Platforms such as Glovo, Deliveroo and Uber Eats that operate in the field of food delivery have set up in cities all around the world. The expansion of these platforms has had an impact on workers’ rights in what is considered as platform capitalism. Even then, democratic alternatives connected to the social and solidarity economy and digital commons exist. This article analyses the democratic qualities of four alternative food delivery platforms with headquarters in Europe (CoopCycle, CILFé, Crow and Mensakas). On the one hand, the results show that these platforms consider their workers’ rights; that is the main reason why they form an alternative to platform capitalism. On the other hand, the analysis shows that these platforms face important challenges, especially regarding their economic sustainability and scalability.

Digital platforms are changing the way in which suppliers and consumers of accommodation services interact, deeply transforming the tourism market. In these peer-to-peer and twosided digital marketplaces, pricing strategies become crucial for value generation, yet in contrast to conventional digital marketplaces, prices are set by non-professional vendors who are also consumers.

Airbnb is the most successful case of sharing economy-based accommodation rental, providing a vast and diverse range of places for tourists to stay in. In this digital marketplace, final consumers compete with professional hosts, looking for new business opportunities. Previous studies on pricing have not made a distinction between both groups. Our investigation aims to reduce this gap by focusing just on peer-to-peer transactions. We use a large dataset covering accommodation listed by non-professional hosts in Barcelona.

The paper offers evidence that higher accommodation prices are best explained by consumers’ preference for the intrinsic functional qualities of the value proposition. The systematic interaction of value and volume of online reviews and pricing strategies of close players can also produce a crucial impact on pricing.

Although those structures that we now call platforms have always been present in some sectors, it is from the establishment of the digital economy that they have come to play a leading role in our lives. Without understanding the mechanisms that govern the dynamics of digital platforms, which are different from those associated with the more traditional economy, it is difficult to understand many aspects of how today’s economy works. The objective of this article is to offer an introduction to the idea of platform and its characteristics. First, we review the general platform concept, the specificities of digital platforms and the particularities of their operation. Second, we describe the characteristics of the platforms that we consider more relevant in order to understand their social and economic effects. Finally, we choose three of these characteristics (the degree of digitisation, the openness in terms of access, provision, use and distribution, and their governance mechanisms) to develop a proposal for the classification of the platforms that we intend as a help to organise a little better our conception of the phenomenon. The classification scheme leads to the definition of different types of platforms that behave differently, as shown by the examples that we identify for each of them. We hope that our analysis will contribute to a better understanding of the paradigm shift brought about by the digitisation of the economy.

Becoming the first continent to be climatically neutral is currently both Europe’s main challenge and greatest opportunity. A new energy model, based on energy that is renewable, distributed and efficient, is crucial in order to accelerate the solution to the climate emergency. In this sense, on 25 February 2015, the European Commission set out a vision of an Energy Union with citizens at its core, where citizens take ownership of the energy transition, benefit from new technologies to reduce their bills and participate actively in the market. In June 2019, the European Union turned this public policy objective into an applicable regulation while the new EU directive on the electricity market set a new actor on the energy market: the citizen energy community. In this article, we analyse the meaning and significance of this key player in transforming the economy into a climate-neutral economy.

It has been a decade now that research on the collaborative economy and colla- borative consumption (CC) has thrived. Tremendous academic research has been conducted into this specific concept. This paper re-evaluates the conceptual framework proposed almost half a decade ago about the conceptual foundations, frontiers and limits of the concept of collaborative consumption. The paper provides a revised definition and assesses to what extent the scope and limits in contrast to other forms of exchange still hold now despite current challenges.

In this article, we present a brief survey of employment via microtasks platforms. The main issues we review are the following: the economic rationale of these platforms; the estimation of the level of this type of employment; and the profile and working conditions of these workers. We close the article with a discussion of social challenges in this new type of employment.

This article discusses the analysis of the concept of collaborative economics, taking the various streams of knowledge into consideration. It also provides an overview of the different collaborative business models that have existed so far and how their evolution over time has been due to different factors, including information and communication technologies (ICTs). While it is true that these business models are still in the midst of consolidation, they represent a great opportunity both for users who want to see their consumption needs met, as well as for companies that are not only looking for new sources of revenue, but also innovation when approaching their customers. Finally, the sharing economy represents a very recent field of research that is full of opportunities for contributing to science and the development of new business models.

Human resources of a company constitute one of its main competitive advantages. Valuing the importance of this resource and working intensively in order to retain this talent will constitute one of the main challenges of the future for companies. The study of one of the most important sectors in the Spanish economy, the commercial retail sector, allows an analysis of the importance of the management of human capital through motivation. As part of this point, the concept of personal, family and work balance gains importance as a tool for human management and for the retention of talent. In order to facilitate the application of measures for balancing life, the following conditions are required: gender equality, parity and joint responsibility. The benefits for both workers and companies are many. Among them, the minimal or zero cost which the implementation of these kinds of measures involve. New technologies in particular assist a real balance. Providing knowledge about and spreading the concept of personal, family and work balance, by analysing its applicability in one of the most important sectors in the Spanish economy, is the objective of this study.

This article is a summary of the work which obtained the prize for the best Bachelor’s Thesis (TFG) in Economics and Business Studies concerning gender during the 2018/19 course. The complete work is held in the UOC’s institutional repository (O2), the portal which collects, disseminates and preserves the UOC members’ free-access digital publications that were produced in the development of their research, teaching and management activities. You can consult the complete work at: http://hdl.handle.net/10609/110566.