Degree project

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Motivating Role of Digital Technology in Pet Sharing through the Activity Theory Lens

Author: Qin Tan Supervisor: Behrooz Golshan Examiner: Associate Professor Päivi Jokela Date: 2020-05-22 Course Code:5IK50E, 30 credits Subject: Information Systems Level: Graduate Department of Informatics

Abstract

The sharing economy refers to the activities facilitated through the digital platform that enable

people to obtain, give, or share access to digital or physical resources and services. Although the

sharing economy practice in the real-world is thriving and pervasive, there is a lack of scholarly

work. Sharing pets activity is not a new concept, and people shares pets on digital platforms such as

websites, and digital groups on social media. Sharing pets activity is different from sharing other

things. Because the motivations of sharing pets are all related to the love for pets, and it is related to

accessibility, ownership of pets, and interaction and relationship between human beings and pets.

These particular features deserve scholarly attention.

Activity Theory is applied in this study, as it shapes the way of data collection and analysis. The

sharing pets practice is analyzed as individual and collective activity systems, to understand the

motiving role of digital platform in sharing activity.

The finding indicates that digital platform plays a crucial role in sharing activity, and according to

activity, it facilitates the activity of the sharing pet in three ways: It facilitates the achievement of

motive by users in each level of activity systems; it reduces the contradiction caused by the

interaction of two activity system; it also promotes the transition of motives so that users can have

more motives to participate in sharing pets activity.

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Abstract 2

1 Introduction 5

1.1 Introduction and Research Setting 5

1.2 Purpose Statement and Research Questions 6

1.3 Topic Justification 7

1.4 Scope and Limitations 8

1.5 Thesis Organization 8

2 Review of the Literature 9

2.1 Motivation of participating sharing-pets 10

2.2 Sustainability of participating sharing-pets 11

2.3 Mechanism of sharing digital platform 12

2.4 Activity Theory 13

3 Methodology 18

3.2 Methodological Tradition 19

3.2 Methodological Approach 19

3.3 Methods for Data Collection 20

3.3.1 Document data from digital platform 21

3.3.2 Semi-structured Interviews 22

3.3.3 Focus group 24

3.4 Methods/Techniques for Data Analysis 24

3.5 Reliability and Validity 25

3.6 Ethical Considerations 26

3.6.1 Ethical consideration about the research 26

3.6.2 Discriminations 26

3.6.3 Welfare of pets 27

4. Empirical Findings 27

4.1 Sharing-pet Activity Analyzed as Collective Activity systems 27

4.2 Analysis based on two interacting activity systems —contradictions 33

5. Analysis and Discussion 35

6. Conclusion 39

6.1 Conclusion 39

6.2 Contribution 40

6.3 Future Research 40

References 41

Appendices 49

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Appendix 1. List of Links 49

Appendix 2. Instruction for semi- stuructured interview: 50

Appendix 3. Consent Form 51

Appendix 4. Parts of Notes of interview 52

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1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction and Research Setting

Human-being have a long history of sharing as one of the basic ways of economic distribution. In

one of the definitions (Price, 1975), sharing is an integrative and coordinating process of allocation

of goods and services within an intimate social group, which means that “intimate social group”

means that sharing used to happen in a small scale, in which people are familiar with each other.

However, things have changed dramatically as digital technology developing rapidly. In the late

90s, the emergence of the online platform has enabled individuals to interact with each other in a

huge scale. Later, the development of digital technology has boosted the sharing economy as it

makes sharing of both physical or nonphysical goods, and services safer and more convenient. It

also encourages us to share by changing the old zero-sum thinking, as we share something such as

digital books, videos, ideas without losing and even gain more benefits with more people offering

their contribution and participation (Belk, 2010). The rapid development of information technology

plays an important role in this sharing economy phenomenon, as it enables innovation of business

models that change from focusing on ownership to the accessibility to products and services

(Puschmann and Alt, 2016).

In terms of sharing practice in the real world, there are both commercial and non-commercial ones.

For example, accommodation sharing such as Airbnb and Couchsurfing, Ride-sharing (Uber and

Lyft), and even virtual things such as service, skills, and time. On TimeBanking (timerepublik)

(Pais and Del Moral, 2015), users share their expertise by finishing tasks and pay for the services

by using time as a currency. Compared to the booming of sharing practices, however, the scholarly

work is lagging. Currently, there is no research about sharing living-subjects, and pets-sharing

activities are apparently different from sharing other things. In other sharing activity, people share

the idle accessibility to acquire time, money, or because of other social contact reason, While the

motivations of sharing pets are related to the love for pets that they shared, so it is not only related

to accessibility but also related to the ownership of pets and interaction and the relationship between

human beings and pets. So the particular features deserve scholarly attention.

I have noticed that there is “sharing” pets activity on both commercial and non-commercial digital

platforms, such as commercial platform shareyoupet.co.uk. (Batchelor, n.d.) which charges yearly

membership fee, and non-commercial platform such as sharing-pets groups on Facebook (“About

Facebook,” n.d.) and WeChat (“WeChat - Apps on Google Play,” n.d.) and other social media.

These digital platforms help pets owners and animal lovers find and match up with each other.

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Researches indicate that exposing to unfamiliar humans makes pet dogs and pet cats more sociable,

as shelter animals that the richer reinforcement history of interacting with unfamilair humans

makes shelter animals more likely to spend time near novel humans as compared to pet animals

(Barrera et al., 2010; Vitale and Udell, 2019). So sharing acitivity through digital platform can also

helps to improve the welfare of pets by giving pets extra care and attention from pet borrowers.

In this research, a broad definition of “sharing economy” was applied for searching and investigate

sharing pets activities on digital platform. Using Google as the search engine, I initially found

many websites related to sharing pets. One of the digital platform BorrowMyDoggy

(“BorrowMyDoggy - Local Dog Walking, Sitting & Holiday Care,” n.d.) based in UK claims to

have more than 250, 000 users, enables dog owners and borrowers to help each other out with dog

caring issues by building a reliable virtual community. For example, dog owners can have help of

caring dogs from borrowers as they may need help because of life changings, such as changing job

and traveling. Meanwhile, borrowers who are often unable to have a dog spend time with dogs for

the love of dog other than money, and it can also be a good way to have experience with different

breeds before one buys a dog.

Although the sharing practice of pets is emerging, there is a lack of research on sharing economy,

especially on the topic of sharing living-subjects. To this end, this research seeks to fill the research

gap through a qualitative research approach to understanding the motivating and inhibiting factors

of participating in sharing pets. Since the sharing economy consists of the collaborative use of idle

resources that are enabled by Information and Communication Technology (ICT), this research

focuses on technological factors that are examined to understand the influence of technology on the

sharing pet phenomenon. By using Activity Theory, the activity of the sharing pet enabled by the

digital platform is analyzed to investigate the motivating roles that digital platform plays in the

sharing activity system.

1.2 Purpose Statement and Research Questions

The purpose of this study was to explore the possibility of pet-sharing on the digital platform by

investigating the motivating role of the sharing-pets platform through a lens of Activity Theory.

Activity Theory was used to shape the way of data collection and analysis, and I focused on the data

related to main concepts in the activity theory. Therefore my research question is how the

mechanism of digital technology motivates participation in sharing pet activity.

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1.3 Topic Justification

When refers to sharing economy, people would commonly consider Uber and Airbnb, since they are

the representatives of the rapid-growing firms of sharing economy. While in a broad definition,

even Wikipedia.com, Youtube, Instagram, and Pirate Bay (a peer-to-peer file-sharing website),

belongs to this sharing economy phenomenon, as these are practices of sharing information and

other resources. Therefore, a “sharing” platform is not a very new concept. In an earlier stage,

sharing platforms like Napster enables sharing digital audio files, and social media like Youtube and

Tumblr enable individuals to share thoughts and other digital content. While the latest generation of

sharing platforms emphasize the exchange of temporary non-ownership of resources or resources

access for monetary rewards (Breidbach and Brodie., 2017).

In some researches, sharing economy was viewed as an umbrella term that (Amundsen, 2017;

Breidbach and Brodie, 2017; Dredge and Gyimóthy, 2015; Hamari et al., 2016; Martin, 2016;

Puschmann and Alt, 2016) In a broad definition, Sharing economy refers to an activity that aims for

obtaining, giving or sharing the access to digital or physical resources and services facilitated

through digital platforms (Hamari et al., 2016; Richardson, 2015). It is difficult to define what is

sharing economy, as there are various overlapping terms used to describe this economic-

technological phenomenon, such as sharing economy, collaborative consumption collaborative

economy, gig economy which includes peer-to-peer employment market, and peer-to-peer renting,

lending, selling and giving. In this research, I apply the broad definition of sharing economy as I

focused on the essence of sharing of accessibility to resources in sharing economy enabled by

digital technology. In the broad definition, hence, I study sharing living subjects as a sharing

economy phenomenon mediated by digital technology.

I tried to search for research work about sharing living subjects on both Google Scholar and One

Search with the keywords of “sharing economy”, and “pets” or “living subjects” or “dogs” “cats.

No directly related work was found. But in real-world sharing practice, people are sharing their

pets, and there are more people wants to do so. Besides, sharing living subjects has different

features than sharing other objects. Therefore, there is a need for the study about sharing pets

activity to bridge the gap in the deficiency of research on sharing living subjects.

