Abstract
The study aims to map the research elements and evolution of the extant literature on the sharing economy in developing countries through a bibliometric analysis of 326 publications and a content analysis of the most cited publications. It informs about the trends, influential contributors, and thematic underpinnings of research in the area. Trust gaps, information asymmetry, lack of infrastructure, and access and regulatory issues are identified as challenges facing the growth of a sharing economy in developing nations. Future research avenues and implications have been indicated.
Keywords
Introduction
Escalating concerns about the impact of hyper-consumption on environment and societal well-being have, in part, contributed to the emergence of alternative consumption practices, including those represented by the sharing economy (Ratilla et al., 2021). A sharing economy enables access to assets owned by an individual to other individuals through a digital platform (Hamari et al., 2016; Benoit et al., 2017). It is supported by the expansion of information and communication technology, including access to smartphones, which enables communication and transactions between customers and asset owners (Barari et al., 2023; Basukie et al., 2020). The growth of the sharing economy is anticipated to boost technological access, employment, gender equality, and sustainable development (Huang, 2023; Shereni, 2019) in developing nations besides promoting fairer wealth redistribution and creating social capital.
However, the sharing economy seems to be struggling while gaining a foothold in developing countries (Aityoussef & Belhcen, 2022). Many developing countries are grappling with the problems of a large population, poverty (Gulyani et al., 2018), and lack of idle or sufficient assets (Ratilla et al., 2021), knowledge, trust, regulations (Basukie et al., 2020), transparency, and infrastructure (Govindan et al., 2020; United Nations, 2020; World Bank Group, 2018). Further, COVID-19, the Ukraine War, and climate change have severely affected the growth of many least-developed nations while increasing inequality and poverty (UNCTAD, 2023). There are several unique issues that need to be addressed in these countries if the full potential of the sharing economy is to be leveraged.
Extant research revolves around the conceptual underpinnings of the sharing economy (Belk, 2010, 2014; Acquier et al., 2017), motivations leading to participation (Hamari et al., 2016; Guttentag et al., 2018; Barnes & Mattsson, 2017), the role of trust (Chameroy et al., 2024; Dabija et al., 2022; Agag & Eid, 2019), sustainability aspects (Palgan et al., 2017; Armstrong & Park, 2017; Beverland et al., 2022), and regulatory issues (Crommelin et al., 2018; Penereiro 2019). There are systematic and bibliometric reviews focusing on the sharing economy in the context of sustainability (Boar et al., 2020; Ertz & Leblanc-Proulx, 2018) and tourism and hospitality (Dolnicar, 2019). Further, the research on the sharing economy in developing countries has gained relatively less attention (Basukie et al., 2020). Though some studies on the sharing economy in developing countries are emerging (Wahyuningtyas, 2016), there is limited examination of the relationship among research constituents and the evolution of knowledge in the field in the context of developing countries. The present study aims to address this gap by seeking answers to the following questions:
RQ1: What is the trend in publications on the sharing economy in developing countries? RQ2: Which are the prolific authors and impactful journals, articles, institutions, and countries in the research on the sharing economy in developing countries? RQ3: Which research themes have been the focus in the studies on the sharing economy in developing countries? RQ4: What are the challenges encountered by the sharing economy in developing countries? RQ5: What are the future research directions in the present domain of study?
Literature Review
A sharing economy can disrupt conventional businesses and markets (Dreyer et al., 2017). It can provide better access to technology, resources such as farming equipment and ambulance-hailing (United Nations, 2020), and livelihood opportunities, and promote efficient energy use (Chien, 2022). A sharing economy supports gender equality, sustainable communities, and peaceful societies (Huang, 2023; Shereni, 2019). Richardson (2015), however, posits an apparent paradox in that the sharing economy is part of a capitalist economy and also presents an alternative to it.
