Sharing is Caring? Conflict and Value Codestruction in the Case of Sharing Economy Accommodation

Using the context of sharing economy accommodation in London, the current research adopts a Stakeholder Causal Scope approach, to explore conflictual relationships between guests, hosts and locals and support the development of effective conflict management strategies. The Means-End Chain analysis method is combined with the Critical Incident Technique to investigate the causes of conflict and its consequences on the value co-created during stakeholder interactions. Our findings indicate that interest, relationship, values, information and structural issues can cause conflict, leading to a loss of personal, financial, environmental, material and social resources. Unless resolved successfully, this may result in further loss of resources and value co-destruction. This can negatively influence the environmental, social and economic sustainability of sharing economy accommodation. Effective conflict management strategies, such as development of consistent policies and effective communication channels, are required to enable value co-recovery and co-creation, through the recovery of lost resources.