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1.4 Scope and Limitations

My study investigates one particular kind of sharing economy service, i.e. sharing-pets, so the

results may be generalizable only to sharing-living subjects. Care must be taken when extrapolating

my findings to other types of sharing economy platforms.

In the process of data collection, all of the interviewees have experience of sharing activity

mediated by a digital platform, such as Airbnb, Uber, or sharing staff on a Facebook group, and they

have shared pets with other people for no more than one month. However, they do not have

experience of sharing pets on the sharing-pets websites that were examined in this research.

Besides, Some demographic factors such as gender and age that can affect the participation of

sharing are not included in this research. For example, in Norbutas and Corten (2018) study of

freecycling group， female users were much more prevalent, accounting for 75% of all individuals. Gender, age, and other demographic differences in sharing behavior online could be an interesting

prospect for future research.

Activity Theory was applied to shape the way of data collection and analysis with a focus on the

factor of Motives. Another factor such as culture and community can be also considered in future

research. Also, in future research, the activity theory can be re-evaluated by considering more

factors.

1.5 Thesis Organization

The next chapter is the review of literature, in which I present the other research in the field of

sharing economy, from the study of the definition of sharing economy to that of specific sharing

practice. The literature review is categorized in four parts about motivation, sustainability,

mechanism of the digital platform, and activity theory.

In the chapter of methodology, I illustrate the methodological tradition, approach, and explain the

chosen methods and the reason that I choose activity theory, how data was collected, and how data

was analyzed by applying Activity Theory, including the explanation of main concepts in Activity

Theory.

Chapter four is the empirical findings that Pet-sharing activity is presented and analyzed as

collective systems, and two interacting activity systems: In the collective systems, the sharing

activity on the digital platform is analyzed in different levels, and the activity, motives, and goals

are explained according to three different levels. In the two interacting activity systems, the whole

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activity is analyzed from both of borrower’s and owner’s perspective. In this way, I can have a

deeper understanding of how users and owners interact with each other and find the potential issue

of the systems.

Chapter five is the analysis and discussion, and there was a critical discussion about the empirical

findings compared with related theories and findings in other works of literature.

The last chapter contains a conclusion, contribution, and potential improvements and ideas for

future research.

2 Review of the Literature

In this chapter I will present the description and discussion of other’s research, establishing a new

theoretical framework. The topic of sharing pets is new, and there is lack of academic studies on the

topic of sharing economy, and most of the previous researches are about sharing non-living things,

such as sharing cars (Calo and Rosenblat, 2017; Lee et al., 2018; Middleton and Zhao, 2019,

Norbutas and Corten 2018), accommodation (Abrahao et al., 2017; Edelman et al., Martin, 2016;

2017; Zervas et al., 2017), foods (Jehlička and Daněk, 2017). Other researchers such as Pais and

Del Moral (2015) are about sharing virtual things, time, and they investigated the digitalization of

Timebanking systems as a phenomenon of the collaborative economy. However, pets-sharing is

apparently different from sharing other things. In other sharing activities, people participate in

sharing for time, money, or social contact reason, but people share pets for the love of the pets that

they shared. The sharing of pets activity is not only related to interaction and relationship between

human beings but also to that of animals. Therefore, it is difficult to find an existed theoretical

framework fit the research perfectly.

This review is not exhaustive but comprehensive summarizing related research published on peer-

reviewed journals includes topics such as motivation, sustainability, of sharing economy,

mechanism of the digital platform, and Activity Theory, to build a new theoretical framework by

combining understanding about Activity Theory and motivation, mechanism of digital platform.

The following keywords were used to retrieve articles on database published in English on the

database of Onesearch and Google Scholar: sharing economy, digital platform, peer-to-peer,

motivations, activity theory.

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2.1 Motivation of participating sharing-pets

Although there is limited research directly investigating pets or animal sharing, other literature

about sharing economy can be found. There are some researches about the motivation of sharing

economy phenomenon: Many sharing platforms have a structure of incentives that are similar to

simple market exchanges. For example, on Uber or Airbnb has monetary rewards in exchange for a

service. On other sharing platform, users provide other resources for getting services in turn. For

example, users of Couchsurfing provide rooms or beds to strangers in exchange for a good

reputation that facilitates opportunities for getting accommodated in the future.

The motivation for sharing behavior is affected by many factors, such as Ideology and culture

(Hamari et al., 2016; Richins and Dawson, 1992). The sharing system is not necessarily

commercial, for example, the social practice of the non-market and non-monetized sharing home-

grown foods in the Czech Republic motivated primarily by the joy derived from the act of sharing

and social contact formed out of engaging in the exchange of home-grown foods. (Jehlička and

Daněk, 2017).

Hamari et al. (2016) collected data from mapping 254 digital platform and 168 registered platforms

found that participation in collaborative consumption was motivated by sustainability, enjoyment of

the activity, and economic gain. （It should be noted that there is an attitude-behavior gap existed that good attitude to the sharing practice does not mean real action of sharing). Similarily,

Möhlmann’s (2015) study of car-sharing service Car2go and accommodation sharing platform

Airbnb has revealed that four factors(cost saving, familiarity, trust, and utility) have a positive

influence on satisfaction and likelihood of choosing the sharing option again. The conclusion was

verified by Lee et al. (2018) that perceived benefits (ie. enjoyment and economic reward) exert the

strongest influence on users’ intention to participate. Other factors, such as perceived risk,

perceived platform qualities, and trust are also significant predictors of users’ intention to

participate in Uber. In the research, they empirically tested data collected from an online survey to

Uber users from Hong Kong through a marketing research firm using the structural equation

modeling technique by using the structural equation modeling technique. The research also

produced an insight of interrelationship between the factors: Trust in the platform significantly

reduces users’ perception of risks and enhances users’ perception of benefits toward participating in

the sharing economy (Lee et al., 2018). Also, the research enriched the valence framework by

incorporating perceived platform qualities into the research model in order includes technological

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variables in information systems research. However, in this research, there is a limitation that the

conclusion can not fully explain why do collaborate without direct reciprocity.

2.2 Sustainability of participating sharing-pets

Some sharing activities and its platforms, no matter commercial or non-commercial ones, are more

successful than others. To understand the reasons, researchers investigate the sustainability of those

sharing platforms and activities. Norbutas and Corten's (2018) study investigates what theoretical

mechanisms could explain what contributes to the sustainability of cooperation in freecycling

groups on a Facebook group when it is more beneficial to free-ride. The previous literature on

cooperation in the sharing economy has rarely been embedded in sociological theory on social

dilemmas. While their study, they tested and confirm social theory by using longitudinal data from a

freecycling group on Facebook with 4818 members. They confirmed the social contagion

hypothesis that sharing behavior could be based on mimicking others. Another generalized

reciprocity theory has also be proved that when an individual receives something from a stranger

without being asked to give something back, it might build generalized group trust or inspire

feelings of gratitude and make that individual likely to pass the favor on. Jehlička and Daněk’s

(2017) research also focuses on sharing behavior that is not nonreciprocal and non-obligatory. They

conclude that the main motives of sharing home-grown foods are the joy derived from the act of

sharing and the social contract formed out of engaging in the informal exchange of home-grown

foods.

Besides the technology factor, there are other important factors affect the willingness of sharing.

For example, the changing of ideology. One of the reasons can explain the rising of sharing

economy: changing of ideology: Our willingness to sharing had declined as the rise of possessive

individualism. (Lastovicka and Fernandez, 2005). For example, Materialist prefers to retain the

resource for their use, and less willing to share it with others including socially closed people, such

as friends and family, as well as socially distant people, such as charitable organization (Richins and

Dawson, 1992). As I applied Activity Theory, it is necessary to understand the historical and

cultural factors that affect the sharing activity. Holding an interpretive view, I focus on the contexts

in which people live and work are important for researchers to understand the historical and cultural

settings of individuals. The roles of such factors in the activity system will be analyzed by

comparing with my finding in the discussion part.

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2.3 Mechanism of sharing digital platform

The rise of sharing economy is tightly associated with digital technology, because the ICT

infrastructure of the Sharing platform is so efficient and scalable that it can bring numerous people

together and matches participants to the goods or services they need rapidly. It is necessary to

understand the mechanism of sharing digital platform, as the research studies how the mechanism

of sharing platform motivate participation in sharing pets.

In a conventional way, sharing activity has always been common among friends, family, or other

people whom they are familiar with. The mechanism of digital platforms enables participants to

share in a larger scale than pure reliance on private sector (Cohen and Kietzmann, 2014), and it also

enable participants to reach to a larger social network by integrating third-party social media

platform (Spagnoletti et al., 2015). While the digital platform enables people to start to share with

strangers by creating trust among strangers. The digital platform provides a more efficient matching

service that is done algorithmically based on geographical information and user preferences

(Frenken, 2017; Masoud and Jayakrishnan, 2017). For example, the ridesharing system relies on

Global Positioning System (GPS) that enables users to match with other users who are

geographically closed.

It provides a space for users to evaluate and match with each other based on the profile system and

reputation systems. Some researches showed that profile has a siginificant effect on user’s choices.

