ANALYSING UBER IN SOCIAL MEDIA — DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY OR INSTITUTIONAL DISRUPTION?

Extant literature suggests that market disruptions take place because of two main reasons: technological disruption or institutional change. In view of these two alternative explanations, this paper aims to explore how the recent rise of the collaborative consumption platform Uber is perceived by consumers and whether this platform is primarily regarded as a technological innovation or as an institutional disruption. Drawing from a dataset of more than 6500 user-generated contents in social media, our findings suggest that Uber is not primarily perceived as a technological innovation, but rather as an institutional disruption.