Patchwork Embeddedness: How Workers Reconstitute Platforms in Informal Economies
The burgeoning of the platform economy has sparked a growing interest in the global phenomenon of platform work. Yet, few studies have examined how platform work changes in a global context, implicitly assuming that digital scalability of algorithmic code translates to geographic scalability. Drawing on a three-year qualitative study of platform workers (ride-hailing workers), in three informal economies in the Global South (Brazil, Ghana, and Nigeria), I describe how workers reconstitute platform systems through enlisting new actors to compensate for gaps in the physical and digital infrastructures. By employing highly localized coordination mechanisms — of delegation, kinship, and troubleshooting —workers foster system-wide reliability, enabling the geographic scalability of platforms. However, the introduction of new actors adds a new managerial layer, further eroding the autonomy and flexibility promised to gig workers. I conclude with implications for how to build a global high-road platform company.
Research by Lindsey Cameron, Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania