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1
Griesbach, Kathleen, Adam Reich, Luke Elliott-Negri, and Ruth Milkman. "Algorithmic Control in Platform Food Delivery Work." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 5 (January 2019): 237802311987004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2378023119870041.
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Building on an emerging literature concerning algorithmic management, this article analyzes the processes by which food delivery platforms control workers and uncovers variation in the extent to which such platforms constrain the freedoms—over schedules and activities—associated with gig work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 55 respondents working on food delivery platforms, as well as a survey of 955 platform food delivery workers, we find that although all of the food delivery platforms use algorithmic management to assign and evaluate work, there is significant cross-platform variation. Instacart, the largest grocery delivery platform, exerts a type of control we call “algorithmic despotism,” regulating the time and activities of workers more stringently than other platform delivery companies. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the spectrum of algorithmic control for the future of work.
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Raval, Noopur, and Simiran Lalvani. "The Moral Economy of Platform Work." Asiascape: Digital Asia 9, no. 1-2 (2022): 144–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22142312-bja10031.
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Abstract Gig Economy platforms have become enmeshed in the fabric of urban sociality. While they have substantially disrupted conditions of labouring, participating in the platform economy has also changed social and moral norms globally. Importantly, what constitutes normative moral and prosocial interpersonal behaviour is key to making platforms function as social environments, but these norms are also constantly challenged and rearticulated through everyday practice among different stakeholders. By drawing on long-term fieldwork across gig economy platforms in urban India, we offer a typology of dynamic social and moral norms around tipping, gratitude, politeness and more that sustain platform interactions. The paper’s aim is to re-centre the vitality and dynamism of everyday media practice, social relationships, and cultural values in shaping platforms. Relatedly, moving beyond binaries of exploitation/empowerment, we show how negotiations between agents with differential power contribute to shifts in platform culture that cannot be fully explained through notions of intentionality.
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Duffy, Brooke Erin. "Algorithmic precarity in cultural work." Communication and the Public 5, no. 3-4 (2020): 103–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2057047320959855.
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While work in the media and cultural industries has long been considered precarious, the processes and logics of platformization have injected new sources of instability into the creative labor economy. Among the sources of such insecurity are platforms’ algorithms, which structure the production, circulation, and consumption of cultural content in capricious, enigmatic, even biased ways. Accordingly, cultural producers’ conditions and experiences are increasingly wrought by their understandings—and moreover their anticipation—of platforms’ ever-evolving algorithmic systems. Against this backdrop, I urge fellow researchers of digital culture and society to consider how this mode of “algorithmic precarity” exacerbates the instability of cultural work in the platform era. Considering the volatility of algorithms and the wider cross-platform ecology can help us to develop critical interventions into a creative economy marked by a profoundly uneven allocation of power between platforms and the laborers who populate—and increasingly—power them.
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Toth, Ilona, Sanna Heinänen, and Kirsimarja Blomqvist. "Freelancing on digital work platforms – roles of virtual community trust and work engagement on person–job fit." VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems 50, no. 4 (2020): 553–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/vjikms-12-2018-0124.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of virtual community trust on work engagement and person–job fit in the context of digital work platforms. The emergence of the platform economy is changing the work environment fundamentally. It has enabled the appearance of alternative work arrangements, such as temporary organizing and the increase of independent contracting, also among highly specialized knowledge workers. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected with an online survey and used to test the relationships between virtual community trust, work engagement and person–job fit. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the goodness of a theoretical model. Findings Based on the data of 127 experts contracting on digital work platforms, virtual community trust positively affects both work engagement and person–job fit. In addition, the relationship between work engagement and person–job fit in the context of digital work platforms is significant and positive. Practical implications This study shows that trust among independent contractors working on digital platforms is important for work engagement and that platform providers can improve work performance through person–job fit by assisting in the creation of trust among members of their platforms. Originality/value The research literature on knowledge work in the changing context of work is scarce, and the role of trust in the context of digital work platforms needs clarification. This paper tests a theoretical model on the effects of trust among highly skilled experts working in the digital platform context as independent contractors and provides evidence for the importance of building trust among members of a virtual work community.
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Vojinić, Perica, and Marija Bečić. "PLATFORM WORK IN SELECTED COUNTRIES OF EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE." DIEM Dubrovnik International Economic Meeting 9, no. 1 (2024): 97–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.17818/diem/2024/1.14.
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Labour markets are increasingly being organized through digital platforms. These platforms are often characterized by a systematic asymmetry of information and power in favour of platform providers. They rely on an independent workforce that receives low wages and no social security, and at the same time works for its own account and bears the risk independently. Non-standard form of business via digital platforms offers benefits such as more flexible working hours, more favourable prices, and opportunities for income generation, but it also come with challenges related to job stability, benefits, and legal protections. Since there are no official statistics on the size of platform work, a small number of literature deals with the research of the determinants of platform work. The aim of this paper is to determine how factors such as Internet purchases by individuals, GDP per capita, unemployment rate and DESI index affect the size of the platform work. The analysis was conducted on a sample of selected countries of Eastern and Central Europe (CEEC – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Estonia) and for this purpose Eurostat and ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey data were used. The results of analysis show that the GDP per capita and Internet purchases by individuals influence the size of platform work in selected countries.
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Pradeep, Amogh, Johanna Gunawan, Álvaro Feal, Woodrow Hartzog, and David Choffnes. "Gig Work at What Cost? Exploring Privacy Risks of Gig Work Platform Participation in the U.S." Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2025, no. 1 (2025): 491–510. http://dx.doi.org/10.56553/popets-2025-0027.
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In recent years, "gig work" platforms have gained popularity as a way for individuals to earn money; as of 2021, 16% of Americans have at some point earned money from such platforms. Despite their popularity and their history of unfair data collection practices and worker safety, little is known about the data collected from workers (and users) by gig platforms and about the privacy dark pattern designs present in their apps. This paper presents an empirical measurement of 16 gig work platforms' data practices in the U.S. We analyze what data is collected by these platforms, and how it is shared and used. Finally, we consider how these practices constitute privacy dark patterns. To that end, we develop a novel combination of methods to address gig-worker-specific challenges in experimentation and data collection, enabling the largest in-depth study of such platforms to date. We find extensive data collection and sharing with 60 third parties—including sharing reversible hashes of worker Social Security Numbers (SSNs)—along with dark patterns that subject workers to greater privacy risk and opportunistically use collected data to nag workers in off-platform messages. We conclude this paper with proposed interdisciplinary mitigations for improving gig worker privacy protections. After we disclosed our SSN-related findings to affected platforms, the platforms confirmed that the issue had been mitigated. This is consistent with our independent audit of the affected platforms. Analysis code and redacted datasets will be made available to those who wish to reproduce our findings.
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Silva, Abilio, Bożena Szczucka-Lasota, Tomasz Węgrzyn, and Adam Jurek. "Welding of mobile elevating work platforms." Welding Technology Review 91, no. 6 (2019): 15–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.26628/wtr.v91i6.1047.
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 The demand for new welding technologies in civil engineering and transport is increasing. An example of this is the tendency to increase the operating range of a mobile platform mounted on motor vehicles while maintaining the weight of the vehicle. The most commonly used material in the production of mobile platforms are AHSS steels due to their high tensile strength at the level of 1400 MPa. However, the joints created with their use are characterized by much lower strength than the native material. In this article, the most appropriate parameters for welding elements of a mobile platform from difficult-to-use steel AHSS were selected.