For example, users with African American-sounding names are less accepted by host than users

with white-sounding names (Edelman et al., 2017), and similar discrimination also happened on the

ridesharing platform Uber and Lyft. (Middleton and Zhao, 2019). The reputation mechanism of the

digital platform is another system for users to judge if others are trustworthy when they do not

know each other. For example, CouchSurfing offers a multi-faceted reputation system that includes

three types of information: identity verification, personal references, and vouching systems.

(Lauterbach et al., 2009) The vouching system is a way for users to declare certain friends as

trustworthy. Lauterbach et al (2009) argued that CouchSurfing heavily relies on the reciprocity and

trust among users, as the high degree of activity and reciprocity is enabled by the reputation system

in which users vouch for one another. They found that active users are also active on both hosts and

surfers activity, while on other online communities, such as question and answer platform, where

the core member-only comprise a few percent of all users.

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Besides the reputation system, some digital platforms also use gamification to encourage people to

participate in sharing activity. Gera and Hasdell (2019) has examined the role played by game

elements in motivating hosts for sustained participation on Airbnb. Hamari (2013) has found that on

the collaborative consumption platform, the user who actively monitored their badges of the

gamification system showed increased user activity. Spagnoletti et al. (2015)’s study offered a more

comprehensive knowledge of the mechanism of a sharing platform by focusing on the structure of

the platform. They propose to develop a design theory to guide the design of digital platforms that

support online communities (DOsOC) by validating and generating a set of propositions, through

the multiple case study of digital platforms including Twitter, Wikipedia, Liquidfeedback, and a

European digital platform for elderly care assistance. Their findings suggest that to make the digital

platform more effective, the core services and interfaces should be combined to enable

complements, in order to support mixed levels of DOsOC architecture (ie. information sharing,

collaboration, and/or collective action levels). For example, digital platforms that support

information sharing-centered online communities should be connected to popular online social

networking services (such as Facebook). While in the level of collective action, the collective

action-centered online communities should engage trusted members who are small and tightly

coupled to enable intimate interactions. In their case, they integrated Skype in the architecture to

facilitate a trusted and intimate interaction environment.

2.4 Activity Theory

Activity Theory is a complex umbrella term that based on concepts from the threefold origin in

German philosophers Kant and Hegel, in dialectical materialism of Marx, and in Russian cultural

Psychology of Vygotsdky and Leontiev (Engeström et al., 1999; Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006; Peña-

Ayala et al., 2014; Sam, 2012). Activity Theory has evolved and developed as many researchers

contribute to it.

At first, I had tried to find some theories and models in IS research to guide my study. After

reviewing some theories and their related work, I found Activity Theory is suitable for my study. It

is a cross-disciplinary framework for studying human practices in both the conventional way of

analysis of an activity, and it understands the subject and the object of the activity separately, and

then makes an assumption of the interaction and correlation between them. Holding an

interpretative view, I also focus on the contexts, and historical and cultural settings of individuals to

understand the interaction and relationship between participants.

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Besides, the straightforward logic to understand the activity can be problematic. Applying Activity

Theory helps reveal the actual demands and problems in real-world sharing practice rather than

artificial laboratory results. The activity theory can be used to analyze the sharing activities in an

organized way. It helps me to understand the sharing activities as one integrated system and it can

also be used to analyze the sharing activity as two activities systems of carer and owner. So I can

understand the interaction and relationship between the carer and owner, and also find a potential

contradiction between them.

Activity Theory has an origin of Russian cultural Psychology, and it focuses on the individual’s

consciousness and motive of the activity. My study is about how the mechanism of the digital

platform affects people’s participation in sharing-pets activity. So the user’s motivation is a crucial

factor that should be analyzed. People’s intention and motivation is complex and changeable. From

the interview, I found users usually have more than one motivation to join in the sharing activity.

Their motivation sometimes can be different than their original intention. In the Activity Theory, the

hierarchical structure of the activity model is useful to analyze users’ activities and their

motivations at different levels. The model of Activity System helps to understand how the

mechanism of digital platform affect the activity system, peoples motivation, and participation in

pet-sharing.

Activity Theory had been applied to guide many works Information System research and design

such as: building adaptive e-learning systems (Peña-Ayala et al., 2014), Activity Theory-based

model for design and analysis of educational serious games (Carvalho et al., 2015). It is applied

commonly in qualitative research, because by using Activity Theory, the activity will be understood

in the context, and usually qualitative research methods such as interviews, observations, and

document analysis will be applied by researchers. For example, there are contextual, conceptual,

and physical/technical levels of interactions. In this way, it studies activities embedded in the social

context, considering the dynamics and development of the activities ( Kuutti, 1996). Activity

Theory focuses on the muli-levelness of activities. As the main concept of Activity Theory,

“Activity” stands for the purposeful interactions that enable mutual transformations between subject

and object. One of the main ideas of Activity Theory is the unity of consciousness and activity, and

the social nature of the human’s mind (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006). Another important concept

“mediating artifacts” is useful for analyze technical factors in the sharing system. These features

make Activity Theory very suitable for investigating how the mechanism of digital platform

mediates sharing pets activity contextually.

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As defined in Activity Theory, the hierarchical structure of activity includes three layers of activities

(as showed in figure 2.1 Hierarchical structure of acitivity）According to Leontiev’s hierarchical structure, there are three levels within the practices: Activities, Actions, and Operations levels.

Human’s activities were driven by the motives, but sometimes human

Figure 2.1 Hierarchical structure of activity (adapted from Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006).

activities are not directed straightly toward their motives. Within activities, many actions are driven

by goals. Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006, p.62) argued that “Operations are routine processes providing

an adjustment of an action to the ongoing situation”, and Operation was affected by the conditions

such as physical or technical factors (Allen et al., 2011).

In the top-level, activity itself is motivated by an object (motive). The object promotes the subject

to attain the object ultimately but does not unilaterally determine activities. The relationship be-

tween the subject and object determine how subject and object develop together. That is to say, the

initial idea of an object can change as the process going, and the outcome might be different from

what people envisioned initially. Similarly, the subject might also change as the activity going.

According to Activity Theory, an activity may contain a sequence of actions. Although the sequence

of actions as a whole is directed to the motive, the actions consist of the activity may not be directly

related to the motive, but be directed by goals. In the second level of activity, there are many actions

motivated by goals, and these goals are conscious. In other words, humans are usually aware of the

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goals but not be immediately aware of the motives. In the third level, actions consist of operations

which are routine processes enabling actions to adjust to the ongoing situation. These actions are

conscious goal-directed, goals, and actions can also have different levels, and different actions

might be taken to meet the same goal (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006). Take a simple example, doing

laundry is an activity which is motivated by the object, clean clothes. The activity consists of

several actions, such as sorting the clothing, and using the washing machine, drying the clothes by a

dryer. Within one of the actions, for example, sorting clothes. There are also lower levels of actions,

such as sorting clothing by color and by fabric, and the two actions are taken to meet the same goal.

In the third layer of activity, operations are usually taken unconsciously and automatically, Human

are typically not aware of operations, while the operations are directed by the condition under

which the subject is trying to attain the goal (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2018). For example, to use the

washing machine, users open the door of the washing machine habitually. But if the condition is

changed that users have never used this new type of washing machine before, and he/she should

explore how to use it, then operations become conscious. The activity theory is dynamic, as the

three levels are not fixed, for example, the activities may become actions or operations, and the goal

may become a motive at a later time.

Figure 2.2 Individual activity system (adapted from Engeström et al. 1999).

Figure 2.2 illustrates the individual activity system (Engeström et al. 1999). Figure 2.2 shows the

structure of one individual human activity system. In this individual activity system, Mediation is

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one of principle conception in activity theory, and Meditating artifacts can be physical and abstract

artifacts, such as tool, sign, language, skills, experience, and technical factors that shape the

way that human interacts with the reality. In this research, I mainly focus on digital platforms as

the Mediation factors in the activity systems. Objects, in other words, Motives, are the objects that

give meaning to what people do.

This model of an activity system is suitable for analyzing the data of sharing pets activity, as the

data can be considered according to each type of factor in the activity system. Besides, the digital

platform is analyzed as a very important factor, the Meditation factor, to understand how the role

that the digital platform plays in the sharing activity.

In the later period of development of the Activity Theory, the basic model in activity theory was

expanded to elaborate minimally two interacting activity systems (see figure 2.3) to understand the

dialogue, multiple perspectives, and networks of interacting activity systems (Engeström, 2001).

This model of minimally two interactivity activity systems also includes factors such as tool,

community, rules, and division of labor, describe how two activity systems interact. When two

activity systems interact, it often causes contradictions in the overlapping area, as shown in figure

2.3. According to Engeström’s model (2001), a sharing-pet activity can be divided into two

interacting systems: pet’s pet owners share their pets to local people who want to take care of pets;

carers “borrow” and take care of other’s pets. When two activity systems interact, it often causes

contradiction.

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Focusing on social factors, interactions, and context, Activity Theory offers a structured framework

that considers the mediating artifacts such as digital platform not only a tool but also part of activity

systems, as the interactions between human and the reality are mediated by physical and non-

physical artifacts (Carvalho et al., 2015). Division of Labor presents different participants in

different positions, as the participants in the same activity always carry multiple points of view,

traditions, and interests (Engeström, 2001). This factor enables contextual analysis of activity.

