The digital transition of collaborative consumption: toward sharing Economy 4.0

Purpose The literature has scrutinized the impact of various Industry 4.0 (I4.0) on the sharing economy (SE) and collaborative consumption. These results remain fragmented, sparse and specific to a single technology, context industry or subset of the SE. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper aims to examine the potential impacts of various I4.0 technologies – such as the blockchain, artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things and additive manufacturing – on SE, thereby advancing knowledge of these impacts on SE-focused firms. Design/methodology/approach A multi-stage Cochrane systematic literature review involving two independent coders and the research team, which conducted the content analysis of 37 topical publications. Findings The findings reveal that I4.0 technologies have six significant impacts on the SE, including (1) safety (enabled by safeguarded information transmission and secure identity management but hindered by unresolved transaction privacy issues), (2) trust (enabled by traceability, transparency, confidence machines, but limited by the persistency of trust), (3) decentralization (through lateral authority, while reintermediation constitutes a point of tension), (4) efficiency (through disintermediation, superior match-making capacity and predictive maintenance), (5) cost reduction (lowering transactions and operating costs and lowering prices for users) and (6) smart contracting (enabled by automation, and immutability). Originality/value These findings extend the research on the connection between SE and I4.0 from a non-technical perspective, particularly in the tertiary sector, and are relevant to management theory and practice.