Digitally-enabled institutional arrangements and identity in the on-demand economy
Open Access
- Author:
- Roberts, Anna
- Graduate Program:
- Business Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- January 04, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Charlene Ellen Zietsma, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Charlene Ellen Zietsma, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Vilmos Fosnocht Misangyi, Committee Member
Raghu B Garud, Committee Member
Gary J Adler, Jr., Outside Member
Brent William Ambrose, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- on-demand economy
institutions
identity
institutional logics
platforms
ride-hail - Abstract:
- In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which algorithmically managed on-demand work is reshaping occupational role identities and the relationship of workers to the organizations which buy their labor. To do so, I conducted a “netnography” of an anonymous online space created by the ride-hail driver community along with organizational and public discourse about ride-hail work. After a brief introduction in Chapter 1 and a description of my methodology in Chapter 2, I ask in Chapter 3, how do on-demand organizations and the media frame the boundaries of the organizations, and workers’ relationship to those boundaries? What implications do those boundaries have for workers’ meaning, belonging and identity? This qualitative study investigated how organizational boundary discourse and the organization of the work itself constructed sometimes conflicting worker roles that influenced how ride-hailing workers understood the boundaries of the on-demand organization and their location with respect to it. The roles of app user and driver-partner constructed ride-hailing workers as outside the boundaries of the organization, while the driver-bot role constructed them as (non-human) elements of organizational technology. In Chapter 4, I investigate more deeply the ways in which Uber drivers co-construct their own occupational identity, examining the interactions among drivers on the ShareSpot site. In particular, I examine how logics and identity work play out in new institutional contexts where identities are “up-for-grabs.” Through this dissertation I build upon and hope to contribute to the literatures on algorithmic organizing and management, identity work, and institutional logics.