The sharing economy represents a transformative paradigm that fundamentally reshapes resource allocation, consumption patterns, and governance structures across various sectors. While enhancing sustainability through resource optimization, this paradigm introduces significant coordination, compliance, and value distribution challenges. Traditional governance frameworks, designed for centralized ownership and control, struggle to accommodate the decentralized, fluid nature of peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges. Drawing from real-world cases such as Airbnb’s trust-building mechanisms, Uber’s algorithmic management systems, and blockchain-based sharing platforms, this paper identifies the emergence of distinct technological solutions addressing these challenges. Through a comprehensive literature review, we introduce and develop the concept of “governance technology” – the digital infrastructure that enables collective decision-making, ensures adherence to community standards, and facilitates equitable resource allocation within sharing platforms. Governance technology includes three subsets of technologies: coordination technologies that facilitate multi-party interactions, compliance technologies that ensure adherence to rules and standards, and value distribution technologies that manage resource allocation and rewards. This paper concludes with implications for policy development, platform design, and future research directions, contributing to both theoretical discourse and practical applications in the rapidly evolving sharing economy landscape.
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Du, Q. A., & Tietze, F. (2025). Governance Technology in the Sharing Economy - A literature review and conceptual framework. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.120066