The activity systems are open and dynamics. When the activity system has new elements (for

example a new rule, a new technology, or a new object), they often lead to contradictions that

generate disturbances but also innovation (Engeström 2001). Factors, such as rules and norms, and

community are the conditions that actions should adapt to. The routine operations that are mediated

by technic factors, providing an adjustment of the action to the ongoing situation, in order to reach

the goals (Allen et al., 2011). According to activity theory, the digital platform can also be regarded

as a tool that mediates the interaction between people (Kaptelinin, 1996). Therefore activity was

applied in this research to understand technical mediation in the sharing activity, and how the

mechanism of platform inhibits and motivates participation taking into consideration digital,

culture, rules, and other factors.

3 Methodology

Digital technology has enabled individuals to reach each other at low cost without the time and

geographic limitation, and it also has enabled the business model to be disruptive and innovative.

(Hamari et al., 2016; Martin, 2016). Therefore in this research, the Sharing economy as a

technology phenomenon will be studied from the perspective of an information system to look into

the role of digital technology in sharing economy, particularly focusing on the mechanism of the

digital platform to motivate and inhibit participation in sharing pets activity.

There is research that intersects information systems and environmental sustainability by

developing a Belief- Action- Outcome (BAO) framework (Nigel et al., 2010). Other research about

Human-Computer Interaction and how information system mediate human’s interaction with the

reality by using Activity Theory (Anthony, 2011; Carvalho et al., 2015; Engeström, 2001; Sam,

2012; Woll and Bratteteig, 2018) theory can be used as a broad explanation for behavior and

attitudes (Creswell, 2018). In qualitative research, the way of using theory is much more varied than

in quantitative research. Theory can be used from the beginning as a lens that shapes what is looked

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at and what questions should be asked (Creswell, 2018). Owning to lack of academic study on

sharing economy, and the peculiarity of sharing pets activity, it is difficult to find an existed

theoretical framework that perfectly fits my research topic. In this study, the Activity Theory is used

as a theoretical lens to shape how I collect and analyze the data. The sharing-pets activity is

analyzed according to the acitivity theory and its model of activity systems.

Activity Theory, along with the understanding of digital platform mechanism from previous

literatures, and insight of sharing pets activity from data collected from individuals and digital

platform helps me to investigate how the mechanism of digital platform motivate and inhibit the

sharing pet's activity.

In the next chapter, the data collected from interviews and websites are analyzed based on two

models in Activity Theory.

3.2 Methodological Tradition

To plan this research, as the researcher, I thought through the philosophical worldview as it guides

my research design and methods (Creswell, 2018). The IS research can be classified as interpretive,

as the knowledge of the phenomenon is gained through social constructions such as languages,

consciousness, shared meaning, and other artifacts (Miles and Gilbert, 2005). Holding an

interpretive perspective, I believe that the knowledge of sharing economy is about people’s

relationships and interactions between each other. In my study of sharing-pets, it is also related to

the interactions and relationships between humans and animals. Therefore, I applied an interpretive

approach to look for an understanding of the complexity of the sharing phenomenon and

investigating the interaction and relationship between participants in the practice of sharing pets on

digital platforms (Creswell, 2018).

3.2 Methodological Approach

As the emerging of pet-sharing practices in the real world is neglected in scholarly research, this

pet-sharing phenomenon needs to be explored and understood, therefore it is better to apply the

qualitative approach in this research (Creswell, 2018).

Qualitative research is an approach for exploring and understanding the complexity of the problem

and the situation, focusing on the roles of individuals or groups in the situation (Creswell, 2018).

My study focuses on how participants interact with each other and their environments mediated by

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technological artifacts. Questions emerge during the process of the research and data are analyzed

in an inductive style, and I, as the researcher, interpret the data into knowledge (Creswell, 2018).

After collecting data from sharing pets websites, I acquired a basic understanding of the current

sharing platform. With this basic knowledge, I had more questions about participants in real sharing

activity. Then I performed interviews to get further data from the participants' perspective.

Combining two-part of data, I analyzed the structure of sharing activity and how digital platforms

motivate and inhibit participation in sharing activity.

Not like a deductive approach testing an existing theory or hypothesis，using an inductive approach, the researcher looks for the similarities and differences in the data. In qualitative

research, theory can appear at the beginning, and not be tested but modified based on participants'

views (Creswell, 2018). The data are interpreted and categorized by researchers with different

levels of abstraction and interpretation (Graneheim et al., 2017). So the data collected from the

open-ended questions in the semi-structured interview will be coded on topics, as Creswell (2018)

suggested that codes can be developed only based on emerging information collected from

participants. After categorizing the codes into themes and generating related descriptions,

qualitative researchers build additional layers of complex analysis beyond identifying themes to

form complex themes connections (Creswell, 2018). In this research, Activity Theory is used as a

theoretical framework to shape the questions I asked, how data are analyzed. In the part of the

analysis, the sharing pet's activity was analyzed according to Activity theory-based models. I

interpreted the narrative outcome comparing and discussing it with other literature.

3.3 Methods for Data Collection

Apply a qualitative approach, the researcher can collect data from observing individuals without

predetermined questions, making an interview to participants so that they express themself freely

about the topic (Creswell, 2018). As Creswell (2018) suggests, qualitative researchers usually

gather multiple forms of data, such as observation, interviews, documents, and audiovisual

information. Owning to the deficiency of previous academic study in sharing pets, I had to gather

various data form real-world sharing pets activity to get a better insight of this sharing phenomenon.

At the beginning, I used Google to search for sharing-pets websites to get an overview of how pets-

sharing platform works in practice. Random sampling or selection of a large number of participants

and sites are not typically found in qualitative research. In this research, five pet-sharing websites

were purposefully selected as they have more adequate information for research, while other

websites were inactive or lack information. During the investigating of the websites, I found that

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there are various qualitative data presented on the websites, such as photos and stories shared by

users, and videos of interviews of pet owners and borrowers. Besides the interviews, these data are

also useful for understanding the topics from partcipants' perspective. I reviewed forty-three

interviews including the videos posted on the websites.

In the later stage, I performed semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to get a deeper

understanding of contextual factors such as participants’ multiple points of view, traditions, and

interests, motivations, to investigate how digital platform meditate the sharing activity under those

contextual factors.

The Activity Theory shaped how I collect and analyze data, so when I investigate the websites, I

focused on the data related to main concepts in the activity theory. For example, I focus on the

different levels of activities of user’s activities on sharing website; How people match up with

suitable owners, borrowers, and pets, and what actions would they do; and what motive their

actions. Those data then were analyzed according to the models of Activity Theory.

3.3.1 Document data from digital platform

Document data was collected from five digital platforms based on different countries to understand

the mechanism of current pet-sharing practices. Initially, I searched for pet sharing digital platform

by using Google, and keywords include “share pet ”, “share dog”, “share cat”, “sharing economy”.

Some websites were found inactive and not having many users or lacking information. After sorting

out unrelated web pages, and inadequate websites, five pet sharing websites were chosen to be

further examined. Besides reviewing the features of these websites, I found there are stories and

member testimonials shared by users about their experience of sharing pets through the platform.

These stories and interviews are also helpful for me to understand sharing pets from users’

perspectives. (See the Link 1 in Appendix 1 to review the webpage of stories and testimonials

shared by users) Different websites use different names to describe users, such as “Sharer”, “Carer”,

“owners” and “borrower”. In these articles, Sharer means pet owners and carer and borrower stands

for people who want to care for a pet.

Among those five websites, some of them do not require any payment from users while others

require a monthly or yearly fee for different levels of memberships. These websites enable various

activity with pets: such as walk

Brief description of five websites:

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• Sharemypet.co.nz (“Share My Pet, connecting pet owners with carers in the community,”

n.d.) is a platform that creates New Zealand’s first pet-sharing community by connecting

pet’s owners with people in their local community who would like to take care of pets.

• Shareyoupet.co.uk. (Batchelor, n.d.) helps animal lovers connect with locals to borrow and

share pets. There are different yearly fees for different levels of membership for both pet’s

borrowers and owners. The platform is available not only for dogs and cats but also for other

pets such as rabbits, birds, horses, reptiles, etc.

• Borrowmydoggy.com (“BorrowMyDoggy - Local Dog Walking, Sitting & Holiday Care,”

n.d.) also helps dog owners and lovers find each other in the local area to arrange walks,

playtime, overnight stays or holidays for dogs. It is free to register an account on the

websites. Borrowers do not charge for their services and only join for the love of dogs.

While it costs a yearly membership fee for both owner and borrower to become a premium

member in order to get more services, such as insurance, 24/7 Vet line.

• Dogtime community (“Dogtime Community,” n.d.) (https://www.dogtimecommunity.com/)

is a platform including a website and a mobile app available on both iOS and Android, in

which dog lovers can find dogs available for a walk, and dog owners can find a dog lover to

walk their dogs in the neighborhood.

• Rover.com (“Rover.com,” n.d.) is a location-based dog sharing digital platform that

connects dog owners and people who would like to take care of dogs. From the website, it

could be seen that the platform applies a subscription model to generate revenue. (Polanka,

2013). Dog owners pay a fee to get service from other users. The services include dog

boarding, house sitting, daycare, dog walking drop-in visit services.

