The rapid growth of the internet has resulted in increased interconnectedness. Platforms such as Airbnb have been raising rapidly in the past century, as a result of an increased online demand for peer-to-peer market places, on which all kinds of private goods can be shared with peers. This is also referred to as the sharing or collaborative economy. The major effects of the market these platforms provide are forcing local politicians to formulate policy plans on how to dealt with the disruptive innovations. But existing regulatory frameworks are often not complete, showing gaps or even non-existing. As a result, the environment where these peer-to-peer platforms emerge in, consists out of an ’institutional void’. Here, the ’rules of the game’ are lacking which results in high uncertainty and interdependence, leading to actors showing certain behaviour in response. This leads to an unstructured problem to be solved. The aim of this research is to gain understanding on how this interaction process between platform Airbnb and governments is taking place in search for reduction of institutional voids, and to gain insights in the complexity of this interaction. Therefore the objective of this study is to detect patterns occurring in the interaction process answering the research question: How do regulations on peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms in an institutional void come about in capital cities?
In order to answer this question, the interaction process between the peer-to-peer platform Airbnb and governments in two cities (Amsterdam and London) has been reconstructed, as part of a multiple-case set up. This study focuses explicitly on the process. Therefore, the methodological approach process tracing is used to detect patterns. By doing so, different types of data sources have been used: public documents, news articles and a few supporting interviews. These sources have been analysed to reconstruct the course of events and detect the four sensitizing concepts that have been chosen to detect the patterns with in institutional voids: External events, actions, frames and values. ATLAS.ti has been used to code the data available and structure it in an efficient way. Incrementally, all information has been connected to establish a clear understanding of what events have occurred. Using the process tracing method has on the two cases has led to patterns that have been detected based on a numerous observations gained by analysing empirical data. The founded data was structured into four stages of institutionalisation: the ’steady stage’, ’minor adjustments stage’, ’crisis stage’ and the ’framework formulation stage’. The detected patterns were: 1)Actions and external events are clear causes as part of agenda setting, 2)The platform provider develops an adaptive strategy over time, 3)Governments struggle with public versus private contradiction, leading to them experimenting with a mix of alternative instruments over time, 4)The definition of the concept is an ongoing process in which a new phenomenon is parading as something existing: "New wine in old bottles". The found patterns must give better understanding to policy makers of the complexity of the interaction process in an institutional void, to recognize and be able to act upon in similar situations. These patterns have been shaped into hypotheses that can be tested into further research.