Emerging Business Models in Higher Education: Shared Economy Case

Today's economy is driven by innovation and knowledge. Sharing economy is a new perspective on economics that drives a new economy based on collaborative consumption. In this paper, I set out the key components in the global education business, based on the analysis of different sort of business cases, such as edX, Coursera, Udacity, Udemy and CodeAcademy and BitDegree. For this research I carried out a systematic literature and internet data based review on cases in order to highlight some of the main advantages of the models of global education services based on sharing economy. Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) became the framework for systematisation and comparison of the information gathered. The main research questions were reviewed: what are the key differences in the business models (with special focus on value proposition) for SE and “traditional” business model, which part of “traditional” value proposition could be covered by the SE value proposition. As a research result I have listed five shared economy model attributes and how they are implemented in business models of online platforms. The Osterwalder’s approached showed three types of SE business models which significantly differ from the “traditional” business model: (1) online platforms which value proposition is very close to the universities model; (2) online platform with applied proposition focused on alternative market segments; (3) BitDegree case which is based on smart-incentive contracts. The conclusions give floor for discussion if shared economy business model in education can generate scalable revenue, and if it could be a threat of substitution for “traditional” business model in education.