Riders on the Storm Tassinari, Arianna; Maccarrone, Vincenzo
Work, employment and society,
02/2020, Volume:
34, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In light of the individualisation, dispersal and pervasive monitoring that characterise work in the ‘gig economy’, the development of solidarity among gig workers could be expected to be unlikely. ...However, numerous recent episodes of gig workers’ mobilisation require reconsideration of these assumptions. This article contributes to the debate about potentials and obstacles for solidarity in the changing world of work by showing the processes through which workplace solidarity among gig workers developed in two cases of mobilisation of food delivery platform couriers in the UK and Italy. Through the framework of labour process theory, the article identifies the sources of antagonism in the app-mediated model of work organisation and the factors that facilitated and hindered the consolidation of active solidarity and the emergence of collective action among gig workers. The article emphasises the centrality of workers’ agential practices in overcoming constraints to solidarity and collective action, and the diversity of forms through which solidarity can be expressed in hostile work contexts.
This study evaluates the quality of the digital platform economy at the global scale by employing a network model rooted in nonparametric linear techniques (data envelopment analysis) on a sample of ...116 countries for 2019. The proposed model is in accordance with the geographic diversity (country heterogeneity) and the multilayered structure characterizing the interactions between system participants: governments, digital platforms, platform-dependent firms, and end users. The core findings indicate that the configuration of countries' platform economy is very heterogeneous, which suggests that an informed, tailor-made approach to policy might produce more effective outcomes. Policies aimed at enhancing the digital platform economy should emerge from the analysis of its main factors if the development of a strategy seeking qualitative improvements in the system is the desired goal.
This qualitative case study adopts a labour process analysis to unpack the distinctive features of capital’s control regimes in the food-delivery segment of the Australian platform-economy and ...assesses labour agency in response to these. Drawing upon worker experiences with the Deliveroo and UberEATS platforms, it is shown how the labour process controls are multi-facetted and more than algorithmic management, with three distinct features standing out: the panoptic disposition of the technological infrastructure, the use of information asymmetries to constrain worker choice, and the obfuscated nature of their performance management systems. Combined with the workers’ precarious labour market positions and the Australian political-economic context, only limited, mainly individual, expressions of agency were found.
This study examines how and when labor control and management leads to collective resistance in China’s food-delivery platform economy. I develop the concept of “platform architecture” to examine the ...technological, legal, and organizational aspects of control and management in the labor process and the variable relationships between them. Analyzing 68 in-depth interviews, ethnographic data, and 87 cases of strikes and protests, I compare the platform architecture of service and gig platforms and examine the relationship between their respective architecture and labor contention. I argue that specific differences in platform architecture diffuse or heighten collective contention. Within the service platform, technological control and management generates work dissatisfaction, but the legal and organizational dimensions contain grievances and reduce the appeal of, and spaces for, collective contention. Conversely, within the gig platform, all three dimensions of platform architecture reinforce one another, escalating grievances, enhancing the appeal of collective contention, and providing spaces for mobilizing solidarity and collective action. As a result, gig platform couriers are more likely to consider their work relations exploitative and to mobilize contention, despite facing higher barriers to collective action due to the atomization of their work.
The platform economy facilitates a model of sharing economy, where competition and cooperation among the competitive firms are very common. Nevertheless, there are very few studies to date which ...investigate how competition and cooperation influence firms’ ethical dilemmas, and how these in turn affect performance outcomes. As such, there is a lack of understanding of the outcomes of platform-based sharing economy from conflict management and firm performance perspectives. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the coopetition in platform economy from ethical and firm performance perspectives. Building on literature from the relational view and resource-based view, we perform an empirical analysis on a dataset of 328 Indian platform-based firms. The study finds that there is a significant impact of coopetition in platform-based sharing economy which creates conflicts and increases the firms’ ethical dilemma that eventually decreases the performance of firms.
