Review of sharing economy studies using the bibliometrics method

Bibliometric methodologies have been employed in the field of the Sharing Economy (SE). This study aims to examine the evolutionary trends of SE research, particularly its integration with sustainable development and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), utilizing bibliometric tools on scientific literature published from 2012 to 2023 in the Web of Science (WoS) database. We utilize bibliometric analysis to consolidate existing studies, therefore elucidating the progress of the SE area, defining its theoretical and practical contributions to SDGs, and formulating a focused future research agenda for SE research. This study employs scientific productivity assessment, international collaboration evaluation, co-citation analysis, and thematic clustering to identify a significant shift in publication trends towards environmental sustainability, indicating an interdisciplinary integration with “sustainability” as the central tenet of scientific output in the SE field. The SE has transformed into a multifaceted and interdisciplinary research domain, originally grounded in economics and social sciences and later extending into digital science, urban planning, information technology, and tourism, which are essential areas for realizing SDGs such as sustainable urban development, responsible consumption and production, and green economic growth. This analysis yields scientific and technological insights into SE research, delineates practical avenues for SE to contribute to SDGs, and has major implications for the future sustainable development of the SE domain and the establishment of SDGs policy.