 
 
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Sutherland, Will, Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi, Michael Dunn, and Sarah Beth Nelson. "Work Precarity and Gig Literacies in Online Freelancing." Work, Employment and Society 34, no. 3 (2019): 457–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0950017019886511.
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Many workers have been drawn to the gig economy by the promise of flexible, autonomous work, but scholars have highlighted how independent working arrangements also come with the drawbacks of precarity. Digital platforms appear to provide an alternative to certain aspects of precarity by helping workers find work consistently and securely. However, these platforms also introduce their own demands and constraints. Drawing on 20 interviews with online freelancers, 19 interviews with corresponding clients and a first-hand walkthrough of the Upwork platform, we identify critical literacies (what we call gig literacies), which are emerging around online freelancing. We find that gig workers must adapt their skills and work strategies in order to leverage platforms creatively and productively, and as a component of their ‘personal holding environment’. This involves not only using the resources provided by the platform effectively, but also negotiating or working around its imposed structures and control mechanisms.
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Shevchuk, A.V. "From factory to platform: autonomy and control in the digital economy." Sociology of Power, no. 1 (June 7, 2020): 30–54. https://doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2020-1-30-54.
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The sociology of work paid close attention to the factory and office as the physical and social space where the labor process was directly carried out and where workers faced managerial supervision, control, and power. The article discusses new decentralized forms of labor organization based on digital platforms which connect self-employed workers with clients and customers. The rapid spread of platforms in many spheres of the economy (from the IT sector and creative industries to consumer services, taxi services, and delivery) puts the task of rethinking the concepts of labor sociology, labor legislation and social policy models on the agenda. Generally, organizational decentralization was discussed in the context of increasing the autonomy of workers. However, information and communication technologies made possible not only the effective coordination of dispersed workers, but also tight algorithmic control. Workers who are outside the enterprise, both physically and legally, nevertheless experience a strong influence of digital platforms on the key conditions of their work and employment. The article discusses the nature and types of digital work platforms, sources of platform power, forms of algorithmic management, the role of user ratings, as well as the possible regulation of platform employment. The author conceptualizes the problems of labor autonomy and control within the typology of platforms: marketplace vs. shadow corporation.
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Korn, Anna Katharina. "Informal Home Care in the Digital Transformation: Platform Design and Work Ethics of Care." Social Sciences 14, no. 4 (2025): 225. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14040225.
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With the aging society in Germany, the demand for informal care in private households is rising. This has led to a growing market for digital platforms that broker informal care services. Research shows that workers in elderly care, as a sub-sector of care work, often embody a work ethic centered on caring and helpfulness. However, this strong ethic can result in self-exploitation. Despite prior insights, the mediating role of digital platforms and their repercussions on work ethics remain underexplored. Therefore, this article asks how workers’ ethics of care unfold within the design of platforms in platform-mediated care. Ten narrative-oriented, in-depth interviews with platform workers on two platforms were conducted. Findings reveal that care workers in this field of platform work have a work ethic of care strongly oriented towards identification with the role of caregiver and the needs of the client. The open and unstructured design of these platforms—where worker qualifications are rarely verified to attract large numbers—devalues and informalizes care work. The lack of recognition as a legitimate profession perpetuates the perception of care work as unskilled, diminishing its professional status and fostering feelings of unprofessionalism and self-exploitation.
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Alvarez de la Vega, Juan Carlos, Marta E. Cecchinato, John Rooksby, and Joseph Newbold. "Understanding Platform Mediated Work-Life: A Diary Study with Gig Economy Freelancers." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 7, CSCW1 (2023): 1–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3579539.
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Online freelancing platforms, such as Upwork, hold great promise in enabling flexible work opportunities where freelancers can combine their work with other life responsibilities, hereafter work-life. However, prior research suggests that platform features and self-managing demands of freelance work can jeopardise this apparent flexibility. In this paper, we report findings from a qualitative study, combining a 14-diary and semi-structured interview with 15 Upwork freelancers. We explored online freelancers' work practices, challenges, and the impact of platform features on their everyday lives. Our qualitative data suggest that platform features and individual context shape online freelancers' work-life practices. Freelancers develop strategies to mitigate platforms' constraints and balance their individual preferences and responsibilities. Further, our findings illustrate how platform features challenge freelancers' availability expectations, work autonomy, and work detachment. This paper contributes an empirical understanding of the factors influencing online freelancers' work-life practices by drawing upon Wanda J. Orlikowski's Structuration Model of Technology. This theoretical lens renders the interplay of freelancers, platforms, and instituted norms of freelance work.
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Zaitsev, Dmitry A. "Gamification and platform work." Vestnik BIST (Bashkir Institute of Social Technologies), no. 2(63) (June 28, 2024): 157–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.47598/2078-9025-2024-2-63-157-160.
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Previous studies on the application of gamification in work processes have examined companies with employees. However, both the audience and the specifics of platform work activities are also precisely suitable for gamification. This article describes the principles on which the positive impact of game mechanics on employee efficiency, engagement and motivation is based and the mechanics that are appliable to labor market platforms are described.
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Siti Suraya Abd Razak. "Factors Influencing Young Workers Towards Digital Labour Platform." Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Management 10, no. 6s (2025): 79–85. https://doi.org/10.52783/jisem.v10i6s.702.
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Technological advancement has transformed the lives of people in every aspect. The disruption can be reflected in the employment relationship between employer and employee in the digital labour platform. Digital labour platforms existed before the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to evolve in the world of work. Due to the flexibility offered in gig economy, it has attracted workers to work in digital labour platforms, predominantly young workers. However, the lack of labour rights and social security protection for workers in digital labour platforms has withdrawn the young workers from the labour market. This study aims to investigate the factors influencing young workers to work in digital labour platforms and the challenges they faced while working on digital labour platform. In this study, a qualitative approach in the form of a semi-structured interview is adopted to reach the objectives of this study. Five young workers between the ages of 18 and 24 years old working on digital labour platforms were interviewed for this research. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the data. Research shows that young persons are attracted to work on digital labour platforms because of flexible working arrangements and high earnings. The findings of this study extend the discussion on gig economy by focusing on digital labour platform. Practically this study provides insight into digital labour platforms, benefiting platform providers on how they can improve their platform and attract more workers to work on their platforms.
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Madhu, RU, and PM Chinnaiah. "Emergence of Peer to Peer Lending Platform in India - A Conceptual Frame work." Shanlax International Journal of Arts, Science and Humanities 12, S1-Oct (2024): 117–23. https://doi.org/10.34293/sijash.v12is1-oct.8293.
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Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platforms have been increasing their landscape in India. There are large number of individuals, and business owners moving towards these platforms. However, the lenders are also looking at alternative ways to earn higher interest. Hence, Peer-to-Peer platforms is becoming one of such options that provide higher interest. As there are scant studies on the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platforms in Indian context. Hence the present study tells this gap and throws light on the emergence of peer-to-peer lending platform in India.
