list of top ten destinations provided by J.Bellefeuille (2015), the users of a
ridesharing platform go to – 1. home, 2. workplaces, 3. tourist destinations, 4.
restaurants, 5. bars, 6. airports, 7. retail stores, 8. fitness clubs, 9. doctor’s offices, 10.
bus and transit stations.
From the statistics provided by the www.stasocial.com one can conclude that Uber
audiences are finance and tech oriented, with interests in national news, fashion,
clothing, international news and marketing, reading Forbes, Wall Street Journal,
Mashable, using Twitter and Airbnb. They have favourite ICT or business celebrities like
Mark Cuban, Marissa Mayer, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jack Dorsey to follow.
A clear parallel may be drawn between the statistics about the demographics of Uber
user from the US markets and the demographics of the twenty respondents in this
research – all respondents have a university degree, two-thirds of them have a master’s
degree, and nearly one-third has a PhD. The user’s age-group corresponds to the
previously mentioned age group in the US market, where the majority of Uber users
belong to the age group of 16-34 years old, in this research the majority of respondents,
who are Uber users belong to the age group of 25-35 years old. The absolute majority

40. 40
of the research respondents are financially independent professionals with a stable
income.
Chapter 5: Conclusions
Our lives have been propelled by new technologies. The ease and speed at which
individuals connect, make networks, exchange, share information, cooperate is truly
reframing.
“Sharing Economy” became an official term in 2015 having been introduced into the
Oxford English Dictionary (Botsman, 2015). This phenomenon recently has become an
integrated part of travelling, blogging, entertainment and project funding. The concept
of the sharing economy is so broad and multidimensional and overlapping, that it is not
easy to define it precisely. Therefore multiple terms are being used to define a swarm of
existing and developing activities use information technologies to link service and good
providers with service and goods seekers avoiding intermediaries. The terms “sharing
economy”, collaborative consumption”, “pseudo sharing”, “on-demand consumption”,
“access economy” are possibly being used most often.
Governments in many countries welcomed the idea of sharing economies. The
phenomenon was advantageous economically, socially and environmentally. Uber, on
the other hand, was suspected to be “wrongly associated with the sharing economies”
(Meelan & Frenken, 2015:4) and was not allowed to provide its service in several
European countries.
Following Uber is interesting in the sense that despite the absence of a clear definition,
the absence of regulating policies, protest in the streets, criticism and state bans, Uber
has a global fan base and a valuation of 50 billion US dollars. However, there is a
possibility that, having sprung to glory with the sharing economy wave, enthusiastic
start-ups, now being defined as a sharing economy might even be detrimental to and

41. 41
limiting to Uber and its functions. It is unclear where the sharing stops and commerce
begins. What is clear is that Uber is regarded as disrupting a stagnated mode of the
transportation business, turning reputation, free time and driving skills into a commodity,
moreover Uber empowered users rediscover the sleeping value of their assets.

42. 42
Part 2: Empirical Framework

43. 43
Chapter 6: Methodological Research Design
6.1. Research Design
Qualitative Research
Every study has its own purpose. D. Treadwell (2011:26-29) singles out several
purposes – exploration (“a curiosity based research”), explanation (aims at answering
the “Why?” question), prediction (“our explanations have greater credibility if they are
capable of prediction”), control (research that aims to find ways to control, e.g. attention,
habits, motivation etc.), interpretation (“seeks to understand how humans interpret or
make sense of events in their lives”) and criticism (aims at critically evaluate structures,
processes, progress etc.).
The researcher believes in following a subjective approach to social science, seeing
reality as a social construction, where a man is a social creator. Subsequently, human
communication is subjective, authentic; therefore all aspects of communication are
equally important and meaningful to the study. In addition, the researcher believes that
each person is a unique individual, rarely predictable and is acting on the basis of self-
motivation and personal choice, which makes the generalizations about his/her actions
difficult. Therefore the best understanding of human communication is based on
personal proximity to participants. Hence, in the researcher’s opinion, only interviews
allow for the closest insight into the true meaning of participants’ words. Interpretive
approach encourages the researcher to put herself “in other person’s shoes” (Treadwell,
2011:28) to put herself in the position of the interviewee in order to get a better
understanding and be able to report a fuller picture This method and approach are
chosen as the most suitable to help identify the fundamentals based on which users
make their decisions. Thus, qualitative research, in the form of interviews, is the best
tool in achieving accuracy and credibility in this study.

