Temporal arbitrage, fragmented rush, and opportunistic behaviors: The labor politics of time in the platform economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 1561-1579
Author(s):  
Julie Yujie Chen ◽  
Ping Sun
Keyword(s):  
Food Delivery ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Service Workers ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Digital Work ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Platform Economy ◽  
Demand Service

This article examines how on-demand service workers on digital platforms make and live their time in the case of China’s food delivery industry. Using ethnographic data, the study elucidated multiple facets of couriers’ temporality in their struggle to meet the exacting delivery time imposed by platforms while moving through biased urban spaces as marginalized temporal subjects. It is argued that a new temporal order, referred to as temporal arbitrage in this study, has been normalized in the recent platform economy. It shifts the customer’s cultural expectation to on-demand service at the expense of an increasingly hectic tempo for the workers. We demonstrate the mundane, and sometimes opportunistic, tactics deployed by workers to reconstruct their temporality. The article connects the workers’ temporality to the urban spaces, digital work process, and socioeconomic structures. It fills an important research gap by addressing the under-explored yet essential temporal dimensions in the expanding “just-in-time” labor force.

From Flexible Labour to ‘Sticky Labour’: A Tracking Study of Workers in the Food-Delivery Platform Economy of China

2021 ◽  
pp. 095001702110215
Author(s):  
Ping Sun ◽  
Julie Yujie Chen ◽  
Uma Rani
Keyword(s):  
Social Impact ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Food Delivery ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Delivery Platform ◽  
Platform Economy ◽  
Labour Management

Despite considerable scholarly attention to the proliferation of gig work on digital platforms, research tracing the broad trends of labour relations is scant. Analysing interview and survey data on food-delivery workers in China between 2018 and 2019, this article demonstrates a trend of de-flexibilisation for workers, which contradicts the purported flexibility of platform-mediated work. It is argued that de-flexibilisation is achieved through intertwined labour management tactics, technological engineering, and the cultural normalisation of platform-dependent precarious jobs. Platform companies and third-party staffing agencies have jointly deployed algorithmic systems and communicative techniques to cultivate what we refer to as ‘sticky labour’. The study contributes to the current debate on working in platform capitalism by weighing the compound effects of labour management strategies, social impact of technological engineering of the work process, and the cultural normalisation of platform work.

scholarly journals Platform economy: (dis-) embeddedness processes in urban spaces

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sina Hardaker
Keyword(s):  
Urban Life ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Essential Dynamics ◽  
Detailed Understanding ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Platform Economy

AbstractDigital platforms, understood as multi-sided matchmakers, have amassed huge power, reimagining the role of consumers, producers, and even ownership. They increasingly dictate the way the economy and urban life is organized. Yet, despite their influential and far-reaching role in shaping our economic as well as sociocultural world, our understanding of their embeddedness, namely how their activities are embedded in systems of social and societal relationships and how they conceptualize their main functions and actions in relation to their wider setting, remains rudimentary. Consequently, the purpose of this frontier paper is threefold. Firstly, it reveals the need to discuss and evaluate (dis-)embedding processes in platform urbanism in order to understand the underlying dynamics of platform power and urban transformation. Secondly, it aims to reveal the main reasons in regard to the difficulties in pinpointing digital platforms embeddedness. Thirdly, it seeks to propose future research unravelling the (dis-)embeddedness of the platform economy.This paper argues for three main reasons namely unawareness, unaccountability and non-transparency of digital platforms that drive the lack of embeddedness and reaffirms platform power. This is mainly based on the configuration of new commodities, platforms’ strategic avoidance of labour protections and other regulatory frameworks as well as platforms’ secrecy in which they operate. This frontier paper argues that transferring the concept of embeddedness to the platform economy might serve as a valuable tool to understand and pinpoint essential dynamics and relationships at play, therefore proposing embeddedness as a basis for future research on the platform economy. It strongly argues that a more detailed understanding is urgently needed, in order to be able to understand, accompany and actively influence the development of the platform economy in regulatory terms.

