Navigating the Landscape of the Sharing and Gig Economy Literature: A Systematic and Interdisciplinary Review

Abstract

The sharing and gig economy are growing socio-economic phenomena. Increasing numbers of users are joining an ever-widening variety of sharing and gig platforms. In this paper, we explore the academic discussion on the sharing economy ecosystem from a cross-disciplinary perspective. We capture and focus on the early stages of the literature on these nascent research fields to identify and explain the themes that have emerged in the academic discussion. In doing so, we conduct a systematic and interdisciplinary review of the emerging literature on the sharing and gig economy and apply a horizon scanning approach to discuss the current state and future role of the sharing economy ecosystem. Our paper emphasizes that multi- and inter-disciplinary research efforts are becoming ever more important to (i) analytically address the growing diversity and complexity within the sharing economy ecosystem and (ii) gain a comprehensive understanding of the economics of sharing platforms and the competitive dynamics between different platform ecosystems.

Keywords: Sharing Economy, Platform Economics, Gig Economy, Platform Regulation, ICT, Uber, Airbnb, Ridesharing, Regulation, Labor Law