Platform Economy Research in Africa: A Systematic Review of Themes, Frameworks, and Methodological Approaches

Introduction

The platform economy is a term that has been generally used to define the subsets of the overall economy of digital technology-mediated activities. To be more specific, the term has been used to refer to a “portion of the economy composed of digital platforms enabling users to share, lend, rent or purchase goods and services” (Kilhoffer, Lenaerts & Beblavý, 2017, p.3). Some of the digital technology mediated platforms include Taxify, Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Etsy, and Salesforce. Further, the platform economy is characterised by some unresolved theoretical and regulatory questions, for which there is a paucity of relevant literature (Kilhoffer et al., 2017) and remains poorly understood (Behrendt & Nguyen, 2018). Kemp (2013), for example, further asserts that there are still limited studies that have been done using theoretical lenses on the platform economy. This is, perhaps due to existing studies mostly focusing on industry and trade research with very few on academic research. This stance of limited scholarly studies or literature on the platform economy is also indicated by David-West, Umukoro and Onuoha (2018) who argue that there is still the need to research the platform economy since existing literature in the area remains nascent.

Additionally, meaning given to the platform economy has been overlapping. Some include collaborative economy, gig economy, sharing economy or access economy, which in a broader sense, means the same thing. For example, some scholars have attempted to differentiate and use the various terms to delineate different parts of the broader digital economy. For some, the platform economy is narrower in scope than the digital economy, but broader in scope than terms like on-demand economy, sharing economy or gig economy (Frenken & Schor, 2017). Hence, the discussion about the meaning of the platform economy remains a complicated one as there are still issues regarding the precise definition of the platform economy in identifying precisely what it is, and how to categorise it and its subsets (Kenney & Zysman, 2016).

Hence, this chapter will aim at addressing the gaps in the literature above by presenting a systematic review into themes, theories and methodological approaches that have been used in existing studies on the platform economy in the context of Africa. This will be carried out through a systematic review and synthesis of the themes, theories and methodological approaches used in such studies.

In this regard, the objectives of this chapter are as follows:

• 1.

  To identify the various themes that have been used in existing studies done on platform economy research in Africa.

• 2.

  To identify the various theories and frameworks that have been used in existing studies done on the platform economy in Africa.

• 3.

  To identify the various methodological approaches that have been used in existing studies on the platform economy in Africa.

• 4.

  To identify the key proposed research gaps.

The next section of this chapter provides background and discusses the general description given to the platform economy. This is followed by a presentation of the methodology employed in this systematic review, where the criteria for inclusion and exclusion as well as the data extraction and synthesis approach for selection of the journal articles are laid out. Next is a presentation of the findings from the review of the articles based on dominant themes, ‘dominant conceptual approaches’ and dominant methodological approaches. Following this section is a classification of the articles based on the country-specific context in which they were written, specific sector of platform economy they focused on, year of publication, level of analysis and journal of publication. Next is a presentation of the research gaps identified in the papers, then a section on the implications and recommendations for future research and finally, a conclusion of the chapter.