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The world is in a trend of urbanization, which leads to population surges in the major cities. The consequences are an increase in pollution and traffic congestion. With the rise of the sharing economy, bike sharing systems are a possible solution to the urban traffic problem, which at the same time is a sustainable “green” way of transportation. This trend is especially visible in China where the combination of bike sharing and the Internet of things has resulted in a new form of bike sharing: the free-floating bike sharing system. This paper seeks to analyse the new model, the underlying market conditions of China and Germany affecting the system and eventually tries to evaluate the chances and limitations of the FFBSS in the German market, considering the differences in the market and the opinions of expats who experienced the system first hand in China. This paper focuses on the two major operators of the free-floating bike sharing system, Mobike and Ofo bike, who have split most of the Chinese market between them, kicking out most of its competitors.
The sharing economy is a global phenomenon and an alternative consumption model based on granting access to owned surplus of resources to strangers through web-based platforms in exchange for money or for free. While this model quickly gained popularity in the transactions between individuals (C2C or P2P) and between individuals and companies (B2C), the potential of sharing between enterprises (B2B) is yet to be harnessed. Among the positive consequences the sharing economy claims to deliver, such as increased efficiency, waste-cut, and community-building, sustainability is the fundamental consequence this paper will focus on. Specifically, this thesis aims to determine if the sharing economy in the B2B market is a sustainable business model for the future. The obtained results show that, while the sharing economy in B2B, especially in small to medium-size companies, has the potential to bring more efficiency and sustainability for the future, this seems not to be the case in the present. This is the result of several external limitations, especially in the field of technology, legality and in society, but also of internal factors, such as conceptual and empirical unclearness that occasionally even lead to business misconduct and abuse of the positive connotation of the sharing economy model.