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Remeikienė, Rita, Ligita Gasparėnienė, and Jolita Česiulytė. "Work Organization and Social Responsibility on Digital Platforms: Challenges and Best Practices in Europe." Journal of Business Sectors 3, no. 1 (2025): 25–40. https://doi.org/10.62222/tdgy8465.
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Research background: Digital platforms have reshaped labor markets by introducing flexible work models such as crowdwork, gig work, and outsourcing. These models create economic opportunities but also legal uncertainties regarding employment status, workers’ rights, and regulatory oversight. While previous research has largely focused on platform workers, less attention has been given to platform managers' role in fair labor practices and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Purpose of the article: This study examines the organization and management of work on digital platforms, focusing on regulatory challenges, employment ambiguities, and CSR in platform labor practices. Additionally, it analyzes best practices from European platforms that integrate social dialogue, enhance worker protection, and improve compliance with labor laws. Methods: The research employs systematic and comparative literature analysis to evaluate studies on platform work, focusing on legal issues and CSR in digital labor markets. It reviews European legal frameworks, particularly Directive (EU) 2024/2831 and the Digital Services Act, to assess their impact on platform governance. Furthermore, it conducts an empirical analysis of good practices, highlighting cases of collective bargaining and social responsibility initiatives in European platforms. By comparing regulatory approaches and corporate initiatives, this study identifies key factors contributing to fairer labor conditions in the platform economy. Findings & Value added: Digital platforms operate in legal “grey zones,” allowing them to bypass labor laws and limit worker protections. Many platforms fail to ensure fair wages, social security, and transparent communication, while algorithmic management raises concerns over worker autonomy. Collective bargaining and social dialogue have proven effective in improving conditions, with Austria, Denmark, and Sweden securing better wages through formal agreements. Spain’s enforcement against Glovo highlights the necessity of legal intervention, as voluntary measures alone are insufficient. Germany’s worker-led cooperatives offer an alternative model, strengthening worker bargaining power. However, regulatory fragmentation across the EU leads to unequal protections. Social dialogue and legal enforcement must be combined to balance flexibility with fair labor conditions.
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Rani, Uma, and Marianne Furrer. "On-Demand Digital Economy: Can Experience Ensure Work and Income Security for Microtask Workers?" Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 239, no. 3 (2019): 565–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2018-0019.
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Abstract Digital labour platforms have been increasingly gaining popularity over the past decade. In particular, there has been much debate about workers’ motivations and working conditions on microtask platforms. There exists little evidence on whether dependence on digital microtask platforms provides workers with work and income security in the long term and whether it provides opportunities for skill development. This paper explores the extent to which the seemingly flexible platform work ensures work and income security and provides opportunities for skill development for workers with different levels of experience, based on novel survey data collected on five globally operating microtask platforms and in-depth interviews with workers. The findings show that despite high financial dependence on this work, returns to experience on the platform are meagre in terms of earnings, and highly experienced workers face the same risks as new entrants with regard to discrimination, high work intensity, lack of autonomy and control over work, and social protection. There is also a skills gap between the nature of tasks available on these microtask platforms and the workers’ education levels. Finally, experience does not ensure that workers have the opportunities to undertake complex and challenging tasks, and the possibilities to develop their skills and improve career prospects are limited.
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Dr., ANKITA SRIVASTAVA. "EXPLORING THE DYNAMICS OF FLEXIBLE WORK, DIGITAL PLATFORMS, AND THE SHARING ECONOMY: A MULTIFACETED EXAMINATION OF SECURITY, TRUST, AND RISK." Accountancy Business and the Public Interest 41, no. 1 (2025): 01–16. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14799801.
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This study investigates the interplay between flexible work arrangements, digital platforms, and the sharing economy, focusing on how these dynamics influence security, trust, and risk perceptions among users. The research addresses the critical gap in understanding these interactions and their implications for user engagement and satisfaction, necessitating the collection of qualitative data through user experiences, surveys, and detailed case studies of digital platform interactions. Findings indicate that varying levels of perceived security and trust significantly impact user participation and satisfaction within digital platforms, with particular emphasis on the role of clear communication and protocol transparency in mitigating perceived risks. In the context of healthcare, these insights underline the importance of building trust in digital health services and platforms, suggesting that enhancing security measures and promoting transparent practices can lead to greater user engagement and satisfaction. The broader implications of this study extend beyond healthcare, offering valuable frameworks for understanding user behavior in the digital economy, ultimately informing best practices for platform design and user interaction across various sectors. By elucidating the complex relationships between these elements, this research provides a foundation for future studies aimed at optimizing user experience and ensuring the sustainable growth of flexible work and sharing economy models within diverse industries.Keywords: Flexible Work, Digital Platforms, Sharing Economy, User Security, Trust, Risk Perceptions
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Khasenov, Muslim. "Employment relationship and platform work: global trends and case of Kazakhstan." Russian Journal of Labour & Law 13 (2023): 195–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.21638/spbu32.2023.113.
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The global response to the phenomenon of platform work has various forms and approaches. The general trend is that numerous court cases are succeeded by legislative initiatives. It is obviously that platform workers no more cannot be considered as a pure entrepreneur or self-employed persons. Due to the control of ‘hidden algorithms’ they fall under the power of the gig company more than ordinary independent contractors. The case of Kazakhstan confirms this approach and proceeds from the special regime of the platform labour within the scope of employment regulation. However, we should seek a balance between social and economic function of labour law. Traditional construction of employment relationship cannot be entirely applied to the platform workers. Nevertheless, it is crucial to ensure decent labour conditions for them. The solution of the problem is enforcement of presumption of employment based on flexible regulatory policy to this form of employment. For example, Kazakhstan’s response to the platform work challenges is based on distinction between location-based and web-based platform work depending on the degree of employer’s power. The hidden algorithmic control of location-based platforms is a core element in a set of proofs recognizing employment relationship between gig companies and their workers. At the same time web-based platforms present more autonomy of their workers who can serve as independent contractors or freelancers. The author concludes that the international community shall elaborate well-balanced approach to regulation of employment relationship based on digital platforms.
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Bejaković, Predrag, and Peter Gladoić Håkansson. "Platform Work as an Important New Form of Labour in Croatia." Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business 24, no. 2 (2021): 159–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/zireb-2021-0015.
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Abstract Recently, developments in digital technology have fuelled the emergence of online platforms that match the supply and demand of goods and services. In most European countries, platform work is still small, but it is strongly and rapidly developing. The types of work offered through platforms are ever-increasing, as are the challenges for existing regulatory frameworks. However, we still know very little about platform work, and there is a lack of understanding of the challenges regarding the working conditions and social protection of platform workers. Employers’ and employees’ organizations so far have no sharp solutions, and the Croatian government seems to prioritize other political issues. Although stakeholders are usually informed, the discussion about regulating platform employment and its possible widespread persistence has not started yet in the majority of EU countries. Particular attention in this paper is dedicated to the situation and determinants of platform work in Croatia.
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Dalkilic, Elvin Evrim. "New Kid in Town: Platform Workers of the EU and Human Oversight of Automated Systems in Platform Work." Zeitschrift für europarechtliche Studien 26, no. 3 (2023): 421–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.5771/1435-439x-2023-3-421.
