Sharing Is Caring? Conflict and Value Codestruction in the Case of Sharing Economy Accommodation

Abstract

Using the context of sharing economy accommodation in London, the current research adopts a stakeholder causal scope approach, to explore conflictual relationships between guests, hosts, and locals and support the development of effective conflict management strategies. The means-end chain analysis method is combined with the critical incident technique to investigate the causes of conflict and its consequences on the value cocreated during stakeholder interactions. Our findings indicate that interest, relationship, values, information, and structural issues can cause conflict, leading to a loss of personal, financial, environmental, material, and social resources. Unless resolved successfully, this may result in further loss of resources and value codestruction. This can negatively influence the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of sharing economy accommodation. Effective conflict management strategies, such as development of consistent policies and effective communication channels, are required to enable value corecovery and cocreation, through the recovery of lost resources.