The role of collaborative consumption: Will collaborative consumption develop from a niche into the new status quo?

Master’s Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 16,2 (French Grading), course: European Master in Business Studies, language: English, abstract: Changes in consumption patterns have always taken place. Never in the history, however, was the impact of humans on their surrounding environment that significant. The base of this impact is industrialization and the post World War II economic boom in the triad. The attitude towards buying changed dramatically with the start of hyper-consumption and the introduction of the credit system. Idealizing haves and admiring ownership impacted people and nations around the globe. The invention of the Internet gives rise to a completely new form of media. It allows the current and new generations to thrive on the developments. The Internet offers new marketplaces and acts as a medium to create new communities. The most recent developments indicate a revival of old virtues and arts of trading. Collaborative consumption is a developing and increasingly observable trend which includes many forms of sharing and trading and defines access as superior to ownership. This trend appears to be manifold and covers numerous traditional and new industries (Botsman, 2010). The purpose of the thesis is to investigate if this trend can be considered as a phase, a niche, or if it can become a movement that will potentially redefine the way we do business. Will collaborative consumption develop into the new status quo?