The accommodation sharing platform—Airbnb—contributed an estimated $920m to the Indian GDP (Airbnb, 2023). By rendering sharing economy services, women in developing economies have considerably increased their income (United Nations, 2020; International Finance Corporation, 2018). Women are more dependent for survival on the income from sharing homes as hosts in many developing countries, including India, Brazil, and China (Airbnb, 2017). The sharing economy can promote efficient use of underutilized assets and address traffic congestion and emission of carbon dioxide (Abutaleb et al., 2021; Alharthi et al., 2021). Sharing economy–based models improve the business ecosystem for sharing economy platforms and asset owners by enabling them to share assets, technology, and revenue gains while rendering better overall services to customers at a lower cost (Alatawi et al., 2024).
In developing countries, a sharing economy can promote economic balance by overcoming growth obstacles such as scarce resources, existence of informal labor markets, low female labor force engagement, insufficient access to smartphones and the Internet, and dearth of funds to obtain required capital assets and supporting establishments and infrastructures that enable individuals to partake in the sharing economy (United Nations, 2020; Yuniastuti et al., 2019). Though the sharing economy is growing in China (State Information Centre, 2023), it has not yet gained prominence in other developing countries and is in infancy stage in Tunisia, Morrocco (Aityoussef & Belhcen, 2022), and countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (Shereni, 2019). Egypt is suffering from the problems of traffic congestion and pollution (El Ghorab & Shalaby, 2016). In Egypt, trust and a dearth of knowledge prevent the adoption of carpooling (Abutaleb et al., 2021). Car-sharing platforms are banned in Tunisia, while in Morocco, awareness about them is low, with people being unable to differentiate sharing economy platforms from any other online services or apps (Aityoussef & Belhcen, 2022). Some countries are cash economies, have insufficient access to financial services and regulations, and lack adequate infrastructure for transactions (World Bank Group, 2018). Hira (2017) indicates lack of access to the Internet and trust among parties as some of the hindrances to the development of the sharing economy. Amoako et al. (2021) report service failures experienced by drivers and customers of Uber due to issues with technology, improper management, and unfair pricing. The International Finance Corporation (2018) mentions cultural barriers, financial barriers, dearth of benefits, and lack of personal security as obstacles hindering female participation in the ride-hailing industry in emerging economies. Individuals in different countries have diverse cultural beliefs about sharing practices, which influence their intention to take products on rent or to offer products on rent using sharing platforms (Gupta et al., 2019).
Research Methodology
Data Extraction Process
Bibliometric data pertaining to the sharing economy in developing countries was obtained in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) protocol (Moher et al., 2009) (Figure 1).
Review Procedure Adapted from PRISMA Flow Diagram.
An advanced search was conducted on June 5, 2024, in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases using the search string “sharing economy” OR “collaborative consumption” for documents having these terms in their title without search period restriction.
The identified documents were filtered to include those in the English language published in journals. This resulted in 2,224 records, of which 783 duplicate records were removed. Manual screening (Lim et al., 2024) led to the removal of 34 documents that were not research articles despite the filters being applied initially. Of the 1,407 publications searched for retrieval, 48 were not available for further assessment.
A scrutiny of 1,349 papers indicated that 109 did not pertain to the sharing economy domain, 540 were in the context of developed countries, while 384 publications lacked clarity about their country of investigation being systematic or bibliometric reviews, or not specifying the country, or were global in nature. Finally, 326 articles were included in the bibliometric analysis.
Bibliometric Analysis
Bibliometric analysis uses a quantitative perspective to assess the extant literature (Bretas & Alon, 2021; Zupic & Cater, 2015). Bibliometric methods deduce and visually present the scientific knowledge and developmental trends of a research field by organizing and analyzing large quantities of data (Donthu et al., 2021b). The present study employs the Biblioshiny tool of Bibliometrix R-package (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) and the VOSviewer software (van Eck & Waltman, 2010) for analysis.
Content Analysis
Content analysis enables conceptual and interpretative flexibility for analyzing textual data and drawing meaningful inferences (Duriau et al., 2007; Gaur & Kumar, 2018). Content analysis of 50 publications with the highest total global citations was undertaken to identify the major challenges to the growth of the sharing economy in developing countries.
