Abstract

This chapter is one of the first studies to specifically present the future scenarios of the sharing economy in the specific context of the mobile network operator (MNO) business. Keeping in view the current academic focus on industry 4.0 and its implications for social change, our chapter highlights the specificities of the under-researched sector of mobile operator business and links it to different facets of the sharing economy emerging due to 5G using a multidisciplinary theoretical lens. Future business model scenarios of the next generation mobile operator business show characteristics of an emerging sharing economy context. Our chapter also contributes to the methodology of future scenarios research by introducing a way of exploring business model conceptualization and contextualization in the sharing economy context using action research methodology. Based on the data from the multiple industry-academia workshops, our chapter presents six specific scenarios (general bit-pipe MNO scenario, segmented specialized MNO scenario, wholesale service local operator scenario, retail service local operation scenario, vertical local operator scenario, and context service local operator scenario) as possible sharing economy depictions in this sector. Finally, our chapter offers important theoretical, practical, and policy implications regarding sharing economy and social change in relation to 5G mobile communication technology.