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With the interest in subjective aspects of human motivation, the complexity and polarity
of it which “cannot be captured in mere numbers” (Treadwell, 2011:16), the researcher
chooses to interpret the subjective world through the respondents’ own words.
The researcher believes that personal experiences, nuances of reactions, sentiments
form a “metamessage” (Treadwell, 2011:17), which adds more value and credibility to
the research.
In this thesis, the researcher will be aiming at understanding in-depth how the new
platform of an online-enabled car transport service (Geradin, 2015) affects the
consumers’ decision – to be a part of the network or to use traditional transportation;
how the customers feel about being rated, how bad publicity about the company
impacts them, how they feel about being a part of the newly developing business model
of “ride-sharing platform”. More specifically, what Uber represents to the user and what
lessons can be learned from the experiences of using Uber. Consequently, the
research questions are the ones to answer ‘how’ and ‘what’. While quantitative research
revolves around counts and measures, qualitative research refers to the ‘what’, ’how’,
‘when’ and ‘where’ of a phenomenon, as its essence and ambience. Central to the
qualitative research is the willingness to build an understanding of the unquantifiable
(Berg, 2001). That is what the researcher will be attempting to achieve. Hence, the
methodological framework of this research is qualitative. Furthermore, according to
Maxwell (1996) it is impossible to develop a logical strategy in advance and implement it
faithfully; the researcher needs to construct the research design over and over again.
Therefore, this chapter will be aiming at illustrating the construction and deconstruction
process of the qualitative research.
The researcher acknowledges that there are a lot of advantages to the qualitative study
– the interviewee can be understood in depth. However, there are also disadvantages
of the method. Qualitative research might be considered as too subjective, is valid only
for this particular study and cannot be generalized

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6.2. Single Case study
D. Treadwell defines a case study as an “informative narrative, history, or analysis to
help readers’ understanding or to provide them with theoretical insights” (Treadwell,
2011:206), where Yin adds that “you would use the case study method because you
deliberately wanted to cover contextual conditions - believing that they might be highly
pertinent to your phenomenon of study” (Yin, 2013:4).
Often criticized for lack of objectivity, lack of statistical data, case studies are widely
used as a scientific tool in quantitative research as well as qualitative research.
R.Yin states that „ (...) the case study has been a common research strategy in
psychology, sociology, political science, business, social work, and planning „(Yin,
2013:1). Yin believes that the case study allows the research to retain a „holistic and
meaningful characteristics of real-life events” (Yin, 2013:3) while trying to get to the
bottom of a certain „complex social phenomena” (Yin, 2013:3). According to Rowley
(2012), case studies can research a specific phenomenon in its own context and thus
provide answers to „How?” and „Why?”
Even though single case studies, unlike the multiple case studies, are not favoured for
their „confidence in the generalizability“(Rowley, 2012), they are, however, favoured for
their „unique“ cases.
The researcher has applied the method of a single case study for the following reasons:
the subject of the research is quite a new phenomenon in our society; a close focus is
necessary in crystallization of the key factors in the decision making process.

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6.3. Data Collection
6.3.1. Convenience Sampling. Network Sampling. Snowball Sampling.
„We cannot study the entire universe of human communication in one research project,
much as we might want to. The universe is too large and the questions are too
numerous„ (Treadwell, 2011:107). In qualitative research, only a sample (that is, a small
element) of all potential respondents is selected for any given study. The researcher
chooses the size and group that best serves the goals of the study according to the
research question and objectives.
To begin the series of the interviews, a convenience sampling was chosen. At the
beginning of the process, potential respondents were addressed on VUB New Media
and Society Facebook page, which was created by the students of this programme. The
researcher, however, managed to arrange only three interviews with the students from
the previously mentioned page.
Due to little interest shown in participation, network sampling, i.e. a method of
contacting potential candidates for the interview from a list provided by the interviewees
was used. Interview arrangements went smoothly as all respondents were eagerly
suggesting new candidates. Quite early in the interview scheduling process, the
number of candidates reached twenty six.
It was important for the research that the respondents have a firm opinion on the
reasons why they choose to use or why they choose not to use Uber transportation
services. Several interviewees only had a general opinion about platform based
transportation services; other interviewees did not have a clear opinion even though
they have used the Uber service and have an Uber experience. Thus the researcher
excluded those interviewees, who did not have an opinion about Uber. Also, one