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The era of digitalization created new forms of employment along with complicated employment statuses, where existing labour laws lag in solving legal problems. The most recent development in the European Union is the proposed Platform Work Directive (PWD) against the raising concerns about the operation of digital labour platforms and people working through these platforms. By defining people as platform workers, the PWD offers significant changes. The PWD, with a broad presumption of employment, introduces new restrictions and obligations for digital labour platforms. Among those changes, introduced as a first at the EU level, is the human oversight of automated systems’ decisions. This paper analyses the term ‘platform worker’ in line with the PWD, mainly focusing on human oversight of automated systems in platform work.
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Bellesia, Francesca, Elisa Mattarelli, Fabiola Bertolotti, and Maurizio Sobrero. "Platforms as entrepreneurial incubators? How online labor markets shape work identity." Journal of Managerial Psychology 34, no. 4 (2019): 246–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jmp-06-2018-0269.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how the process of work identity construction unfolds for gig workers experiencing unstable working relationships in online labor markets. In particular, it investigates how digital platforms, intended both as providers of technological features and online environments, affect this process. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted an exploratory field study and collected data from 46 interviews with freelancers working on one of the most popular online labor markets and from online documents such as public profiles, job applications and archival data. Findings The findings reveal that the online environment constrains the action of workers who are pushed to take advantage of the platform’s technological features to succeed. This interplay leads workers to add new characteristics to their work-self and to and to develop an entrepreneurial an entrepreneurial orientation. Practical implications The study offers insights to platform providers interested in improving workers’ experiences in online labor markets, highlighting mechanisms for uncertainty reduction and diversifying a platform’s services according to gig workers’ identities and orientations. Originality/value The study expands the authors’ knowledge on work identity construction processes of gig workers, detailing the relationship between work identity and IT, and documents previously unexplored antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation in non-standard working contexts.
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Qiu, Jack Linchuan, Renyi Hong, and Adam Badger. "Auditing Gig Work Platforms: Fairwork’s Research, Advocacy, and Impact." Singapore Labour Journal 02, no. 01 (2023): 22–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s281103152300013x.
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The rise of the “gig economy” poses fundamental challenges to pre-existing social compacts regarding labour relations around the world, with vital implications for Singapore’s workforce, economic growth, and its tripartism framework. While some see an inevitable trend towards digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platforms dominating workers, others seek to find solutions through state intervention and/or corporate self-management. Both latter approaches, we contend, would be incomplete without hearing the voices of gig workers and considering their experiences in light of relevant platform policies and government regulations. Can gig work platforms be subjected to labour audits? If so, how? This paper introduces the Fairwork project as a case in which labour audits are conducted to assess ride-hailing and food delivery platforms across five continents in 30 countries including Singapore. We aim to discuss the project’s background and its five main principles, its methods of research and advocacy, the promises of auditing gig work platforms, its social and policy impact, and its limitations. We also present findings from focus groups and interviews involving ride-hailing drivers and food delivery riders in Singapore, which were conducted in 2021–2022 using the Fairwork methodology. In so doing, we discuss the lessons learnt from the case of Fairwork and similar projects of labour-auditing gig work platforms, which deserve more attention and exploration in Singapore and elsewhere.
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Barancová, Helena. "Status Issues of Platform Work." Societas et Iurisprudentia 11, no. 3 (2023): 34–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.31262/1339-5467/2023/11/3/34-55.
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The subject of the author’s analysis is the performance of work for digital platforms, which is currently developing very dynamically and is significantly ahead of legal regulation. The first legal regulation of work performed for digital platforms at the level of the European Union will be the upcoming directive on improving the working conditions of persons working through digital platforms. The author examines the draft of the aforementioned directive, especially its legal consequences for the legislation of the Slovak Republic. Since the work for digital platforms with algorithmic management often does not meet either the legal characteristics of “dependent work” or the legal characteristics of “independent work”, the author de lege ferenda proposes a legislative solution to the status issues of persons working for digital platforms also by means of a reassessment of the current normative definition of the term “dependent work” as well as the term “employee” which, according to the legal status de lege lata, is defined significantly narrower compared to the personal scope of the proposed directive. In this way, it would be realistically possible to ensure the social protection of natural persons working for digital platforms in the near future.
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Rosaliza, Mita, Hesti Asriwandari, and Indrawati Indrawati. "FIELD WORK: ETNOGRAFI DAN ETNOGRAFI DIGITAL." Jurnal Ilmu Budaya 20, no. 1 (2023): 74–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.31849/jib.v20i1.15887.
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The presence of digital platforms increasingly permeates contemporary everyday culture, necessitating a re-evaluation of observational studies on social and cultural phenomena. Traditional qualitative research methods that rely on physical locations face challenges in the era of digital platforms. This article aims to explain the use of ethnography and digital ethnography in fieldwork, combining classic ethnographic methods with participant observations in locations where digital platforms are utilized. Technical exploration can uncover social and cultural assumptions embedded in interactions and interviews, as well as how their accessibility can create symbolic meanings. Meanwhile, participant observation focuses on the perspectives of digital platform users within a community. Referring to pioneering works in the field of "digital ethnography," this article critically explores the potential and challenges posed by new technologies that warrant attention. It can be concluded that a balanced combination of physical and digital ethnography not only provides researchers with diverse and intriguing methods but also allows for a better appreciation of respondents' voices. The development of digital ethnography as a research methodology, along with the challenges encountered in addressing classical concepts of fieldwork, participation, and representation, creates opportunities for digital ethnographers to gain professional recognition in conducting research related to society and culture.
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Markeeva, Anna V. "Platform Work in the Mirror of Russian Media in 2020‒2024." Теория и практика общественного развития, no. 5 (May 28, 2025): 37–45. https://doi.org/10.24158/tipor.2025.5.4.
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The article examines the impact of digital platforms on socio-economic dynamics in Russia. Their role as new social and economic actors transforming employment and business models is analyzed. Based on the content analysis of news and analytical materials in the Russian information space for 2020-2024, as well as statistical data, the key trends of platform employment, its perception in the media and public consciousness are consid-ered. The study highlights the reinforcing discursive work of digital platforms, which not only adapt their models to legal norms, but also shape public narratives, seeking to legitimize their activities and reduce negative stere-otypes about platform employment. For example, perceptions of platform employment as “empowering,” providing ease of entry and flexible customization to life circumstances and challenges, are actively promoted.
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Tran, Hang To Diem, and Minsook Kim. "Factors Influencing the Continued Intent to Use Virtual Interactive Platforms in Korean Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises for Remote and Hybrid Work." Sustainability 15, no. 13 (2023): 9972. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su15139972.
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Virtual interactive platforms have gained popularity in remote and hybrid work settings. However, limited research exists regarding factors that explain employees’ continued use of these platforms, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to introduce a comprehensive research model that elucidates the relationships among platforms’ technological characteristics, individual motivations, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in the context of virtual interactive platforms. The authors conducted an empirical study involving 353 employees from SMEs in Daegu, South Korea, who utilized virtual interactive platforms for work. The study identified the platform features that enhance users’ intention to continue using the service, and examined the impact of different motivations on users’ behavioral intentions. The findings revealed that while telepresence and interactivity significantly influenced user satisfaction, they did not directly affect continued use intentions. User satisfaction and extrinsic motivation were positively associated with users’ intention to continue using the platform. Among the identified motivations, extrinsic motivation had the strongest impact on continued use intention, whereas intrinsic motivation had the weakest impact. This study has important implications for managers aiming to optimize the benefits of virtual interactive platforms in hybrid work environments. Additionally, it offers insights for platform providers seeking to enhance their services. By understanding the factors that drive user satisfaction and continued use intention, organizations can develop strategies to maximize the sustainability advantages of virtual interactive platforms.
