Vorlesung 9: Platforms for Work

Question 1

What are platforms for work?

Answer 1

▪ Digital labor platforms (DLPs) enable transactions between
▪ workers, who offer their services, and
▪ clients, who acquire those services through the platform (Rai et al., 2019)
▪ Disagreements and overlaps with concepts like crowdwork or the sharing economy (Heeks, 2017)
▪ Common elements:
▪ (Short-term) task basis (contract), no continuous employment relationship
▪ Human labor is exchanged
▪ Economic exchange→payment
▪ Digital labor platform as intermediary→transaction platform
▪ Usually two- or three-sided markets which the platform mediates:
▪ Worker
▪ Client
▪ Sometimes other actors, e.g., restaurants
▪ Multi-homing is common on worker and on client side

Question 2

Platform governance on digital labor platforms

Answer 2

▪ Differences among digital labor platforms in terms of the services they mediate, e.g., ▪ Location-dependent / offline (Deliveroo) vs. location-independent / online services (Clickworker)
▪ Different industries, e.g., ride-sharing (Uber) vs. microtasks (Amazon Mechanical Turk) ▪ General (Upwork) vs. specialized platforms (Prolific)
▪ Importance for stakeholders: what they can and cannot do on those platforms
▪ Challenge for platform owners: orchestrate multi-actor setting without any formal control
▪ Platform governance “WHO makes WHAT decisions about a platform“ (Tiwana et al., 2010, p. 679)
▪ Meta-decision of platform owners to retain or distribute decision rights

Question 3

A form of governance: Algorithmic management

Answer 3

▪ Algorithmic management (AM) as emerging phenomenon in organizations and on digital labor platforms:
„Software algorithms that assume managerial functions and surrounding institutional devices that support algorithms in practice” (Lee et al., 2015, p. 1603)
▪ Exemplary managerial functions (Mintzberg, 1971): delegate, approve, supervise, allocate resources, handle disturbances, disseminate information
▪ Basic types of AM (Cram & Wiener, 2020):
▪ Support managerial control processes
▪ Automate managerial control processes

Question 4

Algorithmic management: Work process

Answer 4

Question 5

Algorithmic management: Properties of algorithmic systems

Answer 5

Question 6

Algorithmic management: Mechanisms

Answer 6

▪ Managers implement control mechanisms to maximize value created by workers
▪ In traditional work settings, managers attempt to control through: direction, evaluation, discipline (Edwards, 1979)
▪ Kellogg et al. (2020, p. 368) describe six mechanisms (“The 6 R’s”) that specify these control functions in the context of AM:
“Employers can use algorithms to direct workers by restricting and recommending, evaluate workers by recording and rating, and discipline workers by replacing and rewarding.”

Question 7

Algorithmic management: Mechanisms (1/3)
1. Direction

Answer 7

Question 8

Algorithmic management: Mechanisms (1/3)
1. Direction

Answer 8

Question 9

Algorithmic management: Mechanisms (3/3)
3. Discipline

Answer 9

Question 10

Individual clients: Motivations for using taxi and delivery services

Answer 10

“Convenience, comfort, privacy, security, flexibility and also knowing that there will be no need for any negotiation”

Customer of app-based taxi services (Ghana)

“Ratings provide a better perspective based on others’ experiences and help me assess safety issues”

Customer of app-based taxi services (India)

Low prices
Convenience
Ease of use
Transparency
Reliability

Question 11

Workers: The duality of empowerment and marginalization

Answer 11

Question 12

Regulation of Digital Labor Platforms

Ethical and legal issues

Answer 12