3.3.2 Semi-structured Interviews

After having a basic understanding of the pet-sharing digital platform, semi-structured interviews

were produced to get a deeper understanding of the individual's perspectives. The semi-structured

interview is flexible, as the questions are general and broad so that the responses are not

predetermined. Although there are no predetermined and fixed questions, all of the open-ended

questions are arranged to be related to main topics which were planned in advance. (See

instructions for the semi-structured interview in Appendix 2)

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The flexibility of the semi-structured interview makes it suitable for finding out Why questions

instead of How and How Much question(Miles and Gilbert, 2005). Therefore, semi-structured

interviews are great to understand the motivating and inhibiting factors for people to participate in

sharing pets. With the data collected from websites, I can analyze how digital platforms meditate

the activity of the sharing pet.

A list of questions prepared in advance are flexible but covering the main topics. So during the

interview, I did not ask exactly the same questions to different interviews but asked unfixed

questions. It helps me to avoid sticking in my pre-understanding of sharing economy. The answers

to interviews inspired me to ask more questions. Instructions including main topics were planned in

advance to guide the questions in the interview. (See Appendix 2). All participants are asked to

assign a consent form (See Appendix 3).

I performed six individual interviews, and two of them are pet owners who currently have cats. The

other four interviewees do not have a pet currently, but they are taking care of other pets during my

research. All participants are informed about the general purpose of the degree project and the

interview. They are asked to sign a consent form (see Appendix 3) to indicate that they are

volunteered to participate in the interview.

To make participants feel more comfortable, all the interviews were performed in the private space.

Pet’s owners were interviewed in their apartments respectively, and four pet carers were

interviewed when they are taking care of other pets at the owner’s apartment. The first carer “Carer

One” was interviewed when she was taking care of the cat at the cat owner’s apartment. Therefore,

I had the opportunity to observe how they take care of and interact with the pets when I performed

the interview. As I was interviewing her, I realized that the unplanned observation is very helpful

for understanding the relationship and interaction between the carer and the cat. As the researcher, I

do not have much experience with dogs and cats, and it inspired me to asked some unplanned

questions, and I got many unexpected but important answers. For example, I noticed that “Carer

one” was talking to the cat when she was playing with it. So I asked her if she would also talk to her

own cat? Then I got an unexpected answer that she often talks to her own cat, and tell secrets to her

cat. Although she also talks to the cat that she takes care of, but she will never tell secrets to this cat,

as she said she can never build a strong connection with a cat that does not belong to her. This

answer helps me to have a better understanding of the ownership of pets, and the relationship

between career and pets. After this interview, I decided to ask all other participants to take interview

them along with their pets.

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I also performed a short interview with a certified dog trainer who runs a dog training center in

Xinjiang, China. Because of the distance between the researcher and the interviewee, the interview

was conducted on an instant voice chat mobile application, Wechat. The interview was for

understanding if sharing activity is fully harmful to pets.

3.3.3 Focus group

In the beginning, I planned to have a focus group, and four participants were invited. the

arrangement for the focus group is similar to individual semi-structured interviews, as there are only

basic topics prepared to guild the questions. While the focus group focuses on people's interaction

and discussion with each other. But only one person has attended the interview, so the focus group

eventually turned into an individual group. The failing to focus group reminded me to think of the

question that if the focus group is necessary for my research. On the one hand, the focus group is

efficient that I can interview several participants at once. On the other hand, the focus group enables

participants to have discussions. But the fail of having to focus group reminded me to consider that

if the discussion of the interviewee necessary for my research. Later, I realized that individual

interview along with the pets is more useful, then I decided to cancel the focus group and only

interview participants individually.

3.4 Methods/Techniques for Data Analysis

The data can be divided briefly into two parts: first, the data collected from sharing pets digital

platforms. This part of data was important for understanding the how this platform works generally,

for example, understand the general process of sharing from searching for dogs or borrowers,

matching up with each other, scheduling, meeting, and other services that platforms offer to

promote the activity. This part of data was analyzed by Activity-based models, such as the

hierarchical structure of activity, individual activity system, and collective activity systems. The

hierarchical structure in the Activity Theory helps to analyze the sharing-pet activity in different

levels in detail that helps me to found out the potential issues in the activity systems. In the fourth

chapter, Activity Theory, and the reason for choosing activity theory as the theoretical framework

will be explained elaborately.

Another type of data was mainly collected from interviews with participants who had experience of

sharing pets with others. Besides, when I investigate the websites, I found out there are stories and

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interview shared on the websites. These data are useful to understand sharing pets from individual

perspectives. They were also analyzed based on Activity Theory.

It should be noted that, with an Interpretivist perspective, I position myself in the research as my

interpretation of data is shaped by my background and experience. The topic of the research is

about sharing pets, and I, as the interpreter of the data, never had a dog or a cat before but wish to

have a dog or a cat. This is also a personal reason to choose to study the phenomenon of sharing

pets on the digital platform. As I position myself in the research, I realized that I have a better

understanding of motivation and related concern of participants who wants to share pets from pets

owners, in other words, I have some pre-understanding about this topic. The challenge of inductive

analysis is to avoid being stuck in the researcher’s pre-understanding, and surface structures of

recurrent empirical summaries (Graneheim et al., 2017). For me, the challenge is to avoid the

confirmation bias, as I appreciate the idea of sharing pets personally.

3.5 Reliability and Validity

To ensure the validity and reliability, some strategies were applied in qualitative research. Firstly, to

get more comprehensive data, the data were collected through different methods: documents was

collected from various pet-sharing digital platform with different business model, and features;

Perform Semi-structured interview with open-ended questions, to encourage participants express

their view freely without being misled by researcher’s pre-understanding, and being limited by

closed-ended questions. It should be noted that, I, as the researcher, am also a pet lover, but I do not

have capability of having my pet, so I tend to support the idea of sharing pets. The passion for cats

and dogs is the personal reason for study sharing pets activity. My bias might helps me to have

better understanding of the how love for animals motivate people participate in sharing pets activity.

But to ensure the validity of the results, I choose to use semi-structured interview without

predetermined and fixed questions, to avoid answers being affected by bias as much as possible.

Data that runs counter to my interest of supporting sharing pets will also be present and analyzed.

To ensure the reliability of the interpretation of data, the participants were involved in the process of

research, including checking the interpretation, analysis and conclusion. The whole process of the

study will be presented transparently including negative information such as absence of participants

in focus group.

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3.6 Ethical Considerations

3.6.1 Ethical consideration about the research

The ethical code for the researcher is to protect the participant’s privacy and anticipate the

possibility of harmful and intimate information being disclosed during data collection(Creswell,

2018). In this research, the study of sharing pets is closely related to participants’ daily life, so there

is a risk that participants will be asked personal questions, or they disclose sensitive information

unconsciously. Therefore, the interviewee was asked to sign a consent form (see appendix 3) to

have their permission of data collection for study purposes.

To respect the privacy and anonymity of participants, all participants are assigned fictitious names:

“Carer one”, “Carer two” “Carer three” “Carer four” “Owner one” “Owner two”. Besides, the main

topics related to the research were prepared in instructions for the interview (see appendix 2) to

avoid collecting unnecessary information from participants. Aliases were used for reference to

participants for protecting their anonymity.

The research also collects data from sharing-pets websites. To protect the copyright of the websites,

I aviod use the pictures of websites directly, and the link of the webpages are presented in the

appendix.

3.6.2 Discriminations

Not like in traditional industry, in sharing economy products and service providers are usually also

users of the platform, so they have the right to decide if they provide the product and service to

other users. For example, in the traditional hospitality industry, a hotel manager can not reject

customers based on their race or economic status. While sharing economy firms might facilitate

discrimination. A field experiment by Edelman et al (2017) has yielded evidence that Airbnb’s

current design facilitates discrimination. Guests with African American-sounding names have more

difficulties finding accommodation on Airbnb than guests with white-sounding names. Their study

highlights the role of the digital platform in preventing discrimination and facilitate discrimination

because the digital platform can choose which information is available for users. For example,

Airbnb can conceal a user’s name or photos. Airbnb offers a new option “Instant Book” to host,

which enables guests to book more quickly without being checked by hosts first. This feature can

also help to prevent discrimination based on race or other socioeconomic status. The discrimination

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on sharing platform is not only about races, but it can also include a broader range of

sociodemographic characteristics, such as class, gender, age, education background, etc (Middleton

and Zhao, 2019).

3.6.3 Welfare of pets

The research investigates the platform of sharing living objects. Pets as living subjects are different

than objects, so it is necessary to have ethical considerations about privacy issues and the welfare of

the living objects. I had consulted a certified professional dog trainer about the possible influence of

“sharing” on dogs. As the trainer asserted that the influence could be both positive and negative and

it depends on how would the systems work. Dog sharing or going to a dog daycare is ideal for ca-

nines that have separation anxiety (“Dog-sharing becomes a growing trend,” n.d.). Dogs from a

home with a single adult human were about 2.5 times as likely to have separation anxiety as dogs

from homes with multiple persons (Flannigan and Dodman, 2001), and hyper attachment to the

owner was significantly associated with separation anxiety (Flannigan and Dodman, 2001). The dog

sharing platform enables dogs to have the opportunity to have carer other than only one dog owner.

