Digital Labor Platforms: From Future Development to Present Revenue

Abstract

In this master’s thesis we have explored the Wolt Algorithmic Transparency Reports as a governmental strategy and its e􀀁ects on how the concept of the “platform worker” recon􀀂gures, or “dissolves”, the concepts of the wage-earner and the self-employed. Our focus in this master’s thesis has been to gain a broader understanding of digital labour platforms and their e􀀁ects on the Danish labour market, which is a labour market characterised by a tripartite collaboration between the actors in the Danish labour market, high levels of unionisation and speci􀀂c form of 􀀃exicurity, which constitutes the Danish model - a model that is under increasing pressure by the atypical working arrangement that is platform work. In this thesis we have conducted a regimes of practices analysis of the aforementioned Wolt Algorithmic Transparency Reports, by using Mitchell Deans framework for conducting such an analysis, which entailed analysing the 􀀂elds of visibility of government, the technicals aspects of government, the forms of knowledge that informs the activity of governing and lastly how certain identities are sought to be instilled through the governance. To gain a broader understanding of the technical aspects of the government, we included literature on algorithmic HRM, due to it being a central aspect of how digital labour platforms operate. Furthermore we have included terms and concepts by Michel Foucault to give more depth to our analysis. By conducting this analysis we could describe how the Wolt Algorithmic Transparency Reports acts as a governmental strategy. In our analysis we described how Wolts digital labour platform acts as an ecosystem, where all of its inhabitants (the customers, the platform workers and the restaurant-partners) were all semi-autonomous, but still depended on each other within the ecosystem, with the role of Wolt being to uphold the ecosystem, while still maintaining a “hands-o􀀁-approach” to platform workers within that ecosystem, that we dubbed “the neoliberal marketplace”. Additionally we described how the regime of practices sought to instil a neoliberal self-conception within the platform workers as a homo economicus, for whom long-term personal and professional growth becomes less important than short term economic gains. In our discussion we explored the EU platform directive and the implications that platform work has on HRM in practice.