Technology, Markets and the Subversion of Property Rights: Foundations of New Business Models

The paper seeks to explore how shifts in property rights have been used to develop innovative models of organization that internalize the socio-economic costs of the immediate post-Communist era, in Romania. Using Bromley's (1991) definition of property as a triadic relationship, the case of apartment block infrastructure is used to show how a common property regime has provided a more optimal outcome than either an open or private property regime. How far collaboration and common ownership can be extended, through technology, into wider patterns of production and consumption is therefore a logical next question. There is considerable debate about the extent to which knowledge is becoming a greater source of value than products, as technology and globalization combine to drive the marginal cost of (re)production and delivery close to zero (Evans & Wurster 1997, Botsman & Rogers 2010, Mason 2013). Some companies are seeking to manage networks and use on-line rating systems to both establish trust and build communities of interest. Wikipedia has demonstrated how such networks can enable the emergence of commons spaces that can outperform privately controlled spaces. In Romania there is found to be much interest in collaborative consumption and emergent signs of collaborative approaches to production, but, as yet no significant technology driven common ownership models.