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Peni, Nur Robiah Nofikusumawati. "How does ethnomathematics work within an online platform?" Journal of Education for Sustainability and Diversity 1, no. 1 (2022): 101–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.57142/jesd.v1i1.9.
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Recently, ethnomathematics has emerged as one of the promising approaches for assisting teachers in promoting culture in the lives of their students. However, ethnomathematics left a strong impression that it was primarily concerned with cultural issues and was difficult to integrate with technology. Because the image of traditional ethnomathematics has become in contrast with the new era nowadays, where the online platform is used during the teaching-learning process during this pandemic situation, the usage of ethnomathematics has decreased. The essence of ethnomathematics, which requires face-to-face learning, posed a new challenge to applying this approach in the digital age. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of ethnomathematics and how they interact with online platforms. This literature review gathers information from previous studies in which several online platforms work with students with or without culture as a context in the teaching-learning process. The findings show that the characteristics of ethnomathematics and those online platforms are intertwined and that this could be a new approach to promoting culture within the mathematics learning process.
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Kovačević, Aleksandar. "Decent work at local digital platforms in Serbia." Politička revija, no. 00 (2023): 5. http://dx.doi.org/10.5937/pr77-44233.
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In this study, we examine the concept of decent work on local digital platforms in Serbia. So, this article focuses on the research topic of whether labour done on local digital platforms may be classified as "decent work." Labour digitization and the digital economy are novel phenomena that need in-depth examination. We begin with the concept of the digital economy as a basis for the development and expansion of digital labour. This new economy is characterised by knowledge and the use of various smart tools, as well as the crossing of national borders, and so on. Nowadays, we may talk about the gig economy, which is defined by short-term employment on online platforms or labour via mobile applications. These developments resulted in the establishment and growth of a worldwide digital labour market marked by non-standard forms of employment, insecure labour agreements, and the involvement of third-party intermediaries between employees and clients. There are considerable efforts to alter employment legislation throughout Europe. Co-regulation, which involves several players in the decision-making process, is one possible option. The Directive on Improving Working Conditions in Platform Work, which is now in the process of adoption, is perhaps the most important document at the EU level. It is worth mentioning the practices of the European Union's Court of Justice, national courts in Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany, as well as national regulations in both Italy and France that establish the right to disconnect. We must also acknowledge the work of international and national trade union federations, such as the European Trade Union Confederation. So, the most pressing issue in this study is finding decent work in the digital labour market. A decent work index comprises many indicators. With statistical and legal indicators, the International Labour Organisation discusses 10 core aspects of decent work. According to an early study, there is no decent work on digital platforms due to bogus self-employment, which occurs when certain entrepreneurs work for only one company. The reasons for this phenomenon are reduced expenses and employers' lack of accountability. This is also an aspect of digital labour in Serbia. To assess the gig economy in Serbia, we use the online labour index and the gigmeter. According to the online labour index, Serbia is among the top 15 nations in the world in terms of the number of digital employees, accounting for 1.4% of the global total. Software development is the most frequent occupation. According to the gigmeter, the most frequent employment is creative and multimedia. The most crucial duty is to figure out how many digital employees there are in Serbia. According to the most conservative estimate, Serbia has almost 90,000 digital employees. Almost two-thirds of digital employees in Serbia are in hidden employment. Now we can talk about doing decent work on digital platforms in Serbia. To assess decent work, we apply the Fair Work Principles. Fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation re among these principles. Every platform can be scored with a basic and an extra point, for a total of 10 points. The study incorporates five platforms: Uradi-zaradi, Glovo, Wolt, Car: Go, and Mr.D. According to the Fairwork rating, Uradi-zaradi and Wolt met the most requirements but received just a passing grade. The Public Policy Centre performed extensive research on decent work to find that it does not exist on digital platforms. The most essential motivation for digital labour is a high wage, which comes at the price of a long working week. This study determined that neither platform satisfies the passing standard and makes some recommendations for improving working conditions on local platforms. First, the practice of bogus self-employment must be stopped. Second, labour legislation must be revised. Third, the right to collective bargaining must be extended to digital workers. This can be done by a strong trade union movement that can find a way to safeguard digital employees without jeopardising traditional workers' rights.
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Mathachan, Anse, and Mathew P M. "Changing Ways of Work: An Outline of Location-Based Digital Platform Economy in India." Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies 50, no. 12 (2024): 82–93. https://doi.org/10.9734/ajess/2024/v50i121677.
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Background: India is experiencing substantial growth in the digital platform economy, where companies utilize online platforms, portals, and mobile applications to match workers with tasks. These platforms use algorithms to assign piece-rate jobs to workers who are denoted as independent partners/contractors. Platforms which mediate work through digital means include Zomato, Uber, Zepto etc. The digital economy, which saw a substantial surge after the COVID-19 pandemic, encompasses the platform economy as one of its key components. Aims: The article aims to provide a concise overview of the location-based platform economy in India and explain its impact on the lives of workers in this work arrangement. Methodology: The researchers conducted a comprehensive narrative review, drawing insights from peer-reviewed articles, government reports, and their own field research in Kochi, Kerala and Bangalore, Karnataka. Results: Results include a detailed table depicting key details of major platform aggregators in India and two case studies that shed light on digital platform workers' motivations, challenges and incentives. Conclusion: Extensive conceptual and empirical research across various social science disciplines is essential for effectively comprehending and regulating the platform economy. Given the profound impact of the platform economy, it is crucial to ground policy and regulation in rigorous social science research. This will benefit all stakeholders in the platform economy, including platform aggregators, service providers (delivery partners, rider partners, etc.), government officials, and end customers, ensuring a fair and equitable environment for all.
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Bychkov, D. G., E. E. Grishina, N. V. Loktyukhina, and O. A. Feoktistova. "Strengths and Weaknesses of Self-Employment and Platform Work in Russia." Economic Policy 19, no. 4 (2024): 60–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.18288/1994-5124-2024-4-60-83.
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The paper assesses the risks incurred through self-employment and platform work in Russia, which arise because the basic mechanisms for mandatory social insurance are lacking for these workers. As part of their research methodology, the authors used expert assessments based on extensive interviews with the management of large digital platforms and with representatives of trade unions, government authorities, and insurance companies. The authors also relied on the profiles regarding the forms of employment under study using data generated by the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Statistical Service, and a telephone survey of research staff of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and CEOs of a number of large digital platforms. The authors assess the risks involved in self-employment and platform work as they relate to the characteristics of the employed and to commercial risks, including those encountered by insurance companies that issue policies to self-employed and platform workers. A separate assessment was carried out for exposure to risks from implementing various policy scenarios: 1) bringing self-employed and platform workers into the compulsory social insurance system; 2) restricting them to non-state social insurance; or 3) requiring platforms to provide social guarantees to their employees or act as social insurance agents for their workers. The authors conclude that it is impractical to provide self-employed and platform workers with the same kind of social security that formally hired labor enjoys. A fundamentally new approach to providing social guarantees to the self-employed and platform workers would be necessary to minimize their social risks, and any such approach would have to address the risks and challenges identified in this study.