In the German public debate, platform work and crowdwork have become the epitome of the dark side of the digital transformation of the working world. Although Germany is marked by a high density of ...labour regulations, those do not necessarily translate into/create fair conditions for platform workers in the country. At first glance, the historical legacy of strong social partnership between employers' and workers' organisations and the restrictiveness of German labour law mean Germany present powerful regulatory tools to thwart precarity and strengthen workers' rights in the platform economy. However, the spread of non-standard employment and sub-contracting, in combination with increased migration from within and beyond the EU, has given rise to a rather different picture. Assisted by public demands for far-reaching deregulations to secure Germany's international competitiveness as production site, several digital labour platforms have found an environment conducive to growth in Germany. Platform work in Germany is often lauded for its flexibility and low entry barriers, as it provides an easy opportunity to earn an income and can help labour market integration for those who face barriers to standard employment. Nevertheless, important issues are present. The paper aims to shed light on the working conditions of platform workers in Germany. The analysis is founded upon the five core principles of Fairwork. Drawing from documentary analysis, 65 semi-structured interviews with platform workers and 8 interviews with platform managers, the paper finds that the country's relatively stringent labour regulations do not always translate into fair working conditions for platform workers. Although, compared to other countries, many platforms workers in Germany are legally classified as employees, sub-contracting practices, the use of unskilled migrant labour and other platforms' practices undermine many employment rights in practice.
In this paper we contribute to the understanding of how failed stakeholder inclusion in times of crisis can lead to distrust of platform organizations. Drawing on the revelatory case of Airbnb, we ...explore how stakeholder inclusion was practiced when the platform was confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic, a severe context in which its business practices were disrupted and social interactions uprooted. Our qualitative analysis suggests that platform leaders failed to notice a dissonance between articulated stakeholder meaning and understanding (i.e., what they said) and the crisis response practices implemented (i.e., what they did and did not do). This ultimately fostered distrust and selective disengagement as stakeholders re-interpreted Airbnb’s claims about their role and how stakeholders were given voice in times of crisis. Drawing on research in psychology, we utilize the concept of inattentional blindness as a novel metaphorical explanation for failed stakeholder inclusion in platform organizations in times of crisis.
The sharing economy is estimated to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the global economy and is rapidly growing. However, trust-based commercial sharing—the participation in for-profit ...peer-to-peer sharing-economy activity—has negative as well as positive consequences for both the interacting parties and uninvolved third parties. To share responsibly, one needs to be aware of the various consequences of sharing. We provide a comprehensive, preregistered, systematic literature review of the consequences of trust-based commercial sharing, identifying 93 empirical papers spanning regions, sectors, and scientific disciplines. Via in-depth coding of the empirical work, we provide an authoritative overview of the economic, social, and psychological consequences of trust-based commercial sharing for involved parties, including service providers, users, and third parties. Based on the aggregate insights, we identify the common denominators for the positive and negative consequences. Whereas a well-functioning infrastructure of payment, insurance, and communication enables the positive consequences, ambiguity about rules, roles, and regulations causes non-negligible negative consequences. To overcome these negative consequences and promote more responsible forms of sharing, we propose the transparency-based sharing framework. Based on the framework, we outline an agenda for future research and discuss emerging managerial implications that arise when trying to increase transparency without jeopardizing the potential of trust-based commercial sharing.
An unknown number of people around the world are earning income by working through online labour platforms such as Upwork and Amazon Mechanical Turk. We combine data collected from various sources to ...build a data-driven assessment of the number of such online workers (also known as online freelancers) globally. Our headline estimate is that there are 163 million freelancer profiles registered on online labour platforms globally. Approximately 14 million of them have obtained work through the platform at least once, and 3.3 million have completed at least 10 projects or earned at least $1000. These numbers suggest a substantial growth from 2015 in registered worker accounts, but much less growth in amount of work completed by workers. Our results indicate that online freelancing represents a non-trivial segment of labour today, but one that is spread thinly across countries and sectors.
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