Sharing economy platforms increasingly turn to professionalism to compete with their industry competitors, exemplified by their rule-based practices and fewer emphases on personal relationships. Such expanding professionalism has different effects on social discrimination that is infesting these platforms. We argue that professionalism may reduce one type of discrimination, homophily bias, in partner selection but increase the discrimination in online reviews in these platforms. Using 372,627 stays on Airbnb in New York City, this study demonstrates homophily bias existed in both the selection and review of partners, based on the similarity in race, gender, and age. Moreover, while certain practice of professionalism (i.e., instant booking) reduced homophily biases in partner selection, another professionalism practice (i.e., staying in entire places/apartments) exacerbated the biases in guests’ online reviews of hosts. Our findings suggest that researchers and practitioners should be cautious about the one-fit-all tendency of implementing certain professionalism practices on such platforms.

共享经济平台越来越多地转向专业化以与行业竞争对手竞争，这体现在它们基于规则的实践和对人际关系的较少强调。这种不断扩大的专业化对滋生这些平台的社会歧视产生了不同的影响。我们认为，专业性可能会减少合作伙伴选择中的一种歧视，同质性偏见，但会增加这些平台在线评论中的歧视。这项研究使用纽约市 Airbnb 上的 372,627 次住宿，表明基于种族、性别和年龄的相似性，在选择和审查合作伙伴时都存在同质性偏见。此外，虽然某些专业实践（即即时预订）减少了合作伙伴选择中的同质性偏差，但另一种专业实践（即，住在整个地方/公寓）加剧了客人对主人在线评论的偏见。我们的研究结果表明，研究人员和从业者应该对在此类平台上实施某些专业实践的一刀切趋势持谨慎态度。