Mapping the Collaborative Platform Economy Business Practice

Abstract

This study aims to develop a typological configuration that characterizes the full spectrum of collaborative platform economy business practice in the real world. The analysis is conducted on the basis of a large-scale data set which contains information on 1,335 representative platforms in more than 60 countries on five continents, covering almost all collaborative platform economy business practices mentioned in academic journals and public media. Leveraging the k-means clustering method, an empirical typology comprising seven categories of collaborative platform economy business practice is proposed: collaborative support platform, resource supply platform, authentic C2C platform, C2C mutualized mobility platform, hybrid service platform, B2C service platforms, collaborative finance platform. In addition, with the help of operating status data of the collaborative platform economy, a cross-comparative analysis was also carried out on the category differences and geographic differences.