IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v37y2023i2p412-431.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Flexible Labour to ‘Sticky Labour’: A Tracking Study of Workers in the Food-Delivery Platform Economy of China

Author

Listed:
  • Ping Sun

    (University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China)

  • Julie Yujie Chen

    (University of Toronto, Canada)

  • Uma Rani

    (International Labour Organization, Switzerland)

Abstract

Despite considerable scholarly attention to the proliferation of gig work on digital platforms, research tracing the broad trends of labour relations is scant. Analysing interview and survey data on food-delivery workers in China between 2018 and 2019, this article demonstrates a trend of de-flexibilisation for workers, which contradicts the purported flexibility of platform-mediated work. It is argued that de-flexibilisation is achieved through intertwined labour management tactics, technological engineering, and the cultural normalisation of platform-dependent precarious jobs. Platform companies and third-party staffing agencies have jointly deployed algorithmic systems and communicative techniques to cultivate what we refer to as ‘sticky labour’. The study contributes to the current debate on working in platform capitalism by weighing the compound effects of labour management strategies, social impact of technological engineering of the work process, and the cultural normalisation of platform work.

Suggested Citation

  • Ping Sun & Julie Yujie Chen & Uma Rani, 2023. "From Flexible Labour to ‘Sticky Labour’: A Tracking Study of Workers in the Food-Delivery Platform Economy of China," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 412-431, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:412-431
    DOI: 10.1177/09500170211021570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211021570
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09500170211021570?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2018. "Flexibility in the Gig Economy: Managing Time on Three Online Piecework Platforms," SocArXiv k3hy4, Center for Open Science.
    2. Snyder, Benjamin, 2016. "The Disrupted Workplace: Time and the Moral Order of Flexible Capitalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190203504.
    3. Harvey, David, 2007. "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283279.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jamie Redman, 2020. "The Benefit Sanction: A Correctional Device or a Weapon of Disgust?," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 84-100, March.
    2. Grzegorz W. Kolodko, 2009. "A Two-thirds Rate of Success: Polish Transformation and Economic Development, 1989-2008," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-14, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Andrew Crookston, 2012. "Thomas J. Bassett and Alex Winter-Nelson: The atlas of world hunger," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(2), pages 277-278, June.
    4. Cohen, Joseph N, 2010. "Neoliberalism’s relationship with economic growth in the developing world: Was it the power of the market or the resolution of financial crisis?," MPRA Paper 24527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Magdalena Correo Henao & Daniela Amaya Castro & Mario Andrés Ospina Ramírez & Federico Suárez Ricaurte, 2021. "Pobreza y desigualdad prospectiva 2030. XXI jornadas de derecho constitucional constitucionalismo en ransformación. Prospectiva 2030," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1298, October.
    6. Blocker, Christopher P. & Ruth, Julie A. & Sridharan, Srinivas & Beckwith, Colin & Ekici, Ahmet & Goudie-Hutton, Martina & Rosa, José Antonio & Saatcioglu, Bige & Talukdar, Debabrata & Trujillo, Carlo, 2013. "Understanding poverty and promoting poverty alleviation through transformative consumer research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1195-1202.
    7. Gilles Paché, 2020. "Inside Delivery Platforms: The Covid-19 Pandemic And After," Post-Print hal-03041080, HAL.
    8. Diana Floegel & Kaitlin L. Costello, 2022. "Methods for a feminist technoscience of information practice: Design justice and speculative futurities," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(4), pages 625-634, April.
    9. Ravenscroft, Sue & Williams, Paul F., 2009. "Making imaginary worlds real: The case of expensing employee stock options," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 770-786, August.
    10. Lucy Burke, 2017. "Imagining a future without dementia: fictions of regeneration and the crises of work and sustainability," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Aisling Gallagher, 2014. "The ‘Caring Entrepreneur’? Childcare Policy and Private Provision in an Enterprising Age," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(5), pages 1108-1123, May.
    12. Jamie Morgan & Brendan Sheehan, 2015. "The Concept of Trust and the Political Economy of John Maynard Keynes, Illustrated Using Central Bank Forward Guidance and the Democratic Dilemma in Europe," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(1), pages 113-137, March.
    13. Kolodko, Grzegorz W., 2010. "The Great Transformation 1989-2029: Could It Have Been Better? Will It Be Better?," WIDER Working Paper Series 040, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Niki Panteli & Andriana Rapti & Dora Scholarios, 2020. "‘If He Just Knew Who We Were’: Microworkers’ Emerging Bonds of Attachment in a Fragmented Employment Relationship," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(3), pages 476-494, June.
    15. John R. Posey, 2021. "The geographic redistribution of income in the United States, 1970–2010: the role of the super-wealthy," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 321-333, December.
    16. Ejiogu, Amanze & Ambituuni, Ambisisi & Ejiogu, Chibuzo, 2021. "Accounting for accounting’s role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: A Bourdieusian perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    17. Geoffrey Schneider & Paul Susman, 2010. "Uneven Development and Grounded Comparative Institutional Advantage: Lessons from Sweden and Mondragon," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 39(1), pages 1-11, April.
    18. Yáñez-Valdés, Claudia & Guerrero, Maribel & Barros-Celume, Sebastián & Ibáñez, María J., 2023. "Winds of change due to global lockdowns: Refreshing digital social entrepreneurship research paradigm," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    19. Veselin Draskovic & Mimo Draskovic, 2012. "Institutional Nihilism Of The Post-Socialist Transition," Montenegrin Journal of Economics, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research (ELIT), vol. 8(2), pages 191-206.
    20. Wu, Qiyan & Zhang, Xiaoling & Liu, Chunhui & Chen, Zhou, 2018. "The de-industrialization, re-suburbanization and health risks of brownfield land reuse: Case study of a toxic soil event in Changzhou, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 187-194.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:412-431. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.