Uncovering the Landscape of Sharing Economy Research Amid and Beyond the Pandemic: A Bibliometric Analysis

As an emerging business model, the sharing economy (SE) or collaborative consumption is subject to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA)—including during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet amidst the global pandemic, an increasing number of studies on SE were conducted. This literature review takes the approaches of bibliometric and thematic analyses, with research articles published in select reputable databases between 2020 and 2022 as the unit of analysis (i.e., ScienceDirect, Emerald, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE). From a dataset of 717 articles, the authors constructed a visual mapping from bibliometric analysis to uncover eight emerging themes in SE research during the Covid-19 pandemic: (1) SE business model, (2) peer-to-peer SE model in tourism and hospitality, (3) the role of platforms in SE, (4) value co-creation in SE, (5) transportation and SE, (6) collaborative consumption and sustainable consumption, (7) access-based consumption and shared mobility, and (8) circular economy and sustainability. This study is expected to shed light on future research potentials, e.g., in product service system (PSS), the impact of peer-to-peer accommodation, value co-creation and service recovery, reputation and signaling mechanisms in SE, reciprocity, the feasibility of access-based consumption, and the implementation of circular economy in SE.