Findings
Research Productivity and Impact
The subject of sharing economy with reference to developing countries attracted scholarly attention in 2016 (Figure 2) when the first paper—Wahyuningtyas (2016)—was published. Thereafter, a growth trend was observed till 2021, with the highest number (67) of publications. The count declined in 2022 and remained almost stable in the succeeding year. The search for publications was undertaken in the middle of 2024. Overall, the interest of researchers in examining the subject has been on the increase.
Annual Publications and Citations.
The number of citations was 20.97 in 2016, followed by a steady increase, reaching a maximum at 1,351.92 in 2019. This may be because the publication count doubled as compared to the preceding year. Subsequently, a decline in annual citations was observed in 2020 followed by stability in 2021 and a decline thereafter.
Highly Cited Publications
The top 10 highly cited papers in the research on the sharing economy in developing countries are listed in Table 1. The most relevant article (Zhu et al., 2017), with 193 citations, examines the antecedents of the adoption of ride-sharing applications among consumers in Beijing. Lee et al. (2018), the second-most-cited publication, investigates the determinants of user intention to participate in the ride-sharing service Uber in Hong Kong.
Top 10 Relevant Publications.
Most Productive Contributors
Table 2 indicates the 10 most prolific authors who have contributed to the literature on the sharing economy in developing countries and their publication count, citations, and different metrics. Xusen Cheng has the highest number of publications, citations, h_index, and g_index, whereas A. K. Fazeen Rasheed has the highest m_index.
Most Prolific Authors.
The maximum number of research articles have been published in Sustainability, followed by the Journal of Innovation and Knowledge and the Journal of Business Research (Table 3). Of the top 10 sources, four pertain to the environment and sustainability, underscoring the sustainability aspect of the area under study. The largest number of research articles have been published by authors affiliated to universities in China (60).
Most Relevant Journals and Author-affiliated Institutions.
The highest number of publications are from China and India (Table 4). Developing Asian countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Turkey as well as countries such as the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France are making significant contributions to the subject domain. However, only a few developing countries in other regions such as Brazil and South Africa are adding to the extant research in the area.
Most Relevant Countries Contributing to Publications.
China is the most impactful country in terms of total citations, followed by the USA. The publications from the United Kingdom, though fewer than those from India, are more impactful based on total and average citation counts.
Research Context
A review conducted to determine the countries that were the focus of the research (Table 5) indicated that almost 76% (247) of the 326 studies are based in the developing countries of the Asian region, with 57% (142) in China, ensued by India, Taiwan, and Indonesia. The African region accounts for about 6.44% (21) of the studies, with 28.57% conducted in South Africa, followed by Egypt, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Among these countries, Ethiopia and Senegal are the least-developed countries. In the American region, research has been undertaken in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile, constituting 6.75% (22) of the total publications. About 11.04% (36) studies are conducted in multiple developing countries or in a combination of developing and developed countries such as BRICS (Hsu, 2023) and ASEAN (Zhang et al., 2023).
Countries Where the Research Has Been Undertaken.
Co-citation Analysis
Co-citation analysis indicates as to how often two publications are cited together by a common research publication and the most impactful publications laying the foundation of the knowledge in the field (Bretas & Alon, 2021; Donthu et al., 2021a). A visualization network of 33 cited references out of 19,103 references collated from 326 publications with 12 citations per cited reference is presented in Figure 3. Cluster 1 (12 publications) is mainly about the overview, conceptualization, and effect of the sharing economy (Belk, 2010; Frenken & Schor, 2017). Cluster 2 (11 papers) mainly examines the determinants of consumer participation in the sharing economy (Hamari et al., 2016; Möhlmann, 2015). Cluster 3 (10 publications) focuses on the influence of the sharing economy on stakeholders and the related hopes, challenges, and paradoxes (Eckhardt et al., 2019; Muñoz & Cohen, 2017). Belk (2014), which conceptually delineates the similarities and contrasts between collaborative consumption and sharing, has the highest number of citations (96). This is followed by Hamari et al. (2016) (89), which may be among the early empirical studies investigating the motivations underlying participation in the sharing economy. Both these articles have the strongest link strength in the network, indicating their individual as well as combined relevance in the literature.
