'Your Driver is Didi and Minutes Away from Your Pick-Up Point': Understanding Employee Motivation in the Gig Economy of China

Boidurjo Mukhopadhyay and Chris Chatwin

No 805, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: In recognition of the importance and expansion of the gig economy, largely in developed and BRICs economies, along with the growing literature surrounding it, this research contributes towards an empirical and conceptual understanding of how employee motivation and retention are managed by the mobile app-based, multiple payment platformenabled, car-pooling Chinese giant DiDi. Both the exponential usage and evidently a diversified range of services offered by Didi has not only transformed the Chinese perception of using cabs, over their personal vehicle, in the 1.4 billion demographics but also invites emerging research in learning the tools for employee retention of a company that has a high regional scale of operations across all provinces in China. While the company employs over a million people at various contractual levels, the objective of this paper is to evaluate how levels of employee motivation, in a gig economy setting, largely affects employee effort and performance of DiDi drivers working long hours in major Chinese cities. The objective of this research is to qualitatively investigate the nature and effectiveness of Didi as a customer customiser using a thematic analysis and a conceptual framework, while also adding contextual knowledge on how a relatively new transport company retain employees in a leading BRICS economy, that is embedded with many faces of the gig economy.

Keywords: gig economy; employee motivation; China; employee performance; ERG theory; Expectancy Theory; innovation; DiDi; mobile app-based enterprises; Emerging Economy; Platform Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D86 J41 L14 L86 M51 M52 M54 M55 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:805

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