Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, United States
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, affecting the reliability of platform organizations. Drawing on an eight-year qualitative study of workers in in the largest sector of the platform economy, the ride-hailing industry, in five informal economies in the Global South (Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa), we describe how, in the face of limited resources and the platform’s partial technical closure, workers create reliability. We identify three bottom-up reliability practices. In asset work, workers obtain and maintain material and relational resources for platform access; in closure work, workers bridge gaps between the algorithmic management system and their environments; and in security work, workers manage off-app relationships that ensure their safety. These practices are cognitively intensive, highly relational, and expensive, and though largely invisible to the platform, are essential for the platform’s reliability. Thus, we argue, it is people (workers), and not algorithmic technology, that are the core infrastructure of platforms. We conclude with implications about how to build a global platform organization that fulfills its promise for portable work for all.