Co-citation Network of Publications.
Author and Country Collaboration Network
Co-authorship analysis examines the linkages among authors in a specific domain (Donthu et al., 2021a). In its network visualization, authors are reflected in nodes and the lines connecting them indicate their collaborations (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017). Figure 4 presents the co-authorship network, with four clusters, among 30 authors having at least one publication each. Cluster 1 comprises three authors (Xueming Luo, Zhijie Lin and Cheng Zhang) who have published on the impact of platform-related features of the sharing economy in the context of China. Cluster 2 consists of two authors (Yue Guo and Xiaotong Li) who have investigated the impact of ride-hailing services on new car purchases and the impact of service quality of bicycle-sharing on customer intention in China. Cluster 3 involves two authors (A. K. Fazeen Rasheed and Janarthanan Balakrishnan) whose joint publications focus on tourist satisfaction with sharing economy services and the role of minimalism in shaping consumer behavior in the sharing economy in India. Cluster 4 comprises four authors (Yuge Ma, Ke Rong, Yong Wang, and Dun Li) who have focused on value co-creation, redundancy, and matching of supply and demand in the context of transportation sharing services in China.
Co-authorship Network Based on Authors.
Of the 58 countries from which the 326 publications emanate, 49 countries contributing at least one paper to the literature on the subject form an interconnected country collaboration map indicating the cooperation among authors (Figure 5). China has the maximum number of links (28) and the highest link strength (102). It has the strongest linkages with the USA (31), the United Kingdom (20), and Taiwan (8), indicating the active collaboration among these countries. China is succeeded by the USA (23), the United Kingdom (17), and India (16), among others.
Co-authorship Network Based on Countries of Authors.
Keyword Co-occurrence Analysis
Keyword co-occurrence analysis indicates the relationships among keywords appearing together frequently in the network, suggesting that they are related through a common theme (Donthu et al., 2021a). Among 978 author keywords, 19 keywords occurring at least six times are presented in five clusters appearing in a co-occurrence network (Figure 6). Cluster 1 consists of five keywords, namely, continuous use intention, digital platform, ride-hailing, satisfaction, and service quality. It mostly pertains to the antecedents of user satisfaction with sharing economy services in the countries of Asia and Africa, such as Indonesia, Ghana, and India. Cluster 2 includes four keywords, namely, bike-sharing, China, sustainability, and value co-creation, and is about value co-creation with respect to sustainability and bike-sharing services in China. Cluster 3 contains four keywords—COVID-19, emerging markets, ride-sharing, and sharing economy. It relates to the state of the sharing economy mostly in the context of ride-sharing services and the impact of COVID-19 on the sharing economy in countries such as Brazil, India, Chile, and the Philippines. Cluster 4 includes three keywords—collaborative consumption, perceived risk, and trust—and focuses on the determinants of use of sharing economy services in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Turkey. Cluster 5 encompasses three keywords—Airbnb, social exchange theory, and Uber—and mostly revolves around the application of the social exchange theory to understand consumer behavior in sharing economy services in countries such as South Africa, Taiwan, and Thailand. Among all the keywords, “sharing economy” has the maximum occurrences (231), number of links (18), and total link strength (166). The term has the strongest link with “trust” (19), followed by “collaborative consumption” (17).
Keyword Co-occurrence Map.
Thematic Mapping
A thematic map presents themes in the form of clusters based on the mapping of keywords and their relationships in a two-dimensional space using co-word analysis (Cobo et al., 2011). Figure 7 indicates the thematic map constituting eight research themes in the literature on the sharing economy in developing countries according to their centrality and density in four quadrants. Centrality suggests the strength of the links of a theme (cluster) with other themes (Callon et al., 1991; Murgado-Armenteros et al., 2015). It indicates how important a theme is in the growth of the investigated study domain (Cobo et al., 2011). Density depicts the internal strength of a cluster by measuring the strength of linkages among the keywords forming that theme (Callon et al., 1991; Murgado-Armenteros et al., 2015). Density indicates the development of a research theme (Cobo et al., 2011).
