Ethical and legal dimensions of crowdsourcing professional services: a critical literature review

Purpose The rapid shift from traditional face-to-face professional service delivery to digitally enabled crowdsourcing models, driven by automation and digitalisation, raises significant ethical and legal concerns. This study aims to critically examine the ethical and legal dimensions of professional crowdsourcing, focusing on its benefits, risks, governance challenges and implications for ethical integrity in the digital economy. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a qualitative critical literature review, methodologically guided by the SPAR-4-SLR and PRISMA methods. The chosen literature was then organised and synthesised using the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology framework as the analytical framework. 56 of the 118 potentially pertinent articles that were found through a thorough search of Google Scholar and Scopus between 2000 and 2024 met the inclusion and quality requirements. The theoretcal underpinnings, research contexts, key ethical and legal aspects and methodological approaches of the retained studies were all synthesised. Findings Three findings emerged. First, professional crowdsourcing offers significant advantages, including wider access to expertise, lower transaction costs and faster service delivery, but it also raises systemic ethical and legal issues. Key concerns include fairness, accountability, algorithmic transparency, privacy, labour protections and regulatory uncertainty, which are often embedded in platform design rather than isolated incidents. Second, ethical management frameworks such as Stakeholder Theory, Social Contract Theory and Digital Ethics suggest that these risks stem from governance failures, power imbalances and opaque algorithmic processes, rather than from individual misconduct. Thirdly, insights from real-world cases on Amazon Mechanical Turk and Kickstarter demonstrate that ethical issues often arise when governance fails to keep pace with technological advances. However, increased regulation, stakeholder engagement, transparent algorithms, fair compensation and effective grievance mechanisms can help mitigate these risks. Practical implications The study underscores the need for proactive managerial and policy interventions, including transparent governance mechanisms, fair labour practices, ethical platform design and effective regulatory oversight. Originality/value This study contributes by shifting the focus from general crowdsourcing to professional service contexts, and by integrating ethical theory, legal analysis and case-based evidence to provide a comprehensive, governance-oriented understanding of ethical challenges in digital service ecosystems.