From Profitability to Sociability: Digital Resilience of the Sharing Economy

This study explores how platforms can foster collaborative consumption and a culture of resource sharing during disasters, consequently pooling the crowd power to a unique bottom-up approach for disaster relief and mitigating the growing pressure on federal and state resources in the face of adverse natural events. Combining Airbnb platform data with various data sources, we find that communities with higher Airbnb engagement demonstrate more resilience, as shown by lower dependence on federal loans. The digital resilience effect operates predominantly through the sociability value, which holds more sustainable and economic significance than mere profitability. We additionally examine the moderating effect of collective efficacy through service community organizations and platform intervention, revealing the potential to augment the digital resilience effects. This study contributes to the literature on sharing economy during disruptions and its facilitative role in improving digital resilience, but also provides practical implications for platform operations in disaster management.