Humans as a Service

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremias Prassl
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Level Playing Field ◽  
Employment Relationships ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Digital Work ◽  
Stable Employment

The rise of the gig economy is disrupting business models across the globe. Platforms’ digital work intermediation has had a profound impact on traditional conceptions of the employment relationship. The completion of ‘tasks’, ‘gigs’, or ‘rides’ in the (digital) crowd fundamentally challenges our understanding of work in modern labour markets: gone are the stable employment relationships between firms and workers, replaced by a world in which everybody can be ‘their own boss’ and enjoy the rewards—and face the risks—of independent businesses. Is this the future of work? What are the benefits and challenges of crowdsourced work? How can we protect consumers and workers without stifling innovation? Humans as a Service provides a detailed account of the growth and operation of gig-economy platforms, and develops a blueprint for solutions to the problems facing on-demand workers, platforms, and their customers. Following a brief introduction to the growth and operation of on-demand platforms across the world, the book scrutinizes competing narratives about ‘gig’ work. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, it explores how claims of ‘disruptive innovation’ and ‘micro-entrepreneurship’ often obscure the realities of precarious work under strict algorithmic surveillance, and the return to a business model that has existed for centuries. Humans as a Service shows how employment law can address many of these problems: gigs, tasks, and rides are work—and should be regulated as such. A concluding chapter demonstrates the broader benefits of a level playing field for consumers, taxpayers, and innovative entrepreneurs.

scholarly journals On-demand Service Deployment Strategies for Fog-as-a-Service Scenarios

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Arash Bozorgchenani ◽  
Daniele Tarchi ◽  
Walter Cerroni
Keyword(s):  
On Demand ◽  
Service Deployment ◽  
Demand Service

scholarly journals Platform Patterns—Using Proven Principles to Develop Digital Platforms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin Drewel ◽  
Leon Özcan ◽  
Jürgen Gausemeier ◽  
Roman Dumitrescu
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Hands On ◽  
The Future ◽  
Platform Development ◽  
Strategic Options ◽  
Generic Design ◽  
Platform Economy

AbstractHardly any other area has as much disruptive potential as digital platforms in the course of digitalization. After serious changes have already taken place in the B2C sector with platforms such as Amazon and Airbnb, the B2B sector is on the threshold to the so-called platform economy. In mechanical engineering, pioneers like GE (PREDIX) and Claas (365FarmNet) are trying to get their hands on the act. This is hardly a promising option for small and medium-sized companies, as only a few large companies will survive. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are already facing the threat of losing direct consumer contact and becoming exchangeable executers. In order to prevent this, it is important to anticipate at an early stage which strategic options exist for the future platform economy and which adjustments to the product program should already be initiated today. Basically, medium-sized companies in particular lack a strategy for an advantageous entry into the future platform economy.The paper presents different approaches to master the challenges of participating in the platform economy by using platform patterns. Platform patterns represent proven principles of already existing platforms. We show how we derived a catalogue with 37 identified platform patterns. The catalogue has a generic design and can be customized for a specific use case. The versatility of the catalogue is underlined by three possible applications: (1) platform ideation, (2) platform development, and (3) platform characterization.

scholarly journals An apple a day – how the platform economy impacts value creation in the healthcare market

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gleiss ◽  
Marco Kohlhagen ◽  
Key Pousttchi
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Healthcare Industry ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Value Network ◽  
Healthcare Market ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Gap ◽  
Platform Economy

AbstractThe healthcare industry has been slow to adopt new technologies and practices. However, digital and data-enabled innovations diffuse the market, and the COVID-19 pandemic has recently emphasized the necessity of a fundamental digital transformation. Available research indicates the relevance of digital platforms in this process but has not studied their economic impact to date. In view of this research gap and the social and economic relevance of healthcare, we explore how digital platforms might affect value creation in this market with a particular focus on Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (GAFAM). We rely on value network analyses to examine how GAFAM platforms introduce new value-creating roles and mechanisms in healthcare through their manifold products and services. Hereupon, we examine the GAFAM-impact on healthcare by scrutinizing the facilitators, activities, and effects. Our analyses show how GAFAM platforms multifacetedly untie conventional relationships and transform value creation structures in the healthcare market.

Platform economy as a new form of capitalism: a Régulationist research programme

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-824 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthieu Montalban ◽  
Vincent Frigant ◽  
Bernard Jullien
Keyword(s):  
Research Programme ◽  
Sharing Economy ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Growth Regime ◽  
Long Run ◽  
New Process ◽  
New Form ◽  
Platform Economy ◽  
Mode Of Regulation

AbstractThe terms ‘platform economy’ or ‘sharing economy’ have become widespread with the development of digital platforms like Uber. This economy is transforming capitalism and raising important questions about its nature. Is it a new process of embeddedness or is it the next step for deregulation following the crisis of the financialised regime of accumulation (RA)? Is it a possible new Growth Regime? Using the approach of the French Régulation school of thought, we describe the nature and transformations of the form of competition inherent in platforms. Although this may favour some forms of re-embeddedness, we show that it will accelerate some of the trends and characteristics of the institutional forms of the financialised RA and that it is an endogenous product of its crisis. This raises further questions and uncertainties related to the ability of platforms to generate stable long run growth due to the dysfunctionality of the mode of régulation and the conflicts it could generate.

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