Developing Strategies in the Sharing Economy: Human Influence on Artificial Neural Networks

Introduction

The concept of “sustainability” has its roots in the social sciences, more exactly, in the ecological paradigm (O’Riordan, 1976), and it is used for the first time by George Ludwig Hartig, in 1785. He argues that forestry can be sustainable only if the future generations will be able to obtain the same benefits from its exploitation as the current generation. However, the perspective from which it is approached changed radically in the last centuries (Table 1). Thus, the theories developed in the 19^th and the early 20^th centuries (namely, the classical theory, the stakeholder theory, etc.) adopt an economic perspective and claim that a firm’s sustainability is ensured through profit maximization and shareholders’ satisfaction. Furthermore, the theories promoted during the 20^th and 21^st centuries (like, neo-institutional theory, the knowledge-based theory of the firm, the holistic theory etc.) bring forward two more perspectives, namely: the social and ecological ones; as a consequence, three pillars of company’s sustainability are emphasized, such as: profitability, stakeholders’ satisfaction, and natural environment (Fiksel, 2006; Leon, 2018a; Lozano, 2008). Nevertheless, these perspectives are combined and the borders of sustainability are extended by the sharing economy which describes a socio-economic environment dominated by non-ownership (Belk, 2014; Botsman & Rogers, 2011), intra- and inter-organizational collaboration (Leon, Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Gomez-Gasquet, & Mula, 2017; Mantymaki, Baiyere, & Islam, 2019; Sthapit, 2019), temporary access (Habibi, Davidson, & Laroche, 2017; Yang, Bi, & Liu, 2020), and sharing of under-utilized or idle goods and/or services (Hong, Kim, & Park, 2019; Lee & Kim, 2019).