Power and evaluations on sharing-economy platforms: Big Brother and the Beauty Contest

Pouvoir et évaluations sur les plateformes de l’économie collaborative: Big Brother et le concours de beauté

Anne-Sophie Barbe () and Caroline Hussler
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Anne-Sophie Barbe: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon, Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon

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Abstract: This paper focuses on the decentralized evaluation systems implemented on sharing economy platforms. Adopting a Foucauldian approach on power, we chose to study them as an apparatus of power. The purpose of this article is to understand whether and how those evaluation systems influence platform users' behaviors, and to provide renewed explanations of the standardization of behaviors at stake on those platforms. We conduct a single case study on BlaBlaCar carpooling system. We adopt a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with BlaBlaCar users. We highlight that users embed the evaluation systems in their behaviors in quite different ways : beyond the fear of being sanctioned, it is because users do rely on the rating system to envision themselves and to perceive and differentiate the others, that the system becomes influential. Users being differently governed by the evaluation system, the latter indirectly strengthens and protects some of them : the most experienced ones.

Keywords: Evaluation System; Power; Sharing Economy; Foucault; Digital Platform; Système d'évaluation; Pouvoir; Economie collaborative; Plateforme digitale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Published in Revue internationale de psychosociologie et de gestion des comportements organisationnels, 2019, Vol. XXV (2019/61), pp.105-124. ⟨10.3917/rips1.061.0105⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01922963

DOI: 10.3917/rips1.061.0105

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