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Shyamini, T. S., and C. A. Rejuna. "Ripple Effect of Algorithmic Mechanism: Lessons from Global Gig Work Experience." International Journal of Social Science and Human Research 08, no. 05 (2025): 2699–707. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15354726.
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The growth of platform-based gig work has changed work experience of labour. The algorithmic systems now playing a central role in assigning, monitoring, and compensating workers in gig platforms. This article brings together global research to examine how these digital platforms are reshaping work, relationships, and inequalities with the use of algorithmic mechanism. The study focus on empirical findings which takes a step back to explore the bigger conceptual patterns and gaps in the literature surrounding algorithmic labour. The discussion is framed firstly on the control algorithms exert over workers and the impact on autonomy, secondly how the evolving nature of work creates more uncertainty and precariousness, thirdly the ways in which gender and social inequality persist in platform work, fourthly the forms of resistance and efforts to regulate these platforms, and finally the long-term effects of algorithmic systems on workers' careers and job security. Through these themes, the review highlights how platforms, while often marketed as offering flexibility, actually reinforce existing inequalities, particularly for women and marginalized groups. The study highlights while many workers face growing challenges in these digital spaces, there are also signs of pushback whether through collective actions or new regulations. This article adds to ongoing conversations about how we can rethink and reshape the future of work in the age of algorithms. It calls for more inclusive, thoughtful approaches to labour regulation that put workers' rights, fairness, and sustainability at the forefront.
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Xu, Y., and D. Liu. "Decent work for the digital platform workers. A preliminary survey in Beijing." Digital Law Journal 2, no. 1 (2021): 48–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.38044/2686-9136-2021-2-1-48-63.
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This paper discusses the status and implications of the employment relations and working conditions experienced by digital platform workers; the analysis is based on a survey conducted in 2017 on 1 338 workers engaged in work-on-demand via apps (WODVA) from 25 platforms in Beijing, of whom 48.8 % are full-time WODVA workers or take WODVA as their primary job. The survey finds that nearly a half of the respondents engage in platform work due to a lack of employment opportunities in formal labor markets or their permanent jobs providing insufficient income. The respondents reveal substantial decent work deficits in representation, compensation, job stability, social protection, working time, and health and safety: 1) WODVA workers seldom have any voice in labor dispute settlements and have a very low rate of unionization; 2) about one third of the full-time WODVA workers cannot earn a living wage and 7.6 % of them earn less than the minimum wage level; 3) three quarters of the full-time WODVA workers have no labor contract with the platforms or other employers, nor access to employer-contributed social insurances; 4) overtime work and underemployment coexist among full-time respondents, with nearly 10 % working for fewer than 4 hours per day while nearly 10 % work for more than 11 hours per day; 5) a majority of respondents run a higher risk of occupational health or physical risks, without any protection provided by the platforms or employers. To promote decent work by digital platform workers, the State needs to establish a portable social security system extending to all workers, to facilitate association and collective actions of platform workers either by extending the outreach of traditional unions or fostering new forms of organizations, to leverage digital technology to facilitate platform workers’ organization and information sharing, and even to promote universal basic income and a workers’ cooperative of platforms in the long run.
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Swords, Jon, Mary Laing, and Ian R. Cook. "Platforms, sex work and their interconnectedness." Sexualities, September 28, 2021, 136346072110230. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13634607211023013.
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This article examines the interconnectedness of sex work with the platform economy. It does this by mobilizing two concepts from the platform economy literature: the platform stack (which captures the structure of platforms) and interpenetration (which describes the processes through which platforms intersect). Exploring these concepts, the article draws on a dataset of linked platforms used by 54 cam workers and documented observations of 55 different platforms. These platforms include those designed for sex workers as well as those with a more generalist function. In mapping this platform ecology, the article highlights some of the opportunities, barriers and risks that platform interpenetration presents for sex workers.
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Bearson, Dafna, Martin Kenney, and John Zysman. "Measuring the impacts of labor in the platform economy: new work created, old work reorganized, and value creation reconfigured." Industrial and Corporate Change, December 14, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtaa046.
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Abstract Though economists have examined labor displacement due to digitization, few have considered the new work and value created. Unlike employment relations that brought workers together on the assembly line or in an office in a previous era, platforms enable a greater, more dispersed, and complex division of labor. New and reconfigured types of labor enabled by platforms create identification and measurement challenges. Previous studies of platforms invariably focused on specific organizational forms such as sharing or gigs. They built taxonomies based on the platform's organization – few considered the scope and scale of platform-enabled value creation. To better understand changing labor arrangements in the 21st century, this article introduces a taxonomy to systematically understand work, employment, and value creation in the platform economy. We consider all of the platform-enabled value creation activities including old work displaced or reorganized to new work created. We provide suggestive evidence for the utility of our framework through case studies of Etsy and Amazon Self-Publishing in the United States.
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James, Al. "Platform work‐lives in the gig economy: Recentering work–family research." Gender, Work & Organization, November 10, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13087.
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AbstractCrowdwork platforms have been widely celebrated as challenging gendered labor market inequalities through new digitally mediated possibilities for reconciling work, home, and family. This paper interrogates those claims and explores the wider implications of digital labor platforms for an expansive work–family research agenda stubbornly rooted in formal modes of employment in the “analogue” economy. Based on ethnographic research with women platform workers in the UK (using PeoplePerHour, Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, and Copify), the paper asks: what are women crowdworkers' lived experiences of integrating paid work and family relative to formal employment? And what coping tactics have women developed to reduce gendered work–family conflicts on digital labor platforms? In response to these research questions, the paper makes three contributions. First, it offers a critical review of recent commentary to theorize how disruptive innovations by digital labor platforms to recast long‐standing definitions of “work”, “workers”, “managers”, and “employers” have served to position platforms and platform workers as somehow outside the analytical gaze of the expansive work–family research agenda. Second, it extends a growing alternative work–family analysis of platform work to examine the kinds of “work–life balance” (WLB) provision available to women crowdworkers in the absence of an employer; and how women's experiences of algorithmically mediated and contradictory work–family outcomes further challenge widespread claims of new platform work–life “flexibilities”. Third, the paper points to exciting and urgent possibilities for advancing and recentering work–family research through new engagements with platforms, algorithmic management, and “independent” platform workers in support of feminist activism and campaigning around WLB.
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Ettarfi, Khaoula. "Professionalization from above in domestic work: Accessing work on marketplace platforms." Critical Sociology, November 10, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08969205241297687.
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Domestic work has always been a quintessential example of invisible labour. In this article, I explore how workers build individual visibility on marketplace platforms. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with workers who use different marketplace platforms in Geneva and surrounding areas to find domestic work, I show how visibility on marketplace platforms requires invisible work and a different set of skills, competencies, codes of conduct and client management. I argue that visibility on marketplace platforms can be interpreted as a form of professionalization from above. On one hand, visibility becomes a barrier to entry in finding work. The different requirements for building visibility lead to an institutionalization of standardized skills and practices necessary to access work on the platform. On the other hand, marketplace platforms ignore the formality of the employment relationship and decent wages, which are externalized and managed between workers and the platform clients.
