‘I’m my own boss…’: Active intermediation and ‘entrepreneurial’ worker agency in the Australian gig-economy

Tom Barratt, Caleb Goods and Alex Veen
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Tom Barratt: Edith Cowan University, Australia
Caleb Goods: The University of Western Australia Business School, Australia

Environment and Planning A, 2020, vol. 52, issue 8, 1643-1661

Abstract: Platform firm in the gig-economy are disrupting work as a social practice, production systems and recasting capital-labour relations. This qualitative study examines worker agency in the Australian food-delivery sector; a segment where platforms actively intermediate both product and labour markets. Within this sector, worker agency poses a potential challenge to platform-organisations; however this study reveals how these platforms’ work organisation and market regulation constrain agency potential. Shaped by the work’s spatio-temporal features, organisational fixes and institutional context, it is shown how food-delivery workers, transiently attached to the labour market, predominantly engage in ‘entrepreneurial agency’ – a low-level agency expression aimed at materially improving individual conditions and aligning with, rather than challenging, platforms’ business models.

Keywords: Labour agency; labour market intermediation; gig-economy; migrant workers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:8:p:1643-1661

DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20914346

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