Conceptual Thematic Map.
The strategic diagram indicates two motor themes—“digital platform” and “collaborative consumption,” This highlights that an online intermediary is very often at the core of a sharing economy initiative playing a role in its growth. It encompasses the examination of the design and assessment of digital sharing platforms to overcome resource constraints (Gebeyehu & Twinomurinzi, 2022) and the impact of platforms on new car purchases (Guo et al., 2018; Guo et al., 2020) and socio-economic development (Cui et al., 2021) in the emerging economies. “Collaborative consumption” is based on studies on user attitude toward collaborative consumption (Berndt et al., 2021), the effect of materialism (Ni, 2021), and the application of the theory of planned behavior (Huang et al., 2021) and self-determination theory (Li & Wen, 2019) to comprehend consumer behavior toward collaborative consumption in developing economies.
“Sharing economy” is the largest basic theme with high relevance but with the potential for further development. The related publications address issues about perceived risk and trust among consumers (Jiang & Lau, 2021) and service providers in developing countries (Cheng et al., 2020; Hossain & Mozahem, 2022), sustainability (Matharu et al., 2021), and collaborative governance in sharing economy services (Ma et al., 2018). Another relevant but less-explored basic theme is “service quality,” which identifies the determinants of service quality (Priporas et al., 2017) and its relationship with customer satisfaction in the sharing economy services in emerging nations (Cheng et al., 2018).
Of the two niche themes identified, “developing countries” addresses issues related to growth prospects (Retamal, 2019) and challenges (Taeihagh, 2017) for the sharing economy in developing economies, sharing economy firms (Hira, 2017), and consumer purchase intention toward luxury offerings in the sharing economy in India (Jain & Mishra, 2020). The other niche theme, “fsqca,” encompasses studies employing the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (Bouncken et al., 2020), partial least squares-structural equation modeling, and thematic and sentiment analysis (Mondal & Samaddar, 2022) to examine stakeholders’ perceptions toward the sharing economy services in developing nations.
“COVID-19” and “corporate social responsibility” are labeled as emerging themes due to the recency of the relevant publications. The studies falling under “COVID-19” examine the impact of the pandemic on the sharing economy services (Alharthi et al., 2021; de Medeiros et al., 2021; Vinod & Sharma, 2021). The research pertaining to “corporate social responsibility” examines the impact of CSR on consumers’ brand commitment in India (Fatma et al., 2020) and their citizenship behavior while considering the effect of social capital in sharing economy services in Taiwan (Wang & Ho, 2017).
Challenges for Sharing Economy in Developing Countries
The content analysis of the top 50 highly cited papers on the subject of interest helped to identify several challenges to the expansion of the sharing economy in developing nations.
Trust in the sharing economy services has a crucial impact on stakeholder participation (Boateng et al., 2019). The sharing between service providers and consumers is akin to sharing among strangers, leading to perceived risk and uncertainty for drivers as well as riders (Cheng et al., 2020) in the case of ride-sharing services. There are concerns about the safety of consumers and their possessions and the ability and background of drivers (Boateng et al., 2019). Owners are reluctant to rent out their assets due to concerns regarding mishandling, damage, and consequent monetary loss (Gupta et al., 2019). Coworking spaces are vulnerable to risks from inadvertent information leaks during exchanges among coworkers (Bouncken et al., 2020). Methods for the evaluation of sharing partners are not available (Govindan et al., 2020). Absence of trust is identified as the single most important barrier to the usage of sharing economy services among enterprises in India (Govindan et al., 2020). Lack of awareness about the sharing economy business model and its operational aspects among industrial parties makes its implementation seem complex and contributes to perceived risk (Govindan et al., 2020). Inadequate information transparency can cause a lack of trust and loss of reputation as the information regarding the flow of assets is hard to track (Govindan et al., 2020).