4. Empirical Findings

In the following chapter, I present the empirical findings of analysis based on the two models of

Activity Theory: firstly, the sharing-pet activity is analyzed as one collective activity system to have

a primary understanding of how the sharing activity works. Secondly, the whole sharing-pets

activity is considered as two interacting activity systems from both pets owners and borrowers'

perspectives.

The data can be divided into two parts, the first part of data was mainly from the document data

from digital websites which produced basic knowledge by examining the information presented on

the digital platforms, and that was further examined in the later stage. In a later stage, by analyzing

the data from interviews and stories shared on a website, I investigated what factors affect people’s

willingness to participate in sharing pets focusing on the role of digital platform plays in the sharing

activity.

4.1 Sharing-pet Activity Analyzed as Collective Activity systems

In this section, I present the sharing-pet activity analyzed as collective activity systems. I analyze

sharing activity including both carers and owners as a whole collective system, in order to

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Table. 4.1 Three levels in collective acitvity stystem of sharing pets activty

understand the different levels of activitiy including their sub-actions, and operations, and what

motivates participation in sharing activity.

According to the hierarchical structure of activity (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006) (as shown in Figure

2.1 of Chapter two), the sharing of pets activity can also be analyzed as three levels. Table

4.1 elaborates on the three levels of activity: The top level is the activity level that owners sharing

pets to strangers, and borrowers want to share the accessibility of pets from the owners. The lower

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level is action levels that consist of many actions and sub-actions motivated by goals. The last level

is the operations and conditions. The details of operations are not presented in the table, because the

operations are too trivial. They are routine operations that are usually taken unconsciously, and they

are directed by the conditions under which the participants are trying to attain their goals. For

example, borrowers search and browse pets on websites to get information about pets and owners.

To reach the goal, users need to open the webpage, use the searching functions and filters. These

actions are taken almost automatically if users are familiar with the arrangement of the websites.

But if it is the user’s first time to browse the website, and he or she needs to explore how to use the

website, then the actions become conscious. Obviously, Good arrangement of websites makes users

use and learn the websites much easier so that it becomes easier for them to take actions

automatically without too many efforts. In this way, a good arrangement of websites, as a technic

Table 4.2 Summary of motives to participate in sharing pets

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factor, helps to motivate the people will of participating in sharing pets on the digital platform.

As one of the main concepts in Activity Theory, Motive is also the keyword of this research as the

research question is how the mechanism of the digital technology motivates participation in sharing

pets.

Generally, the motives of sharing-pets activity are the love for pets, as all of the people participate

in the activity of the sharing pet for the sake of love for pets. Besides the love for pets, there are

other motives for each individual, such as friendship, spare time, and financial reasons. For

example, “Kerry”, one of the users on borrowmydoggy.com, said she was pregnant and she was

going to have a baby, so she needs help to take care of her dog. (See link 7 of testimonials in

appendix 1). So the motive of “Kerry” to share her dog is spare time and energy. The interviewee

“Carer one” helped to take care of a cat, because the cat owner was traveling for two weeks. So the

cat owner has a similar reason as “Kerry”.

Borrower’s motives can be categorized into five types, and the owner’s motives have four types.

The motives of interviewees and users’ testimonials on websites are summarized in table 4.2.

When I ask interviewees about the motivation of taking care of other pets, all of the carers

mentioned that they were doing a favor, while all of them are not close friends of the owner but

acquaintances who met owners through mutual friends. The main reason for them to take care of the

cats is the love for pets. (See Appendix 4. for more details about notes of interviews.) For example,

“Carer one” said that she worried that no one else would take care of the cat if she did not do so.

“Carer Two” said that she “just love cats”, she would like to take care of cats whether she knows the

owner or not. Cat owner, “Owner One” said it is better to have someone who she knows to take care

of “Sasha” (her cat).

Moving to the lower level, many actions are motivated by their goals to perform the sharing-pets

activity. According to the data from websites (see Link 5 in Appendix 1 for the instruction of how to

start a sharing on website) and interviewees’ experience of sharing pets, the general actions in

sharing can be summarized in five categories( as presented in Table 4.1).

The first and mandatory action is to create an account on the digital platform. The carer and owners

who I interviewed already know each other through mutual friends, though they are not very

familiar with each other. Their mutual friend is the referees that help to build trust. But on digital

platforms, users do not know each other, so it is more difficult and also mandatory to build trust as

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the starting point of the sharing activity. Therefore, these sharing-pet websites have more strict

requirements for registering a new account. For example, asking for real names and phone number,

address and asking people who are familiar with the new users to write testimonials (See Link 6 in

Appendix 1 for the requirements of signing up). To make the registration process easier, some

website enables users to sign up with their Facebook account. Obviously, this service motivates the

willingness of participating in sharing activity, as it makes the action of registration and login much

easier. Besides, as Spagnoletti et al. (2015) suggested, the digital platform enables users to reach to

a larger social network by integrating a third-party social media platform. So the service of digital

platforms also motivates user’s participation as it helps users to build friendships and connect to the

community.

During the searching action, users search for and receive information to match up with others. Some

digital platforms provide matching service that is done algorithmically according to geographical

information and user preferences, (Frenken, 2017; Masoud and Jayakrishnan, 2017)for example, the

Uber enables users to match with other users who are geographically closed. The pet-sharing

platforms are all geographically based, as they connect pets owners and borrowers locally. In the

sharing website Shareyourpet.co.uk, users match up according to users’ location and preferences

such as preferred pet personality, age. That necessary information required and presented by

websites helps users to select suitable pets, pets owners, or pets borrowers according to their

preferences and schedules, etc.

Besides the information on the websites, there might be other resources of information that users

can access. Some websites, such as Sharemypet.co.nz and Borrowmydoggy.com enables users to

sign in with their Facebook account. It should be noted that after sign in with a Facebook account,

new users still need to fill in some information such as phone number, address to register a new

account. By linking social media account with the account on websites, users can acquire more

information about other users from the third party platform, and it helps them to make a selection of

suitable users.

In the Searching process, carers and owners search and browse the information of pets, owners or

borrowers. Before communicating with other users, owners, or borrowers can review information

such as approximate location, age, gender, basic information about pets on the websites.

Instead of using a sharing website, some interviewees find pets owners or borrowers through their

network of acquaintances. For example, Carer One and Carer Two said they saw the information

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that pets owners who they have met before, looking for people to take care of their pets on a

second-hand buy and sale group. In this case, they do not have many opportunities to make

selections. They have very limited information about the owners and their pets before they contact

owners, so they need to ask for more information through a messaging app.

All of the interviewees use Facebook Messenger or WeChat (which are connected to their social

media accounts) to communicate with each other. So same with the activity on websites, social

media is also a system of technology (an ICT system) that enables information to be delivered

instantly to other users. Integrating with third-party social media such as Facebook and Instagram,

the website enables information to be delivered between users through social media instantly.

There are other different features and arrangements on different websites to promote the searching

process. For example, there are two separate sections for pets owners and pets borrowers on

websites of Borrowmydoggy ( see Link 2 in appendix 1 ). On the homepage, it is easy to find

different channels for pets owners and borrower respectively. Users can choose to get started as

owner or borrower so that both of them can retrieve the information they need very quickly.

When users look for pets or borrowers, they can also use search filters to limit search results by

breed and age of pets, locations, and borrowing time to select the information they need quickly.

In the communication actions, users try to building trust between each other, and the actions of

communication, and of spending time with pets can happen simultaneously. For example, carers can

send updates about pets to owners when they are taking care of the pets by having instant text,

voice or video chat through the digital platform, such as Facebook Messenger. It helps to make sure

the safety of pets and acquire a sense of security, in order to build trust between strangers.

The last type of actions “Come back for More” has two meanings. On one hand, it means users

come back to the digital platform again for more experience of sharing pets. On the digital platform,

there are feedback systems that enable user and carer to give feedback and comments to each other.

Sharing websites often have feedback and reputation system, as it provides space for users to

evaluate other users. For example, borrowers can leave reviews and feedbacks to owners and their

pets on Dogtimecommunity.com (See Link 3 in Appendix 1 of reviews and feedbacks ). In the

reviews, borrowers provide more information about pets, such as the personality and hobbies of

pets. This information helps other users to get to know and evaluate owners and helps users to

match up with each other.

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Besides the feedback system that enables users to give feedback for each other, there is also a

reputation system that enables users to vouch for one another. On Borrowmydoggy.com, users share

their testimonials about the experience of sharing pets on the websites. To authenticate the users’

identity, when new users register new accounts, they are required to ask their family or friend to

write testimonials to vouch for them. These testimonials are presented on their profile, and it will

help their profile stand out, and be evaluated by other users.

On the other hand, it means the user comes back to look for other things more than their previous

motives. As mentioned before, the activity system is not a firm but a changing system in which the

goal of action can become a motive. In the practices of sharing-pets, the goal of some dog owners

might be earning more spare time. Then they set up a meeting with “dog borrowers” as they want to

make sure if the person is suitable for their pets. But on some occasions, they might only want to

meet up with other users to make their pets more sociable.

