Bike sharing has the potential to contribute to more sustainable urban mobility. Companies providing this service need to generate legitimacy for their venture when entering new cities. They may have to change formal and informal institutions in cities they want to operate. In this paper we explore how and why companies’ institutional strategies differ across cities. We compare strategies of emerging free-floating bike sharing companies in Shanghai and Amsterdam. These cities provide a counterintuitive starting point: Shanghai is a car-dominant city which has embraced bike sharing, whereas in Amsterdam – a typical cycling city – it was banned soon after its introduction. We find that companies use similar launching strategies, but different institutional strategies as they respond to varying spatial conditions consisting of local institutions (e.g. rules, norms and cultures) physical place specific elements (e.g. infrastructures and urban mobility challenges) and issues of power (e.g. support and resistance).

共享单车有潜力促进更可持续的城市出行。提供这项服务的公司在进入新城市时需要为其合资企业证明合法性。他们可能不得不在他们想要经营的城市中改变正式和非正式的机构。在本文中，我们探讨了不同城市的公司制度策略如何以及为何不同。我们比较了上海和阿姆斯特丹新兴的自由浮动自行车共享公司的策略。这些城市提供了一个违反直觉的起点：上海是一个以汽车为主导的城市，已经开始共享单车，而阿姆斯特丹（一个典型的自行车城市）在引入后不久就被禁止。我们发现，公司使用类似的启动策略，但是在应对由本地机构组成的变化空间条件时会采用不同的机构策略（例如