Towards cyber-cooperatives: Studying the sharing economy of the tourism industry through an evolutionary approach to organizational cybernetics

Purpose: The lodging industry is transitioning to the online collaborative economy, with digital platforms mediating between hosts and guests. However, this has created significant inequalities between the platform management and the service providers. Objective. The paper proposes (a) to contribute to organisational cybernetics through evolutionary theory, (b) to analyse the emergence of platform cooperativism, and (c) to propose a platform cooperative based on the VSM, which we have called a cyber-cooperative. Design: Applying cybernetic evolutionary epistemology and the VSM, the article analyses the current state of the platform lodging industry and proposes the core characteristics of the cyber-cooperative. Findings: The article finds: a) it contributes to the theory of viable systems by integrating evolutionary theory; b) it uses the proposed theory to explain the developments in the collaborative economy of the lodging industry; c) it relates meme theory with the identity of the system and identifies the political ideas in cooperative organisations; d) it proposes the idea of the cyber-cooperative for developing the lodging industry. Originality: Evolutionary epistemology in organisational cybernetics, and the politics of identity in cooperativism are both novel approaches in the VSM. Type of paper: Research paper.