A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
On-demand work in platform economy: implications for sustainable development
Authors: Laura Seppänen, Mervi Hasu, Sari Käpykangas, Seppo Poutanen
Editors: Sebastiano Bagnara, Riccardo Tartaglia, Sara Albolino, Thomas Alexander, Yushi Fujita
Conference name: Congress of the International Ergonomics Association
Publication year: 2019
Book title : Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018): Volume IV: Organizational Design and Management (ODAM), Professional Affairs, Forensic
Series title: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
Volume: 825
First page : 803
Last page: 811
Number of pages: 9
ISBN: 978-3-319-96067-8
eISBN: 978-3-319-96068-5
ISSN: 2194-5357
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96068-5_86
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96068-5_86
The global importance of crowd or on-demand work via digital platforms
is increasing. Platform enterprises create and manage two- or many-sided
markets by enabling suppliers and buyers of services meet in a flexible
and scalable way, creating new economic efficiencies. However, platform
work may also increase invisibility, uncertainty, risks, and
competition for workers.
This paper investigates the sustainability of on-demand work through a
dynamic analysis of the resources available to workers when facing an
abrupt change in their work organization. Our empirical case is a
platform-driven food courier company in the Helsinki region, Finland. We
discuss the resources we found in the light of the immunity, control
and fungibility mechanisms that lead to both opportunities and
vulnerabilities for the on-demand workers.
The paper yields practice-based empirical insights of how immunity,
control and fungibility are experienced by workers, and thus add our
understanding of the often invisible and dark side of on-demand work. At
the end, we present our conclusions regarding research on sustainable
development.
