Transformations  in
Business & Economics

FROM CROWDSOURCING THROUGH SHARING ECONOMY TO PLATFORM ECONOMY: CHANGES IN THE PERCEPTION AND DEFINITION OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS¹²
Szymon Mazurek

ABSTRACT. Starting with the concept of crowdsourcing, the article describes changes in the perception and definition of this phenomenon, manifested in such phrases as two-sided markets, collaborative consumption, sharing economy, platform economy, platformisation, uberization and gig economy. Using the scoping literature review and the analysis of bibliographical data (examining the popularity of expressions in titles and abstracts of scientific publications and assigning those to research categories), the study identified the main terms applied in the descriptions of digital platforms (40 phrases in seven groups), outlined changes in their popularity over time (since 1997), determined the related semantic contexts (via the analysis of 43 categories of scientific publications) and described the problems with defining them. The results of the conducted research confirmed the existence of five main research perspectives regarding digital platforms (technical, micro-economic, business, ecological economic and socio-regulatory) as well as the prevailing terminology.

KEYWORDS: crowdsourcing, sharing economy, gig economy, two-sided platforms, digital platforms.

JEL classification:  D26, D85, L14.

¹²Acknowledgement: The project is financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland under the programme "Regional Initiative of Excellence" 2019 - 2022 project number 015/RID/2018/19 total funding amount 10 721 040,00 PLN.