Narrating a Sharing Business Model in Adventure Sport Tourism

This paper explores sharing business models in the context of the tourism and hospitality industry, drawing on a longitudinal case study of the development process for a sharing-based business in adventure tourism in Sweden. The purpose is to understand how sharing business models emerge through processes of ideological narration. The case study spanned over two years, and the empirical data was drawn from in-depth interviews, observations of meetings, and digital documents. The paper suggests that sharing business models can be conceptualised as ideological narrative performances designed to attract labour, capital and users to a digital platform. The study identifies four master narratives – sharing, sustainability, shared identity, and profit-making – and illustrates how these narratives are strategically employed to build and sustain the business. The findings reveal that sharing business models are grounded in ideological narratives with conflicting logics. Moreover, the dominance of these narratives shifts over time, reflecting different priorities and challenges encountered at various stages of a sharing business model´s development. This dynamic highlights the fluid and multi-faceted nature of narratives shaping sharing business models.