47. 47
potential interviewee had a direct relationship to the study; therefore he was excluded
as well.
6.3.2. Semi Structured Interviews
As mentioned earlier, the researcher has chosen to conduct qualitative research.
According to Treadwell, “a qualitative research is based on the use of language rather
than numbers to interpret human behaviour “(2013:214).
The most commonly used technique to collect data in qualitative research is the in-
depth interview. This tool involves time–intensive one–on–one interviews with a small
number of interviewees to examine their points of view on a particular issue. “The
primary advantage of in-depth interviews is that they provide much more detailed
information than what is available through other data collection methods, such as
surveys” (Boyce & Neale, 2006:3). They also state that in-depth interviews arranged in
a comfortable atmosphere and broader time-frame are more pleasant to the
respondents to disclose their personal thoughts and experiences rather than a survey.
Respondent friendly atmosphere made possible by the idea of in-depth interview was
the main reason the researcher has chosen this particular method for her study.
According to D.Treadwell (2011), interviews in qualitative research can be conducted in
three ways: interviews can be fully structured, semi structured or unstructured.
Where fully structured interviews have questions prepared beforehand, a set interview
format and the interviewer - in the role of a record-maker, and the unstructured
interviews start with open-ended questions and a relaxed interview format, semi
structured interviews have both – broad questions to be asked and the interviewer’s
liberty how and which of these questions will be asked, added or dropped.
To better understand the reasons behind the user’s decisions, the researcher has
chosen to follow the semi structured interviews format. Typical to the semi-structured

48. 48
interviews, the researcher has a specific list of open-ended questions to cover during
the interview. The structure helps the interview to stay in focus and in line with the
subject. Thus, in order to maintain a coherent flow of the interview, a list of topics was
prepared. Some more questions were added along the interview, with the aim of
eliciting full answers. Also, in the course of the interview some questions were
paraphrased or dropped to allow the participants to respond to more important
questions (the interviewer) or if the questions were already answered as a natural (to
the respondent) part of the previously asked question.
The main interview questions were developed by the researcher following the research
question, literature study and the author’s personal experience. According to the
potential answer to the question “Are you an Uber user?” the interview questions were
split into two groups: I) those for Uber users and II) those for Uber non-users.
Interviews took place in November (2015) and in December (2015), were conducted
either in person or via Skype at a private space of the interviewees choice. The
interviews lasted forty five to seventy minutes, depending on complexity of the answers
and on the availability of the respondents, and were conducted by the researcher
herself. The interviews were long enough to allow the respondents to reflect on and
develop their answers.
All interviews were recorded with prior verbal agreement to record and to use the
recorded data from the respondents. The audio files can be found in Appendix 1.
6.4. Overview of Interview Respondents
A total of 20 respondents participated in the interviews over the course of two months.
Data was collected from a heterogeneous sample: 11 male and 9 female respondents.
The academic background of the interviewees is as following: all interviewees have a
university degree, 15 have a master’s degree, 3 of which have two master’s degrees
and 1 respondent has a PhD. 3 respondents are full time students. 11 respondents are

