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(Self-)Regulation of Sharing Economy Platforms Through Partial Meta-organizing

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Abstract

Can platforms close the governance gap in the sharing economy, and if so, how? Through an in-depth qualitative case study, we analyze the process by which new regulation and self-regulation emerge in one sector of the sharing economy, crowdfunding, through the actions of a meta-organization. We focus on the principal French sectoral meta-organization, Financement Participatif France (FPF—Crowdfunding France). We show that this multi-stakeholder meta-organization not only closed the governance gap through collective legal, ethical, and utilitarian work but also preceded and shaped the new market. We present a hybrid governance approach combining (a) soft multi-agency regulation, (b) self-regulation through a process of “partial meta-organizing”, and (c) direct civil society participation. We expand the literature by highlighting features of platforms’ partial meta-organizing and by identifying conditions for successful joint regulation and self-regulation of the sector.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for guest editors and anonymous reviewers’ help, as well as for comments on previous versions of this article from: Pr. Véronique Bessière, Pr. Florence Charue-Duboc, Pr. Mathias Guérineau, Pr. Christophe Moussu, Pr. Mar Perezts, participants of the Sharing Economy PDW at EGOS 2017, AIMS 2018 reviewers and participants, Labex Refi, IBEI NRI and Globalization research clusters. We also would like to thank FPF and FPF members for welcoming our research project.

Funding

This study was funded by laboratory of excellence ReFi, of heSam University (Grant No. ANR-10-LABX-0095) and by Agence nationale de la Recherche (Grant No. ANR-11-IDEX-0006-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS (UMR5303), TSM-Research, 2 rue du Doyen Gabriel Marty, 31042, Toulouse, France

    Heloise Berkowitz

  2. Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Barcelona, Spain

    Heloise Berkowitz

  3. NEOMA Business School, 59 rue Pierre Taittinger, 51100, Reims, France

    Antoine Souchaud

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  1. Heloise Berkowitz
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Correspondence to Heloise Berkowitz.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Synthesis of the Multi-thematic Coding

Theme

Unit of analysis

FPF emergence in a context of crowdfunding governance gap

Need to collectively organize

Risks from the sector

Fears from regulators

Fears of a black sheep

Strong differentiation between crowdfunding and banking

Informal meetings

Weakness of the association

Organizational transformation of FPF

Restructuration of FPF

Role of the Ecosystem College in bringing alterity

Presidential support

Public consultation

Involvement of FPF in the consultation

Emergence of a governance framework for crowdfunding: the co-construction of regulation and self-regulation

Obligations for platforms to join an association

Legal statuses

Responsibility of the platform

Role of the Banking Authority

Regulating agencies

Importance of the code of Ethics

Vote on the Code of Ethics

Training provided by FPF

Efficiency of self-regulation

Consumer Association’s critics

Discussion about the Consumer Association’s report

Governance response to the Consumer Association’s critics

Implementation of the response among platforms

Case of conflict of interest on a platform

Identification of the problem by the Ethics Officer

Governance response to the conflict of interest issue

Compliance of the platform

Appendix B: Index of Organizations

ACPR: Banking Authority (regulatory agency)

AMF: Financial Markets Authority (regulatory agency)

DGCCRF: Competition & Consumers Protection Global Regulation Agency (regulatory agency)

FPF: Finance Participative France (crowdfunding France)

ORIAS: Platform Registration Office

TRACFIN: Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prevention Agency

UFC Que choisir: Consumer Association

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Berkowitz, H., Souchaud, A. (Self-)Regulation of Sharing Economy Platforms Through Partial Meta-organizing. J Bus Ethics 159, 961–976 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04206-8

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