As the user on websites said that they ended up becoming friends with other users, and another user

looks for a connection with other pet owners. Similarly, an interviewee who initially takes care of

the cat only for doing a favor, but eventually loves for the cat becomes the main motive as she had

built a stronger connection with the cat. The mechanism of the platform, such as linkage with third

party social media platforms enables borrowers and owners to communicate and build stronger

connections with each other. Therefore the mechanisms and features of digital platforms might

affect the dynamics of hierarchical structure of sharing, and promote users to come back to

participate in sharing acitivity again for other motives.

4.2 Analysis based on two interacting activity systems —contradictions

By applying Engeström’s model, Sharing-pet activity can be divided into two interacting systems:

pet owners share their own pets to local people who want to take care of pets; carers “borrow” and

take care of other’s pets. When two activity systems interact, it often causes a contradiction. This

model (as presented in Figure 4.4) is applied for analyzing sharing-pet activity as two interacting

activity systems in order to understand the how the mechanism of digital platform mediates the

interaction between pets owners and carers in the dialogue, multiple perspectives activity systems,

and how technic mediation overcome the contradiction. Rules and norms, and community, division

of labor are the conditions that actions should adapt to.

33

In this sharing pets system, the division of labor represents multiple points of view, traditions, and

interests of different individuals. There might be contradictions when two activity systems interact

with each other, owing to the different points of view, traditions, and interests they have. For

example, “Carer Three” is afraid of meeting strangers who are from one specific area. Because

when she shared furniture on the Facebook sharing group, she had an unpleasant experience with

some people who are from that area, and in her words, they were “weird, and rude”, and texted her

in a language that she does not understand. After that experience, she refused to have any

interaction with strangers from that area on the digital sharing platform. While other interviewees

do not have the same issue and stereotype. The mechanism of the digital platform might increase

discrimination or helps to overcome the trouble. This will be discussed in the next chapter.

In Figure 4.4, Sharing activity was regarded as two interacting activity systems. The object of

activity is a changing target, and it is not reducible to conscious short-term goals. The object

changes from an initial state (Object 1; eg., a carer is looking for the companionship of a dog, and

owner look for a dog walker to have spare time and energy ) to a collectively meaningful object

constructed by the activity system (Object 2; eg., schedule that is suitable for both carer and owner )

to share to a potentially shared or jointly constructed object. (Object3; eg., the friendship between

user and carer). The carer and owner communicate and interact for a shared and jointly constructed

object that goes beyond the limitations of both. In this “third space” between two activity systems,

contradiction might happen. In the two interacting activity systems, the user and borrower have

different rules and norms. For example, some carer is trying to train the dog to learn a new skill.

The owner has the knowledge training dog, while the matched borrower does not have knowledge

of training a dog.

34

The differences in rules and norms between two interacting activity systems lead to disturbance in

the training process. To improve the situation, the digital platform can customize the information by

sorting out the carer who does not have the knowledge of training dogs. This is only an example of

how to improve the situation by changing the mechanism of the digital platform. One common

issue between borrowers and owners is scheduling. In searching action, users look for other users

who can match up with their own schedules. But when users have changes in their schedules, it

often causes trouble. The mechanism of digital platforms can help to overcome the contradictions.

For example, some sharing websites enable users to login in by using the Facebook account, so the

accounts can link to users’ Messenger. As one part of the digtal platform, Messenger enables

information to be delivered to the user instantly, so that one can inform others about the change of

schedules or emergencies immediately.

5. Analysis and Discussion

The data form the digital platform and participants are analyzed by using Activity Theory, and the

sharing-pets activity is analyzed based on the hierarchical structure of activity and also be analyzed

as two activity systems from both owners' and borrowers' perspectives. The research found that the

mechanism of the digital platform can promote the dynamic of the sharing pet activity, and this

motivating role can be categorized into three types:

Firstly, the research found that the digital platform can promote the achievement of objects in each

level of the three levels of activities. As a result, it also promotes the transition process within the

three levels of activity.

The sharing activity is analyzed based on the hierarchical structure of activity: activity level, action

level, and operation levels. In action level, when the users search for suitable borrowers, the

information presented on profiles would decide if they will contact the person. The more similarity

that the users can find on other user’s profiles, they are more likely to choose this person. Therefore,

as the digital platform, it requires more information for signing up a new account, and the

information should be helpful for users to find similarity with each other, such as occupation,

interests. For example, when users login to Dogtimecommunity.com, they can choose to login with

Facebook account, rather than filling email and password (see Link 4 in Appendix 1). The object of

login action is taking authentication of users, i.e., verifying the identity of users, so that users can

have access to information on the digital platform. The easier login action facilitated by digital

platform promotes people’s participation in sharing pets on the platform, as Davis’s (1989)

35

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) suggest that the perceived ease of use, is one the

determinants factors of users acceptance of digital technology.

In the study of websites CouchSurfing, Lauterbach et al. (2009) suggested that sharing platforms

heavily relies on reciprocity and trust among its users. So Trust is an important factor that affects

people’s participation in the sharing platform. The Pet-sharing platform often has feedback and

reputation system. These systems enable users to leave reviews to each other and give feedback

about their experience with the pets or borrowers. Therefore the feedback and reputation systems

can also promote people’s participation. Another example of the same motivating role can be found

in communication actions: Some sharing pets websites are integrated with social media and

messaging platforms. The websites with social media can be seen as a holistic digital platform in

sharing pets activity systems. This integration facilitates communication between pet owners and

borrowers, eg. Messenger enables borrowers and owners to communicate instantly, making users

scheduling or building trust easier.

Secondly, the digital platform motivates participation in sharing pets activity by reducing the

conflict caused by the contradiction between the two interacting activity systems. As mentioned in

chapter 4, In sharing pet systems, division of labor represents multiple points of view, traditions,

and interests of different individuals. Multi-voicedness is a source of trouble (Engeström, 2001).

In the case of “Carer Three”, her bad experience makes her have a bias against people from one

specific area. “Carer Three” did not want to communicate with strangers from that area. Because

she had the unpleasant experience of sharing stuff on a Facebook group that some people are

“weird” and “rude”, and message her in a language that she does not even understand, and she

believed that those people are all from one particular area. An Individual’s personal experience,

stereotype, or characteristics represented by the division of labor affect the participation in sharing

pets. Her bias causes unwillingness of participation in sharing pets, although the interviewee “Carer

Three” has a strong willingness to take care of strangers’ pets, even though she had many

experiences with sharing digital platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, Couchsurfing, and sharing staff

group on Facebook. So the information delivered to other users might also inhibit the users'

participation. Studies also suggested that information on profile has a significant effect on user’s

choices, and users with African American-sounding names are less accepted than users with white-

sounding names on sharing digital platforms (Edelman et al., 2017; Middleton and Zhao, 2019).

The mechanism of sharing pet digital platforms might cause privacy concerns or discrimination

inhibiting people’s participation in sharing pets activity.

36

But multi-vociedness can also be a source of innovation that deserves translation and negotiation to

overcome the problem (Engeström, 2001). Other researches suggested that the mechanism of the

digital platform, such as reputation and gamification systems can promote participation in sharing

activity (Lauterbach et al., 2009; Gera and Hasdell, 2019 ). Good reputation might help some users

to overcome bias. Other users who have the same issue and stereotype as “Carer Three” might re-

evaluate based on vouching and reputation systems.

Besides digital platform can also promote the participation by overcoming the contradiction in

activity system, as the digital platform can choose what information are available to other users, and

unnecessary personal information that may facilitate discrimination can be covered to prevent the

discrimination. Other researches also suggested that the mechanism of digital platforms, such as

reputation and gamification systems can promote participation in sharing activity (Lauterbach et al.,

2009; Gera and Hasdell, 2019 ). The rating and reputation systems on the digital platform help to

building trust between users, so it might reduce distrust caused by stereotypes and discrimination.

The contradiction also generates disturbances, when the activity system have a new element, such

as a new technology, or a new object (Engeström 2001). For example, users may have changes in

their schedules. Obviously, sharing pets are different from sharing non-living things, the difference

in scheduling might cause bigger problems for users, and even pose health risks to pets.

The essentials of sharing economy are the collaborative use of idle resources enabled by ICT, same

as in sharing pets activity, users share the idle accessibility of pets through a digital platform.

Therefore, the schedule is a very important element of rules and norms that users need to agree

with. The digital platform might help to mediate the schedule by building a more convenient

scheduling system through the calendar sync Application programming interface (API). As one part

of the holistic sharing platform, Messenger enables information to be delivered to users instantly, so

that users can inform others about change schedules or emergencies immediately.

So the routine operations that can be mediated by technic factors provide an adjustment of the

action to the ongoing situation in order to reach the goals (Allen et al., 2011). In another word,

conditions can be improved mediated by digital platforms in order to make operations, actions, and

the whole sharing activity safer and more convenient.

37

Thirdly, the digital platform motivates the sharing pets activity by facilitating the transition of

motives. According to Activity Theory, activity as a collective system is driven by the motive that

subject pursues. In other words, motives are crucial to promote people’s participation in sharing

pets activity. The Activity Theory principle of dynamics, the constituents of activity are not fixed

but dynamic, and motives can change as the sharing activity going (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2018).

The digital platform can promote the transition of motives in sharing systems. As a result, the

digital platform can promote the willingness of participation in sharing pets activity. As mentioned

before, the research found some people come back to participate in sharing for other things than

their previous motives.

