Towards a capacitating instrumentation of digital platforms. A case study of Airbnb Experience

Can the management instrumentation of digital platforms be capacitating and reconcile performance with worker development? If so, what are its characteristics? These questions present many challenges. Indeed, digital work platforms are generally seen as incapacitating, whether they discipline behavior through increased algorithmic control or generate anomie situations by massively resorting to market coordination mechanisms. In order to question these limits and to propose a third way that identifies the characteristics of a platform capacitating instrumentation, we conducted a qualitative case study of the Airbnb Experience platform. Our results highlight the importance of subsidiarity, interrelated with the principles of flexibility and internal transparency, as a distinctive characteristic of ‘open' management instruments that constitute capacitating environments. The principle of subsidiarity implies the implementation of optional assistance and backup tools, which counterbalance algorithmic management systems and mitigate the risks of anomie on platforms that primarily rely on market mechanisms.