49. 49
employees and 5 respondents are self-employed, 3 of which are entrepreneurs and 2 –
freelancing writers.
As far as the age of the respondents is concerned, 1 respondent belongs to the 18-25
years old age group, 9 respondents belong to the 25-35 years old age group, 6
respondents belong to the 35-45 years old age group, 3 respondents belong to the 45-
55 years old age group and 1 respondent belongs to the 55-65 years old age group.
The demographics of the respondents may be generalized as young (15 respondents
are in the 25-45 years old age group), financially independent (19 out of 20 respondents
have stable income), professionals (earning money from their activity). Out of 20
interviewees 13 interviewees provided a pro-Uber motivation and 7 interviewees
provided an Uber-negative motivation.
The interview process and goal were explained to the interviewees prior to the
interview. Their consent to record the interview and to use the interviewees’ quotes in
the empirical part of the thesis was also obtained prior to the interview.
All respondents expressed their will to remain anonymous and to be quoted as
individuals and not as professionals, therefore, for confidentiality purposes; all
respondents’ names were changed.
All interviews were recorded and transcribed by the researcher; transcriptions are
stored in the CD and added with the annexes of the master thesis.
Even though all participants have a very good command of English, two interviews were
done in Lithuanian, a native language to both the interviewer and the interviewees.
The interviews were translated into the English language and so presented in the
transcriptions.
A basic description of the interviewees can be found in the Table 1 below.

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Table 1: Description of the interview respondents
No
NAME /
Uber User (+) /
Uber non-user(-)
AGE GENDER EDUCATION OCCUPATION
1 Nelly (-) 58 F
Master’s degree
in business law
Head of unit at the EC
2 Simone (-) 50 F MBA Cultural project manager
3 Monica (+) 28 F BA in history
Catering company
employee
4 Lena (+) 36 F MBA
Environmental specialist
at the EC
5 Gerber (+) 36 M MSc, MBA
Start-up partner/
researcher
6 Andrea (+) 38 M MSc, MBA
Public Affairs company
owner
7 Marco (-) 38 M MBA Consultant at EC
8 Ian (+) 35 M MSc Desk officer at EC
9 Giorgio (+) 37 M PhD Assistant at the EC
10 Simon (-) 23 M BA Master student
11 Gerd (-)
25-
35
M MBA Business consultant
12 Pina (-)
25-
35
M
Bachelor on
Environmental
Sciences
Environmental
Consultant

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13 Gabe (+) 35 M MBA, MA Architect
14 Barbara (+)
25-
35
F MSc EC agency officer
15 Stine
25-
35
F MA Officer at the EC
16 Larry (+) 45 M
Master of
International Law
Press officer at the EC
17 Ron (+) 45 M MSc Policy officer at the EC
18 Lee (-)
25-
35
F
Bachelor of
political sciences
Master student
19 Elaine (+)
25-
35
F
Master of
journalism
Writer/ freelancer
20 Lucia (+)
25-
35
F Bachelor of Arts
Master student/
freelancer
6.5. Data Analysis
Naturally, the data analysis would be impossible without the data, i.e. the transcriptions
of the interviews. As noticed by Keyton (2011:309) “For qualitative research designs,
the data will consist of pages and pages of notes, or written text or transcripts”. For this
research, the twenty in-depth interviews resulted in approximately 250 pages of
transcription. Every single interview was transcribed verbatim by the researcher herself
the same day the interview had been done. Moreover, the researcher considered it

52. 52
important to signify the details of laughter, doubt, annoyance etc., which may provide a
fuller picture of the respondent’s point of view, in the transcriptions.
As stated by Thorne (2000) “qualitative data analysis is the most complex and
mysterious of all of the phases of a qualitative project, and the one that receives the
least thoughtful discussion in the literature” (as cited in Lichtman, 2013, p. 245). Due to
the lack of global standards, “agreed upon ways of analysing the data (…)” (Lichtman
2013: 245) is a process which is based on researcher’s individual data-organization,
analysis and interpretation. In the course of turning the raw data into patterns and
concepts, M. Lichtman suggests following the “three Cs of analysis: from coding to
categorizing to concepts”, where “coding means that we attach labels to segments of
data that depict what each segment is about” (Lichtman, 2013:251)
As mentioned earlier, the data analysis has been done simultaneously with collecting
the data following the constant-comparative method, which is also referred to as known
grounded theory.
„Grounded theory is a systematic methodology in the social sciences involving the
construction of theory through the analysis of data“(Allan, 2003:1). To put it simply,
codes and categories are not fixed as long as the researcher is in the process of
identifying new categories during the data analysis, thus it is quite different from a
traditional model of research, where a researcher choses a theory and then collects
data to “show how the theory does or does not apply to the phenomenon under study”
(Allan, 2003:1).
It is typical for research using grounded theory to start with the question or simply with
the collection of data.
Initially, the researcher has used an inductive approach in the data reviewing process,
which helped as repeated ideas and concepts become apparent; they were later on
tagged with codes, which have been generated from the data. „As more data are