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McDonald, Paula, Penny Williams, Robyn Mayes, and Maria Khan. "Income generation on care work digital labour platforms." British Journal of Industrial Relations, December 11, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12780.
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AbstractRecently, a growing number of digital platforms have emerged that intermediate or facilitate connections between care workers and people requiring care. Platforms position themselves as a viable response to the ‘care crisis’, yet have been decried for driving down wages and exposing workers to greater risk and precarity. Unlike more transactional types of intermediated work such as ride‐hailing or food delivery, the income of care workers depends not on pricing algorithms but on how much they work and the potential for individual agency in negotiating pay rates with clients. Drawing on three sources of data from a global digital platform business, this study asks how self‐employed care workers enact agency in relation to income generation. The findings revealed evidence of three types of agentic action: establishing professional worth; assessing costs and maximizing income; and negotiating with clients. Agency was constrained, however, by the platform's architecture and client‐related dynamics. The study provides insights into the nuanced dynamics of individual worker agency in relation to income, in a growing, feminized and largely devalued new market. The findings also demonstrate how platform businesses, despite not managing work or workers directly, play a significant role in the organization and distribution of work.
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Azzellini, Dario, Ian Greer, and Charles Umney. "Why platform capitalism is not the future of work." Work in the Global Economy, November 8, 2022, 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/273241721x16666858545489.
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This article examines the assumptions behind the sociology of work and industrial relations literature on online labour-based platforms. This literature has critically examined working conditions and worker resistance in platform work, but it has done so without criticising what we call the ‘metanarrative of the platform economy’. This metanarrative enables a weaving together of platform work with broader trends such as precarisation, neoliberalisation, financialisation and marketisation, but it makes it difficult for scholars to explain the small size of the platform workforce or to understand the diverse forms that platforms take. We argue that in order to understand the limits and diversity of platforms it is important to understand the inherent problems of platforms as capitalist business models. We suggest a research agenda that decentres some of the better-known platform models (ridesharing and food delivery) and carries out in-depth studies of work and exchange in other sectors.
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Gandini, Alessandro, Gaia Casagrande, Giulia Giorgi, Gianmarco Peterlongo, and Marta Tonetta. "‘Platform-ised’ work? The case of neo-craft work." International Journal of Cultural Studies, May 22, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13678779241253624.
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In relation to work, the term ‘platformisation’ has gained popularity to indicate the various ways in which a digital platform gets to mediate, organise, intervene in, or otherwise facilitate some work activity. Yet, the intervention of digital platforms into work today increasingly involves activities that are not immediately related to the digital sphere, where different kinds of platforms have become part and parcel of the cultures and practices of work. There is a necessity, in other words, to develop a clearer framework to identify what it means when work activity gets to be ‘platform- ised’, the conditions under which this takes place, and what the main implications are deriving from this process. Using the case of ‘neo-craft’ work in the European Union, we propose and illustrate a theoretical conceptualisation of platform- ised work, critically discussing the distinctiveness of this process and highlighting its key features.
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Mantilla-León, Laura Clemencia, Isabella Jaimes Rodríguez, and Oscar Javier Maldonado Castañeda. "The Digital Boss: Algorithms, Housekeeping Apps, and the Digitalization of Domestic Work in Colombia." Critical Sociology, December 18, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205241304790.
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Domestic work in Colombia has historically been undervalued and unpaid, with informality continuing to rise despite legal efforts to dignify it, such as the ratification of ILO C189. In this context, domestic work gig platforms have emerged as a source of formal employment. Unlike most gig economy models, these platforms operate as agencies that directly hire workers, ensuring key conditions like stable income and social security. However, gaps remain in understanding the algorithmic design of these platforms. Through an ethnographic study of one domestic work platform interface called Hogaru and semi-structured interviews with workers and customers, we examine algorithmic governance and its impact on domestic workers’ experiences, particularly concerning employment and social relations. Our research focuses on the platform’s matching system, ranking, and pricing mechanisms. We conclude with implications for designing more effective and equitable platforms, specifically tailored to the unique context of Latin America.
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Cruz, Sofia Alexandra, and Ana Gameiro. "Digital work platform: Understanding platforms, workers, clients in a service relation." Frontiers in Sociology 7 (January 4, 2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1075808.
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The rapid growth of digital economic activity had led to considerable scholarly interest in the phenomenon of platforms. Evidence shows how digital work platforms constitute one of the most relevant changes that have occurred in recent years and assume the condition of actors with an important presence in national and global work markets. However, these changes cannot be understood by focusing only on the work sphere, as the sphere of consumption is also central to this debate. In fact, the new ways of organizing, dividing and coordinating work on digital platforms are interconnected with specific modalities of consumption of the services made available by them. This article argues that a service relation approach allows an understanding of what is happening on digital work platforms, both in terms of the structural and conjunctural configurations of the interrelationships between platforms, workers and clients, as well as their social and economic consequences. This approach allows the analysis of the web of interdependencies between distinctive types of platforms, workers and clients, and to discuss how changes longitudinally within it are conditioned by the very transformations inherent to the platforms market. Thus, future research needs to explore the network of the voices of platforms, workers and clients in order to produce a robust analysis of these triangular relations as well as of the challenges regarding the differences and interconnections between algorithmic and human management.
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Contopidis, Olympia. "Press Start to Work: Gamification and Precarisation of Gig Work in Contemporary Media Art." Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej, no. 38 (2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.36854/widok/2023.38.2869.
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Gig work platforms such as Lyft, Uber, Wolt, and Flink undertook intense efforts to make their work more ‘fun,’ with the aim of motivating their workers and making them more efficient. This paper looks at how platform capitalism intertwines the gamification and precarization of labor, leading to an increased blurring of work and leisure. Employing the video works “Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022) by Ayoung Kim and “Platform (2022) by Johannes Büttner as case studies, the text examines how the gamification and precarization of labor through delivery platforms are addressed and critiqued in contemporary media art and how both Kim and Büttner utilize gaming aesthetics and mechanisms.
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Contopidis, Olympia. "Press Start to Work: Gamification and Precarisation of Gig Work in Contemporary Media Art." Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej, no. 38 (2024). https://doi.org/10.36854/widok/2024.38.2869.
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Gig work platforms such as Lyft, Uber, Wolt, and Flink undertook intense efforts to make their work more ‘fun,’ with the aim of motivating their workers and making them more efficient. This paper looks at how platform capitalism intertwines the gamification and precarization of labor, leading to an increased blurring of work and leisure. Employing the video works “Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022) by Ayoung Kim and “Platform (2022) by Johannes Büttner as case studies, the text examines how the gamification and precarization of labor through delivery platforms are addressed and critiqued in contemporary media art and how both Kim and Büttner utilize gaming aesthetics and mechanisms.
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Vakkayil, Jacob, Antonio Giangreco, Andrea Carugati, and Mareva Languillat. "Biking a tightrope: Navigating the conditions of extreme physical platform work." European Management Review, December 13, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12700.
