Patchwork embeddedness: how workers reconstitute platforms in informal economies

Join our Strategy and International Business seminar

Speaker: Dr Lindsey Cameron, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

About the seminar topic

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 3-year qualitative study of platform workers (ride-hailing workers), in 3 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 localised 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.

Speaker bio

Lindsey D Cameron is an assistant professor of management and the Dorinda and Mark Winkelman Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and holds an appointment in the sociology department. She is a Faculty Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, the Data and Society Research Institute in New York City, and a former fellow (member) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. A scholar of the future of work, her research focuses on how algorithmic management and artificial intelligence is changing the modern workplace, with an emphasis on the gig economy. Dr Cameron has an ongoing, 8-year ethnography of the largest sector of the gig economy, the ride-hailing industry, examining how algorithms management changes managerial control. She recently completed a study on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected workers on various gig platforms (TaskRabbit, Instacart, AmazonFlex, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash). She is currently completing a project on how the gig economy’s business model adapts in the Global South, with a focus on the implications for management and workers. Other ongoing research projects focus on workforce development, particularly as it relates to technology.

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No registration required. If you have any questions about this seminar, please email Luke Slater.