Consumer Behavior

1. AIMS OF ASSIGNMENT

This final case study assignment aims to evaluate students’ abilities to:
• identify marketing problems, issues or opportunities in a given business situation/environment.
• critically analyse these problems, issues or opportunities from a consumer behaviour perspective.
• provide solid managerial recommendations backed by an appropriate application of consumer behaviour theories.

2. ASSIGNMENT CASE STUDY:
   The Sharing Economy: A Consumer Behaviour Perspective

You are invited to the London Sharing Economy Conference 2023. At this conference local start-ups convene to learn, network and share information about how to grow and stay competitive in the sharing economy. The organizers of the conference invited experts of various fields including e-commerce, software development, economics and logistics to give inspiring, informative and critical talks about how to succeed in the increasingly competitive sharing economy. You are the consumer behaviour expert!

Prepare a 10 page power point slide deck with presenter notes (see more details about the format below), in which you cover the following:

1. Discuss the rise of the sharing economy.

• Define what the sharing economy is, and outline how/why it has developed.
• Contextualize the sharing economy in current times of increasingly liquid consumer lifestyles.
• Identify its merits and critiques.

1. Discuss the role of consumer behaviour in the sharing economy.

• Outline latest consumer research on how consumers consume in the sharing economy, and what they (not) value.
• What are key marketing issues (challenges/opportunities) in the sharing economy?
• Integrate concepts and frameworks that we discussed in class into this part of the analysis. What is the role of consumers’ attitudes, identity/self, reference groups, brand communities etc. in consumer behaviour in the sharing economy?

1. Based on this consumer behavioural analysis, provide three crisp managerial recommendations that will help your start up audience to develop competitive marketing strategies in the sharing economy. For each recommendation provide best practice examples of sharing economy companies who managed to get it right.

All claims must be underpinned by secondary sources including academic articles, industry reports, press articles, company website etc. and referenced accordingly. Start your academic literature search with those three articles and continue from there:

Bardhi, F. and Eckhardt, G.M., 2012. Access-based consumption: The case of car sharing. Journal of consumer research, 39(4), pp.881-898.
Bardhi, F. and Eckhardt, G.M., 2017. Liquid consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(3), pp.582-597.
Eckhardt, G.M., Houston, M.B., Jiang, B., Lamberton, C., Rindfleisch, A. and Zervas, G., 2019. Marketing in the sharing economy. Journal of Marketing, 83(5), pp.5-27.