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AbstractIn this paper, we extend previous research on platform work and explore how bike couriers act in the context of digital platforms. Digital platforms for food delivery by bike—a bourgeoning and recent phenomenon—represent a special class of platforms for the physical and hazardous nature of the work they mediate. This type of extreme physical platform work creates work conditions different from other platforms for workers; therefore, their responses require particular attention. Extending previous research on platform work, our analysis highlights the existence of a three‐stage response model linking the conditions of extreme physical platform work, their manifestations in the experience of platform workers (unrealized benefits of flexibility, status confusion, lack of human interactions, and communication opaqueness), and their individualized yet nonconfrontational responses to these experiences (trying harder, reaching out, comparing, and de‐careering). We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our study.
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Kambouri, Nelli, Neil H. Spencer, and Tracy Walsh. "Work on through the storm." Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation 17, no. 2 (2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.17.2.0047.
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Drawing on quantitative and qualitative research in England, and more specifically in London, this article sheds light on trends in platform work during the COVID-19 crisis. While the number of platform workers grew, the proportion of their income it contributed to fell, making up less than a quarter of total earnings. Interviews with driving and delivery platform workers in London (Europe’s largest platform market) shed light on these puzzling trends. New recruitment by the platforms and adjustment of their algorithms during the lockdown led to downward pressure on earnings, poorer working conditions, extended waiting times, longer working hours and negative impacts on work–life balance, health and well-being. The article concludes that the pandemic provided platforms with an opportunity to consolidate their market position, but this was achieved at the cost of growing power asymmetry in the platform labour market, with workers’ attempts to organise and improve conditions undermined by over-recruitment.
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Nielsen, Louise Yung, Jo Krøjer, and Mette Lykke Nielsen. "The entanglement of emotional labour and digital work platforms." MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research 40, no. 78 (2025). https://doi.org/10.7146/mk.v40i78.137268.
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Today, work is increasingly performed on or through various digital platforms. This article aims to study workers at the forefront of digital labour. Drawing on 29 qualitative interviews with professional gamers, influencers, and platform workers, this study explores how digital platform affordances across diverse types of platform-mediated work shape the performance of emotional labour. The article’s main contribution is showing how workers experience the affordances of the platforms and, further, how the affordances of the platforms demand the performance of extensive emotional labour from the workers. This article shows how two high-level affordances mainly contribute to this: the capacity to transcend physical space and the immediacy and multiplicity of the digital distribution of information and data.
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Mangan, David, Karol Muszyński, and Valeria Pulignano. "The platform discount: Addressing unpaid work as a structural feature of labour platforms." European Labour Law Journal, November 13, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20319525231210550.
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Digital labour platforms are able to structure work to limit paid working time, extract fees from workers to access labour, and shift costs associated with occupational safety and health (OSH) compliance onto platform workers. We call this unpaid work the ‘platform discount’. Unpaid labour is embedded within platforms’ competitive strategies as platforms operate with labour oversupply while clients use multiple platforms to search for the cheapest option (multi-homing effect). The authors study pathways through law that would limit the incidence of unpaid work by revisiting three areas of the legal framework: working time, safety and health, and access to work/labour intermediation. The authors argue that reclassification, suggested, among others, by the draft Platform Work Directive, can reduce the platform discount for the misclassified workers, but will leave solo self-employed unprotected. The authors explore two possible strategies to reduce the platform discount for the solo self-employed working on labour platforms: 1) a broader understanding of the concept of working conditions on digital labour platforms covering both standard employees and solo self-employed; 2) proceeding area by area, with the extension of occupational safety and health to the solo self-employed on digital labour platforms being the most feasible and promising from a regulatory standpoint.
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Glavin, Paul, Scott Schieman, and Alex Bierman. "From flexibility to unending availability: Platform workers' experiences of work–family conflict." Journal of Marriage and Family, March 8, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12977.
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AbstractObjectiveThis article examines whether performing location‐based platform work is associated with greater work–family conflict—and if this association is stronger for those relying on labor platforms for their primary employment.BackgroundDigital labor platforms project a vision of flexibility and improved work‐family balance for workers; however, empirical evidence supporting these promises remains elusive. While platform workers are normally offered the freedom to choose their work hours, the efforts of labor platforms to algorithmically manage workers' schedules may encourage an ‘always‐on’ approach to work that pressures workers to prioritize work availability that exacerbates work–family conflicts.MethodWe conducted three national surveys of Canadian workers in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Based on pooled survey data (N = 10,483), structural equational modeling was used to investigate (1) the relationship between location‐based platform work and work–family conflict and (2) the mediating role of work‐family role blurring—captured by work contact outside of normal working hours.ResultsWe discovered that platform workers, compared to employees and the traditional self‐employed, reported greater work–family conflict—conflicts that were especially pronounced for those relying on labor platforms as their primary source of income. These patterns were partially explained by platform workers' increased exposure to work contact outside of work hours.ConclusionOur findings question the assertion that digital labor platforms provide enhanced flexibility for managing work and family demands. Instead, we contend that the instability inherent in platform work blurs and disrupts work‐family role boundaries, disproportionately favoring labor platforms and their clientele at the expense of workers' familial responsibilities.
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Gegenhuber, Thomas, Markus Ellmer, and Elke Schüßler. "Microphones, not megaphones: Functional crowdworker voice regimes on digital work platforms." Human Relations, June 1, 2020, 001872672091576. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0018726720915761.
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Digital work platforms are often said to view crowdworkers as replaceable cogs in the machine, favouring exit rather than voice as a means of resolving concerns. Based on a qualitative study of six German medium-sized platforms offering a range of standardized and creative tasks, we show that platforms provide voice mechanisms, albeit in varying degrees and levels. We find that all platforms in our sample enabled crowdworkers to communicate task-related issues to ensure crowdworker availability and quality output. Five platforms proactively consulted crowdworkers on task-related issues, and two on platform-wide organisation. Differences in the ways in which voice was implemented were driven by considerations about costs, control and a crowd’s social structure, as well as by platforms’ varying interest in fair work standards. We conclude that the platforms in our sample equip crowdworkers with ‘microphones’ by letting them have a say on workflow improvements in a highly controlled and easily mutable setting, but do not provide ‘megaphones’ for co-determining or even controlling platform decisions. By connecting the literature on employee voice with platform research, our study provides a nuanced picture of how voice is technologically and organisationally enabled and constrained in non-standard, digital work contexts.
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Rani, Uma, and Marianne Furrer. "Digital labour platforms and new forms of flexible work in developing countries: Algorithmic management of work and workers." Competition & Change, February 23, 2020, 102452942090518. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1024529420905187.
Full textAbstract:
Digital technologies have led to the emergence of new forms of flexible work, such as crowdwork or information and communication technology-enabled mobile work, over the past decade. This is considered as a positive development for its high flexibility in hours and place of work, and also for providing employment opportunities to workers in developing countries, individuals with disabilities or those with care responsibilities. This article examines the on-going trend in outsourcing low-skilled work to the crowd through online platforms, and how platform design features and algorithmic management are used by digital labour platforms to assign, monitor and evaluate work. The paper argues that these distinctive features of digital platforms have an impact on working conditions in terms of access to tasks, remuneration and working time flexibility. The paper draws on a global survey of 675 workers on five globally operating platforms in 27 developing countries. Its findings highlight the need for transparency in platform architecture, design and algorithms to ensure that workers are protected from the vulnerabilities they face with digital work.