Yes, we also can! The development of collaborative consumption initiatives in Brazil

Abstract

The advances and dissemination of information and communication technologies enable the creation of new forms of sharing and the rise of platforms for collective practices which contribute for the development of new ways of consuming, such as the collaborative consumption. This form of consumption refers to the practice of sharing, commercial loans, rents and exchanges that take place mainly in the cyberspace. The practices involved in these systems are still recent in Brazil. Thus, this paper aims to understand the perception of users and organizations regarding the systems of collaborative consumption in the Brazilian context. To accomplish this, a qualitative research with an exploratory character was carried out through semi-structured interviews with managers and users of different systems of collaborative consumption. The results revealed that, even though the collaborative consumption is still in its beginning in Brazil, there is a positive scenario for the development of collective practices in this country. Besides that, many interesting results regarding risks, obstacles, benefits and the ways that trust could be generated within these systems were also identified. Thus, new opportunities are open for the collaborative consumption in the Brazilian context.

Keywords: collaborative consumption, virtual platforms, Brazilian context.