This commentary aims to discuss the article “Ordo-responsibility in the Sharing Economy: A Social Contracts Perspective” from a sympathetic viewpoint toward its implementation of a constitutional contractarian approach to business ethics and due consideration of digital platforms as institutions resulting from a social contract. Nevertheless, the commentary also wants to criticize the article’s interpretation of constitutional contractarian theory and institutional reconstruction of the phenomenon, and thus even the governance structure it is proposed for sharing platforms. The commentary presents another understanding of constitutional contractarianism, referring to both the ex ante agreement and the ex post compliance problem. Moreover, it reframes the history of the evolutionary process of institutions’ selection within the domain of the sharing economy consistently with the idea that the Internet should be framed as a common pool resource. In this way, the commentary suggests an alternative governance structure for sharing platforms, that is, platform cooperatives.

Sharing resources between members of different tribes and collectives is common and well-documented. Surprisingly, little is known about factors that are conducive to building social relationships between groups. We design a common-pool resource experiment, where after harvesting, groups can send some of their harvest to augment the resource of the outgroup. We compare donations made by individuals collectively and independently of other group members, under the conditions of equal and unequal resources. We find that individuals acting as decision-makers, but not groups, donate harvests frequently even though it is payoff-reducing. We conduct an additional treatment, where each donation is matched (doubled) by an equivalent transfer of resources, making sharing between groups payoff-improving. Under matching donations, sharing between groups flourishes, but fails to prevent resource decline in most groups. Finally, our experiment reveals that members of low-endowment groups overharvest resources in expectation of donations from affluent groups, which leads to the tragedy of the commons.

Groundwater is a largely unseen common pool resource. Yet, driven by strong economic incentives, whether or not encouraged by existing policies, and the difficulty to exclude others, groundwater users are competing with each other to extract as much as possible, with devastating consequences for its sustainability. The challenges faced for sustainably managing such common pool resources, on which people have established de facto individual rights, are manifold. However, creating a market for trades of some kind in ecosystem services associated with groundwater could actually enhance the protection of this critical resource on the basis that protection can benefit individual groundwater users economically as well as provide a broader public good. This article uses Elinor Ostrom's design principles as an analytical tool to examine how market-based approaches such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) fit with some of the governance models that could be used to protect and enhance groundwater as a common pool resource. It argues that while there are specific design challenges to be overcome, PES as an institutional tool can align with Ostrom's ideas for the governance of groundwater.

With the aid of a lab experiment, we explored how imperfect monitoring and punishment networks impacted appropriation, punishment and beliefs in a common pool resource appropriation dilemma. We studied the differences between the complete network (with perfect monitoring and punishment, in which everyone can observe and punish everyone else) and two ‘imperfect’ networks (that systematically reduce the number of subjects who could monitor and punish others): the directed and undirected circle networks. We found that free riders were punished in all treatments, but the network topology impacted the type of punishment: the undirected circle induced more severe punishment and prosocial punishment compared to the other two networks. Both imperfect networks were more efficient because the larger punishment capacity available in the complete network elicited higher punishment amount.

Despite sound logic supporting decentralized resource management, the results of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) efforts have been mixed. Many conditions are thought to contribute to the sustainable use of common pool resources, but as practitioners evaluate the likelihood of CBNRM success, it is necessary to understand which particular conditions have the greatest impact and how these differ across contexts. This paper describes the harvest of the matsutake mushroom and its decline in two rural communities in Bhutan that possess many of the conditions thought to facilitate resource management. Data from surveys, informal interviews and focus group meetings suggest the decline in the matsutake harvest can be attributed to the absence of a small number of enabling characteristics and an additional factor that is often overlooked in the CBNRM literature. Factors contributing to the decline include environmental dynamics, lack of leadership, and the difficulty of monitoring and enforcing harvesting guidelines. However, communities are reluctant to absorb the costs of developing institutions owing to the lack of perceived scarcity and salience of matsutake and, perhaps most importantly, to a historical dependence on a paternalistic government. This reliance on the government may preclude communities from assuming the responsibilities of matsutake management and enforcing rules to assure a sustainable harvest, a trend seen elsewhere in Bhutan. CBNRM may succeed if governments can simultaneously build capacity in communities while empowering them to take ownership over resource management. Though a relatively small number of factors have impeded CBNRM in this case, many of the obstacles can be overcome and these efforts should be considered a work in progress in Bhutan.

The perceptions of resource users towards any conservation policy can be a major determinant of its success. While co-management policy can enhance the management of fisheries, to date there have been few reports concerning how engagement in co-management regimes may affect fishers' perceptions. This paper assesses the determinants of fishers' environmental perceptions within a co-management regime in Chile. Group meetings and structured questionnaires showed fishers' environmental perceptions were composed of four domains of concern, termed ‘water pollution’, ‘stock conservation’, ‘conservation/profit trade-offs’ and ‘charismatic species’. Fishers' dependence on diving and/or the length of time fishers had engaged with the policy affected their perceptions of each of these domains. Perceptions of the ‘water pollution’ domain were related to length of time fishers had participated in co-management, probably because fishers gained an increased understanding of the market and its need for unpolluted produce. Attitudes towards ‘conservation/profit trade-offs’ tended to become linked to an increasingly conservation-oriented ethic with increasing time of engagement with the policy. Given that the length of time fishers engaged with co-management differentially affected fishers' perceptions of environmental domains of concern, public officials and funding agencies should be careful not to judge co-management prematurely. It takes time to educate participants and overcome distrust. Through co-management processes in Chile, fishers' environmental awareness increased, and sustainable behaviours may consequently increase in the future.

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has become a focus of increasing attention by natural resource managers over the past decade, particularly in the context of the shared management authority between resource users and government agencies (co-management). Little work has been done on how TEK can be successfully integrated with science and applied in contemporary science-based resource management institutions, and the efficacy and legitimacy of co-management and associated attempts to document TEK or integrate it with science have recently been questioned. The cooperative research programme of one co-management group, the Alaska Beluga Whale Committee (ABWC), was studied to describe how TEK and science are integrated and applied in the research process, document perceptions and attitudes of native hunters and scientists towards TEK and science, and identify organizational characteristics that facilitate knowledge integration. Hunters and TEK played a variety of roles in ABWC's research programme, including hypothesis generation, sample collection and data interpretation. Hunters and scientists defined TEK similarly, but differed in their views of science, which hunters often perceived as a tool of state control. Despite political undercurrents, the ABWC displayed several indicators of successful knowledge integration. Organizational characteristics that facilitated integration included a membership structure fostering genuine power-sharing and a range of opportunities for formal and informal interactions among hunters and scientists leading to long-term relationships and an organizational culture of open communication and transparency in decision-making. Given the importance of long-term relationships between scientists and hunters for successful knowledge integration, this study raises questions about (1) the potential for meaningful integration in short-term projects such as environmental impact assessment and (2) the use of TEK documentation studies in the absence of other forms of active participation by TEK- holders.