In sharing pets activity, people can never really have the ownership, but can only share the idle

accessibility to pets. This might be an issue of carer that they might worry that they can never build

the connection to the shared pets as they do with their own pets.

But digital platforms can still bring more opportunities to sharing economy by enables various

motives for users. When users have more motives other than their initial one, they become may

active in sharing activity. For example, the initial motive for some users to share pets on the digital

platform is to acquire spare time, but after interaction with borrowers, the borrowers and owners

ended up with becoming friends. Similarly, the interviewee, "Carer one" initially takes care of the

cat for doing a favor, but eventually love and enjoyment with the cat becomes the main motive, as

she had to build a stronger connection with the cat. The mechanism of the platform, such as linkage

with social media platforms enables borrowers and owners to communicate and build a stronger

connection with each other so that they might be driven by more motives such as friendship and

community.

Some interviewees mentioned that they had the experience of sharing things on sharing stuff groups

on Facebook, and this virtual community only accept members who study in Linnaeus University.

Carer One and Carer Two said they saw the information that pet owners looking for people to take

care of their pets on a second-hand buy and sale group. It seems that people are more likely to share

things and pets in a virtual community, in which they have common things, such as interest or

education, shared experience, occupation, or birthplaces.

This tendency might be explained by Lastovicka and Fernandez's (2005) research, that occupational

similarity breaks down barriers between self and others and increased the likelihood of a certain

form of sharing, and common consumption communities, ethnicities, collecting interests, and

38

birthplaces can have a similar effect. Some sharing digital platform has a virtual community, for

example, Borrowmydoggy.com claims to have a reliable virtual community with more than 250,

000 users, enabling dog owners and borrowers to help each other out with dog caring issues. The

virtual community integrated into the digital platform also promotes people’s participation in

sharing pets activity.

6. Conclusion

6.1 Conclusion

The fast development of digital technology enabled the rise of sharing economy, as the ICT has

enabled sharing activity more convenient on the digital platform. Although the sharing activity is

very common nowadays, there is still a lack of academic research on sharing economy, especially

on sharing animals. This research focused on the role of digital platform plays in the sharing-pets

activity. Activity Theory was applied as the theoretical framework to shape the way of data

collection and analysis. Owing to the lack of previous research on the novel topic, the research tried

to build a new theoretical framework based on knowledge of three resources: motivation of

participating sharing-pets, activity theory, and mechanism of digital platform. This research has

analyzed sharing pets activity as a sharing economy phenomenon, and how the mechanism of

digital platform motivates the sharing activity in the activity systems.

As a qualitative research, this study analyzed various forms of data such as documents, and

audiovisual information, such as interviews of users. Activity Theory and its models are used to

shape the analysis of data so that the sharing pets activity can be analyzed in three levels: activity

level, action level, and operation level. It helps to reveal the actual demands and problems of

sharing practice by analyzing the motives, goals, and conditions of the three different levels. It

helps the researcher to understand the sharing activities as one integrated system, and also be used

to analyze the sharing activity as two activity systems: the activity system of carer and owner. In

this way, I can understand the interaction and relationship between carer and owner, and find

potential contradictions between the two systems.

The finding indicates that the digital platform plays an important motivating role in sharing activity.

Firstly, the digital platform facilitates the achievement of motive in each level of activity systems.

The mechanism of the digital platform makes the activity easier. For example, it provides users a

more convenient login approach by linking accounts to their social media account. The perceived

ease of use improves the user's acceptance of digital technology. Besides, it reduces the

39

contradiction caused by the interaction of two activity systems. When two sharing pet systems

interact with each other, the difference between points of view, traditions, and rules and norms often

cause contradictions. The mechanism of the digital platform can reduce contradictions by offering

users an instant way of communication. The rating and reputation systems also help to reduce

distrust caused by stereotype and discrimination, so that users because more willing to participate in

sharing activity. Besides, a digital platform also promotes the transition of motives, so that many

users will have more motives to participate in sharing again and again. For example, the mechanism

of the digital platform enables users to have a virtual community. Some of the users acquire extra

benefits such as friendships, knowledge from the virtual community. In other words, these extra

benefits are motives that facilitate participation and improve the sustainability of sharing activity.

6.2 Contribution

This research contributes to filling the scholarly gap of sharing pets activity in the field of sharing

economy. By applying Activity Theory, the motivating role that digital platform plays in sharing

pets activity is investigated, and I also investigate how the mechanism of digital platform motivates

participation. Besides, this study applied the Activity Theory to shape the whole process from data

collection to analysis. Therefore the research also had a contribution to the activity theory applied in

sharing economy.

6.3 Future Research

As mentioned in the previous part, this research focuses on the motivating role of digital platform in

sharing pets activity, and the data of interviews were only collected from participants who have

shared pets through virtual groups on social media rather than sharing pets on websites. They have

experience on other digital platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, Facebook group. In future research,

more data can be collected from participants who have experience in pet- sharing websites, to get

better insight within the sharing digital platform.

When using the Activity Theory to analyze the data, I only focused on factors of Motive and

mediated artifact (digital platform) and the dynamic process of three layers of sharing activity. The

demographic factors about participants are not considered in this study. The previous study showed

that demographic factors such as gender and age can affect the participation of sharing. In the future

study, these factors can also be included to study the sharing behavior on digital platforms. Other

contextual factors such as culture and community can also be examined to expand the conceptual

framework.

40

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10.1080/10749039.2017.1375528

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Appendices

Appendix 1. List of Links

link 1. https://www.borrowmydoggy.com/doggypedia/dogs-of-borrowmydoggy

Link 2. https://www.borrowmydoggy.com/

Link3.https://www.dogtimecommunity.com/en/dogs/5221?

place=San%20Francisco&date=&starttime=&endtime=

Link 4. https://www.dogtimecommunity.com/users/sign_in?locale=en

Link 5. https://www.borrowmydoggy.com/how-it-works

Link 6. https://www.dogtimecommunity.com/users/sign_up?locale=en#_=_

Link 7. https://www.borrowmydoggy.com/doggypedia/dogs-of-borrowmydoggy

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Appendix 2. Instruction for semi- stuructured interview:

1. Introduction of background information.

• Introducing about research and the researcher

• Basic information about sharing digital platform, including commercial digital platform (eg.

Airbnb, Uber) and non-monetised digital sharing platform (Couchsurfing, Good and stuff

sharing on face group group)

2. Ice-breaker questions to acquire necessnary information of participants

• background information about participants ( eg. occupations and experience with pets, reasons

for having or not having pets)

3. Previous experience of other “Sharing” experience on digital platform.

• Motivation (eg. “Why do you want to participate in ‘sharing’ on the digital platform?” “What

do you expect from the ‘sharing’ experience on digital platform before you participate in

sharing? ”)

• Concerns before and during the participation of “sharing” (eg. What kind of person do will perfer to share with? )

• Outcomes including feelings, self-reflections, issues (eg. “what do you get from the sharing

experience?” “Will you participate in the sharing again, why and why not?” “What do you feel

about the sharing experience?” )

4. Experience of “sharing” / taking care of other’s pets) with strangers/ acquaintances.

• Motivation (eg. “Why do you want to participate in ‘sharing’ on the digital platform?” “What

do you expect from the ‘sharing’ experience on digital platform before you participate in

sharing? ”)

• Concerns before and during the participation of “sharing” (eg. What kind of person do will perfer to share with? )

• Outcomes including feelings, self-reflections, issues (eg. “what do you get from the sharing

experience?” “Will you participate in the sharing again, why and why not?” “What do you feel

about the sharing experience?” “What do you feel about sharing economy”)

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Appendix 3. Consent Form

Consent Form

Participation in the degree project : Motivating Role of Digital technology in Pet Sharing

You are being asked to participate in the degree project ‘Motivating Role of Digital technology in Pet Sharing’. You were selected as a possible participant because of your understanding and experience of ‘share’ (ie. take care of others pets, or have other people take care of your own pet ) pets with others through digital platform. We ask you to read this form and ask any questions that you may have before agreeing to be a participant in the project.

This project is an individual degree project of the master program Information Systems at Linnaeus University. This study aims to understand how mechanism of digital platform motivate participation in sharing pets activity.

Your contribution You as the partcipants will be interviewed about your experience of ‘share’ pets, and other things on digital platforms. In this Semi-structured interview, you will be asked questions that is not predetermind and fixed, and you are encouraged to express your ideas and opinions. While all questions are arranged to be related to main topics which was planned in advance. The interview will approximately last about 30 mins

Anonymity of data With participating in this project you are willing to reveal personal information, e.g. personal information about daily life with pets, motivations of sharing pets etc. As being part of a degree project of a program at Linnaeus University, the results will be published and available for researchers. However, the data collected about you will remain anonymous. In the thesis of the project, you will be assigned a fictitious name, so it is not possible to trace information back to your identity. Data collected for this project will be stored in the cloud service Google Drive, and personal computer.

Right to refuse or withdraw You have the right to decide to participate in this project. You may refuse to take part in the project at any time, for any reason.

Your signature below indicates that you have decided to volunteer as a participant for this interview and that you have read and understood the information provided above. You will be given a signed and dated copy of this form.

Name of participant:

Signature Date

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Appendix 4. Parts of Notes of interview

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