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collected, and as data are re-reviewed, codes can be grouped into concepts, and then
into categories. These categories may become the basis for new theory” (Martin&
Turner, 1986:144).
Furthermore, there are three types of coding related to the grounded theory: open, axial
and selective. Open coding is defined by Keyton (2011:312) as „open to all possibilities
of categories“, in other words, the researcher does not try to fit in the data into any
predetermined category. Axial coding is the process of linking identified categories in a
logical and consistent way (Keyton 2011). Selective coding, on the other hand, „works
on the principle of choosing one category to be the core category, and relating all other
categories to that category” (Borgatti, 1996:2). Subsequently, the data analysis of this
research was carried out following the three-step order: initially the data was analysed
using the open coding approach. The result produced general themes. The second
step was based on the axial coding approach, which allowed the researcher identify and
link categories within each theme. Lastly, having applied the selective coding, the
researcher selected the most important codes.
In addition to the above mentioned process, J. Keyton (2011:306) suggests including
the process of “interpretation”. Interpretation would be the last step of the analytical
process, where the researcher focuses on giving meaning to the patterns and concepts.
6.6. Limitations and Delimitations
The researcher encountered several limitations while conducting this study. The
researcher believes it necessary to clarify them in order to prevent other studies
potentially stumbling upon them and therefore becoming inaccurate. As far as data
collection, i.e. the in-depth interviews, went, the major limitation that the researcher
observed was that Uber does not operate in Brussels anymore. Absence of the
platform in Brussels limits the scope of respondents. City-visiting foreigners and newly-

54. 54
arrived students are deprived of the possibility to see how the ride-sharing platform
Uber operates (provided they have not used it elsewhere), thus they are unable to form
their opinion about it. The researcher observed that the respondents, who use Uber
then may then be divided into two groups: 1) those who have used Uber in Brussels
(where the majority of respondents were based during the interview and where the
interviews took place) before it was banned (15 10 2015) and 2) those who have the
financial capacity to travel and therefore be exposed to the possibility to use Uber in the
cities and countries where the platform operates. Even though an academic degree,
stable income, higher than average income (in the USA) fit the Uber user profile, the
researcher referred to the subcategory “Who is the Uber User?”, the researcher
believes that conducting a study in a country/city with the operating platform could
possibly have involved respondents of more diverse academic, financial or occupational
backgrounds. This, accordingly, may have given a different result and conclusion.
One more limitation related to data collection was observed during the interviews. The
users, who have not used Uber since its ban in Brussels (15 October, 2015), (the
interviews took place between November 2015 through January 2016) started forgetting
details important to the study, which evoked certain hesitations to the questions such as
“What are the reasons for Uber’s success?” and/ or “What would you change in Uber?”
as well as “what was Uber media coverage’s effect on you as a user?”. Lack of
important details, the researcher believes, may result in only partial illustration of user’s
motives.
Lastly, no representatives of Uber Brussels or Uber Europe agreed to give an interview.
Even though the researcher repeatedly requested interviews on many hierarchical
levels (Uber communication office, CEO of Uber Brussels, Uber London head-office), no
representative agreed to be interviewed. Therefore, in the study the user motives on
why they choose to use Uber are presented only from the user point of view. However,
initially, the researcher envisioned relying on the user profile and user motifs from the
Uber point of view.

