Strategies for Enhancing Sharing Economy Practices Across Diverse Industries: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The sharing economy (SE) is a nascent phenomenon representing a socio-economic process to optimise underutilised resources through digital platforms. This process facilitates the shared consumption of resources to maximise resource utilisation while supporting the circularity of resources. However, the successful operation of SE practices is hindered by the lack of identification of effective strategies for enhancing the SE implications, which are essential to comprehending SE practices and developing more sophisticated applications. Therefore, this research aims to provide the first insights into the strategies that enhance SE practices across diverse industries and identify knowledge gaps and future research directions. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted by selecting articles published in the 2014–2023 period in Scopus and Web of Science databases. Selected articles were subjected to descriptive and NVivo 14-supported thematic analyses. The descriptive analysis showed that, despite considering articles published in the last 10 years, all relevant articles were published in the last 5 years. Developed and developing countries showed almost equal contributions, while China was recognised as the country with the highest number of publications. Accommodation and transportation sectors were reported as the sectors with the highest number of publications. A cross-analysis was conducted to recognise the varying utilisation of different strategies across diverse industries and sectors. Ten different categories were identified through the thematic analysis that enhance SE practices: economic; environmental; geographic; governance; health, safety, and security; marketing; people; product/services; research, training, education; and technology-related strategies. Each category was discussed along with its relevant strategies, resulting in identifying a total of 84 strategies. These strategies were then presented alongside the responsible parties tasked with their implementation. The study contributes to the SE literature by providing an SLR for contemporary strategies utilised to enhance SE practices, specifically focusing on elucidating the most appropriate categorisation of these strategies. Moreover, this comprehensive SLR provides the first insights into the effective strategies that enhance SE practices across diverse industries.