Power and performativity in sharing economy organizing

AbstractThis paper deals with the enactment of power in and through a sharing economy business model. The objective of research is to understand business models as a kind of narrative performance that mobilise labour, capital and users on a startup platform within adventure tourism. The paper elaborate on the dynamics between performances and power in terms of how the narratives performed by the platform organisation can influence actors in terms of their emotions and identity. Drawing on a longitudinalstudy of the process of organising in a sharing startup, involving interviews and participant observation of work meetings, the paper identifies three different narratives that the founder of the platform performs in order to gain influence. It is argued that sharing organisations relies on a fuzzy ideology that is not transferable to all platform-based startups and that the lure of sharing needs to be treated withcaution.Keywords: sharing economy, action research, narrative performativity, ideology, power