55. 55
Additionally, this research has shown the importance of it to the respondents.
Frequently, the respondents would express their interest in receiving a copy of the
research or, at least, the copy with the empirical conclusions. Such expectations would
be met by providing each interviewee with the results via mail.
Chapter 7: Results
The empirical part of the research part is directly linked with the research question:
“What are the most important factors that determine a user’s decision to use Uber or
not to use it?” as well as to the following sub-questions:
1: What does Uber represent to the User?
2: What lessons can be learned from the Uber-using experience?
The researcher provided arguments earlier that the data analysis based on the
grounded theory approach filtered a number of categories and subcategories, which are
illustrated with the help of a coding tree (coding diagram) as represented in figure 1.
The coding tree serves as a supplementary tool aiding to visualize the categories and
therefore to understand better the polarity of respondents’ opinions.
The provided quotations will serve as empirical evidence upon which categories have
been made and, eventually, conclusions have been draw.
Two main interrelated actors, namely Uber and User, serve as the basis of the coding
tree where different categories are based on positive and negative approaches of the
respondents, are positioned. Subsequently, the same category is illustrated from the
positive and negative angles depending on the respondent. The subject of each
subdivision will be covered in the following parts of the study.

56. 56
7.1. The Coding Tree. Figure 1
POSITIVE
NEGATIVE
UBERUSER
CONCEPT KEY TO SUCCESS
MOTIVATION
KEY TO SUCCESSCONCEPT
PERCEPTION
TOP 5
SOCIO – ENVIRONMENTAL
IMPACT
APP
IMAGE
PRICE
AVAILABILITY
INNOVATION
TRUST / SAFETY
CUSTOMER CARE
USER-CENTRED DESIGN
EXPENSES MANAGEMENT
TIME MANAGEMENT
ROUTE TRANSPARANCY
UNEMPLOYMENT
THE SHARING ECONOMY
PRICE
TRUST / SAFETY
INNOVATION
CUSTOMER CARE
LEGALLITY
IMAGE
EXPLOITATION
SOCIO – ECONOMIC IMPACT
PSEUDO –SHARING ECONOMY
UNEMPLOYMENT
DRIVER’S CONDITIONS

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Chapter 8: Concept
“Culture is the ‘lens’ through which all phenomena are seen. It determines how these
phenomena will be apprehended and assimilated. Second, culture is the “blueprint” of
human activity. It determines the coordinates of social action and productive activity,
specifying the behaviours and objects (….). As a lens, culture determines how the world
is seen. As a blueprint, it determines how the world will be fashioned by human effort.”
(McCracken, 1988:72-73). A divergent cultural background of the respondents provides
a unique lens through which the Uber phenomenon is observed and evaluated. In
addition, culture also predetermines human, i.e. respondents’ the actions and
behaviours. Culture determines how much effort is put into sentencing or acquitting the
phenomenon, in this case – the online-enabled transportation service – Uber.
The researcher sees Uber as being somewhere between the two poles, a company with
its positive (for example, introducing new technology to traditional business activity,
empowering people to look for ways to profit from underutilized assets, changing
stagnated business activities) and negative (for example, poor market entering strategy
in Europe and poor personal data protection) features, however, during the interviews,
the researcher has observed that the respondents’ opinions diverge. The dichotomy of
Uber (is it providing the users with an attractive and innovative substitution of the
stagnant and unaffordable taxi system, empowering the budding businessmen, offering
a free choice of work-hours and/or it is replacing the values of public safety, user-
protection system and promoting self) allowed the researcher identify and name two
opinion groups: “Uber-Positive” and “Uber-Negative”. It is also important to mention that
the researcher acknowledges that there are a lot of people who have no opinion about
Uber or hold an opinion inbetween the two extremes.
Starting presenting the positive motivations and negative perceptions it is very important
to illustrate how two different camps see Uber in general.