There is insufficient communication and information sharing between service providers and consumers (Cheng et al., 2020), contributing to information asymmetry. Also, since the sharing economy is a novel trend in many sectors such as luxury product sharing and has a non-ownership-based nature, consumers have concerns about availing the services (Jain & Mishra, 2020)
There is a lack of adequate access to the basic equipment, technology, and communication networks needed for participating in sharing economy services in some developing economies. This includes access to smartphones and digital payments, as well as training in the use of smartphones and apps for drivers (Dreyer et al., 2017; Taeihagh, 2017). Some cities lack suitable physical infrastructure and institutional arrangements such as electric vehicle charging and parking facilities to support services such as electric vehicle-sharing (Ma et al., 2019). Due to socioeconomic disparity in some countries, not many people have cars (Gupta et al., 2018) or access to vehicle finance to become Uber drivers (Dreyer et al., 2017). Some nations have witnessed an initial decrease in new car purchases with the introduction of ride-hailing services (Guo et al., 2019). Also, there is a shortage of drivers for ride-sharing services (Cheng et al., 2020).
As compared to conventional forms of tourist accommodations, accommodation-sharing services lack adequate regulations for guiding accommodation and facilities, guests, and service enablers (Crommelin et al., 2018). The industrial sharing economy also suffers from a similar dearth of rules governing participation (Govindan et al., 2020). In the absence of adequate regulations, sharing economy firms are transferring the risks to other stakeholders, namely, consumers and workers (Taeihagh, 2017).
Sometimes, providers of some sharing economy services like ride-sharing are not given sufficient economic benefits for sharing their resources (Cheng et al., 2020). Noise and inevitable social interactions in coworking spaces can stress people (Bouncken et al., 2020). The openness of work and sharing of information among coworkers can negatively impact their performance levels and work satisfaction (Bouncken et al., 2020).
Future Research Directions
Trust is identified as a crucial determinant impacting partaking in sharing economy services. Future research can further explore the factors influencing trust among stakeholders (Chuah et al., 2022; Wu et al., 2017), including service enablers (Li & Tsai, 2022; Li & Wang, 2020), local communities, and society (Gu et al., 2021). The influence of pre- and post-trust on the repeat usage intention can be investigated (Jiang & Lau, 2021). The actual impact of initiatives to mitigate the perceived risks among various stakeholders needs investigation.
Besides trust, other antecedents of stakeholder behavior in a sharing economy in developing countries need further investigation. Thus, the impact of psychographic dimensions of personality such as prosocial motivation (Minami et al., 2021) and materialism (Davidson et al., 2018) on participation in sharing economy services can be explored. The relationship between demographic factors and the influence of service quality on user satisfaction (Shao et al., 2020) can be researched further. There is a need to explore the impact of demographics on behavioral patterns of service providers across types of sharing economy services and developing economies (Cheng et al., 2020). The perceptions of service providers, such as drivers and hosts, about service quality can be examined (Priporas et al., 2017). As participants have been the main focus of extant research, the perspectives of non-users toward these sharing services needs to be explored (Jiang et al., 2021). The adoption of technology by consumers and service providers across diverse adoption stages for different sharing economy services in emerging nations can be examined (Zhu et al., 2017). There is a need to further examine the gap between the attitude and intention toward behavior and actual behavior of users toward collaborative consumption in emerging nations (Minami et al., 2021; Mishra et al., 2023). Differences in the antecedents of consumers’ participation in collaborative consumption based on the time and regularity of use can be examined (Llanos et al., 2023). Extant research is mostly focused on either ride-sharing services (Uber) or accommodation-sharing services (Airbnb), pointing to a need for further investigation of consumer behavior for other services such as coworking, meal-sharing, and task-sharing. The dynamics shaping sharing economy in least developed countries have not been much researched.
Given their importance in shaping human behavior and the sociocultural diversity across developing economies along with the paucity of studies in this regard, the role of culture and social norms on the behavior of asset owners and consumers in these countries needs better understanding. The impact of cultural facets on service quality and user intention for different services (Gupta et al., 2019; Jiang et al., 2021) such as Airbnb, Uber, and HomeAway and across different countries (Perera et al., 2023) needs further examination. A longitudinal approach (Cheng et al., 2018) or one involving generational cohorts (Li & Wen, 2019) can be undertaken. Social implications of the businesses following the collaborative consumption model can be explored (Dreyer et al., 2017).
