Sharing economy

becoming an Uber driver in a developing country

Authors

  • Eduardo Valente Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais, Business Administration
  • Roberto Patrus Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais, Management Department
  • Rosana Córdova Guimarães Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Escola de Administração

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1108/REGE-08-2018-0088

Keywords:

Sharing economy, Uber, Car sharing, Gig economy

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze why people have become suppliers in the sharing economy (SE) as Uber drivers in a developing country. Design/methodology/approach – From a background on SE, car sharing and gig economy, the authors carried out a qualitative research. The analysis was based on 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with Uber drivers, and on the authors’ participant observation as Uber drivers and passengers in the third largest Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte. Findings – Empirical evidence shows that becoming an Uber driver is more a matter of solving unemployment on a more permanent way rather than a search for a temporary and flexible work to supplement income. Although there are benefits related to flexibility, income and social interactions, negative externalities identified herein lead to the conclusion that the overall work relations and conditions are negative. Originality/value – Much in the literature of the SE is focused on understanding consumer behavior; this research, on the contrary, is focused on understanding producers, which indicates an incipient perspective. The contributions of this paper show that the SE merges into different distributive decentralized means of production that are seeing as profit/income generated from shareable assets.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Downloads

Published

2019-05-17

Issue

Section

Article

How to Cite

Sharing economy: becoming an Uber driver in a developing country. (2019). REGE Revista De Gestão, 26(2), 143-160. https://doi.org/10.1108/REGE-08-2018-0088