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The strongest negative opinion on the general concept of Uber was expressed by Nelly,
58 years old, senior executive. The respondent primarily sees Uber as the disruptor of
social structure:
“(…) the traditional system should enforce to address the concerns that users of
Uber have recognized as problems, but I am not going to dedicate medal to
Uber. I do not believe these guys are looking for the welfare and the wellbeing of
anybody. They are just making money in another way. This is it.
I hope there is no future for one who uses the side elements of one's life making
people believe that they can earn easily money when at the other end of the line
there is somebody who hopes he is going to be in charge with the same level of
guarantee and security while paying less and at the end it is all fake. Why should
we accept to build social relations upon a fake? There is a full economy behind
the price. Uber to me represents counterfeit. “
A similarly negative approach towards Uber is Company is adopted by Gerd, 36 years
old business consultant. He questions the true motives beyond Uber’s slogans about
freedom and suspecting Uber of being a hypocritical in what it declares:
”In my opinion, Uber is a very smart company. They have competitive
advantages to price, but they frame it as if you have a lot of choices. In my
opinion, that is a little bit hypocrite from the point of view of Uber. If Uber just said
"we are the cheapest because we use only (…) people who are less well-
protected" then everybody will see them in a negative light. But they only say
"we have better quality, we have a better choice and oh, by accident, the price is
also lower" but they do not advertise that. My argument against Uber is that, in
my firm opinion, they are hypocrites.”

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Extra polarity of opinions towards the concept of Uber may be best represented by the
following responses, which sum up the general idea about Uber the majority of “Uber
positive” respondents had. Practical (economic) side and the empowerment to take
charge of one’s time and assets appeal to Andrea, 38 years old, MBA, Public Affairs
company owner says:
“There is a personal side and a high-level philosophical side to it. So the personal
side represents an opportunity that our babysitter can take out kids to a swim
class on an afternoon without me paying thirty euros for a trip. So it is an enabler
of simply managing family logistics at a reasonable price (…). With Uber (…) it is
different, it’s more like an impression of friends taking them to the swim class and
that enables and makes much more smooth our family logistics. So, that's the
personal side. The philosophical side is (…) the empowerment of
drivers. Drivers who are entrepreneurs and I myself am an entrepreneur who
used to work for the European Institutions, so in a very traditional hierarchical
structure, whereas I quit I do my own business. As I quit, I really enjoy that. (…) I
see drivers also being empowered being entrepreneurs at their own rhythm,
whether they want to work twelve hours or they want to work two hours next to
their day job, it gives them an opportunity to earn money and to do something
that they choose to do against a block of taxi drivers or a taxi establishment.”
An Internet Innovation enthusiast, Larry, 45 years old Master in Maritime Law, an
Official at the European Commission looks at Uber from two angles:
“Are we talking about somebody who is interested in Internet stuff and new things
or we are talking about things from the user perspective of taxi type services? If
we are talking about the Internet, you know Uber being a new sort of thing, you
know, out there, like AirBnb and all these other things, then what it represents to
me is a new model for being able to get transportation services., It also
represents a company that is doing something new and different and that I find

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interesting. Just as a consumer of transport services, Uber represents a
possibility of getting the transport services that I need for a better cost.”
It is clear from this quote that Uber is attractive for its newness and for the impact it
made on the taxi service.
The motivations and perceptions indeed differ; therefore the researcher considers that it
might be crucial to look deeper in the factors that affected user’s motivation and
perception. The following chapters are built on elaboration and illustration of user’s
motivation.
Chapter 9: Uber-Positive Motivation
The researcher had 20 respondents, 13 of them were Uber-positive ones and base their
answers on their personal Uber experiences. The majority of respondents used Uber
more than once. It is difficult to establish the frequency or the regularity of their use
because they either used Uber while it was available in Brussels (until October, 2015;
Belgian Court decision) or when they are abroad where Uber is available. Thus, this
research will be based on those particular Ube experiences the Uber-positive
respondents had. Uber-positive respondents within our sample in general see Uber as
a user-centric, lower-cost transportation provider, taxi monopoly breaker and a player in
the sharing economy. Moreover, the Uber-positive respondents were not just positive
about Uber but about the sharing economy in general. Furthermore, nearly all Uber-
positive respondents mentioned that they have heard about Uber from their friends and
started using if after they have shared the Uber cab with the friends. Using friends and
their recommendations as a trustworthy source, the respondents started using Uber
themselves. Thus, individualistic reason of economic benefit as well as social reason of
enjoyment (as was discussed in the Literature Study of this research) were the main
ones among many other reasons that were mentioned as motivating factors will be
discussed more broadly in this chapter.