The sharing economy services in developing countries need to be explored through the prism of sustainable consumption for different services, cultures, and stakeholders (Chi et al., 2020; Dabbous & Tarhini, 2019). Novel forms of sustainable consumption behavior that are unique to some developing economies need more attention (Chi et al., 2020). The influence of different forms of collaborative consumption in developing economies on sustainability (Guyader, 2018; Ma et al., 2019) and the accomplishment of Sustainable Development Goals needs further investigation. Studies can explore how the desire for sustainability can drive the intention to participate in a sharing economy among B2B firms in emerging economies. Mechanisms supporting value co-creation in different sharing economy services can be explored (Koul et al., 2022; Lan et al., 2017). The influence of peer-to-peer value co-creation on sustainable consumption and production needs to be studied. The perceptions of consumers about corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be investigated for different services and cultures (Wang & Ho, 2017) and for their impact on brand commitment (Fatma et al., 2020).
There are limited studies examining consumers’ experiences with sharing economy platforms in developing economies. Further research can examine the role of sharing economy platforms in connecting service providers and consumers (Yang et al., 2017) and compare different platforms such as rental platforms versus free platforms for various sharing economy services (Kaushal & Prashar, 2022). Differences in service quality among various sharing economy platforms of the same or diverse services can be explored (Zuo et al., 2019). Studies can examine the applications of technological innovations in artificial intelligence and blockchain in sharing economy services from diverse perspectives (Chang et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2023).
The long-term impact of COVID-19 on stakeholder perceptions of sharing economy services in emerging economies needs continued investigation (Atsız & Cifci, 2021; Jiang et al., 2021). More focus on the extensive non-urban regions, which characterize many developing economies with larger samples and different research techniques (Karthik & Sinha, 2021), is required.
This study identifies the potential for some innovations in methodology and approach that can be used for future investigations of sharing economy in developing nations. Scenario-based research (Albinsson et al., 2019), ethnography, depth interviews, qualitative pattern matching (Bouncken et al., 2020), projective techniques, multi-criteria decision making (Garg et al., 2022), fsQCA with case studies or other methods (Chuah et al., 2021) can be employed for a deeper understanding of stakeholder perspectives on the sharing economy. To overcome response bias, neuroscience techniques are recommended. Approaches such as uncertainty reduction theory, social network theory, and cognitive load theory could be employed to better understand trust and user behavior. Secondary data such as reviews, ratings, and comments extracted from online platforms can provide insights into consumer sentiments.
Ethical issues emanating from the sharing of assets can be studied with reference to emerging economies (Bag et al., 2022). Consumer misbehavior in the context of sharing economy services is also an underexplored area in the extant research.
Conclusion
The study employs bibliometric analysis to comprehend the development of the research on the sharing economy in developing countries and to identify avenues for advancing knowledge in the field. It identifies eight themes underpinning the extant investigations in the domain. Collaborative consumption and digital platforms are central and well-developed themes. Sharing economy and service quality are central to the present area of study but still not fully developed. CSR and COVID-19 are emerging themes that have considerable potential for further investigations. The themes of fsQCA and developing countries have weak connection to other themes. Conceptual and methodological directions that can guide future research in the domain have been suggested.
Lack of trust, information asymmetry, insufficient infrastructure, supply constraints, and need for better regulatory frameworks have been identified among the challenges facing the sharing economy in developing nations. Marketers need to create positive awareness about benefits of the sharing economy services such as affordability, convenience, and sustainability. More initiatives such as background checks of service providers, ratings and certification, and enhanced privacy and security for individuals, assets, and data are needed to alleviate the risk perceptions of stakeholders. Data transparency between service providers and consumers can increase trust. Public policymakers can formulate regulations that can guide more effective and reliable operations and protect the various sharing economy stakeholders.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.