Platformization and platformic management: a discussion of working conditions in a high-skilled platform
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2021.67Keywords:
platform, platformization, digitalization, job insecurity, work intensificationAbstract
The platformization might be considered the penultimate step in the flexibilization and digitalization of work, also for high-skilled work. We use a leading high-skilled platform in the Education Industry (VIPKid) and 429 messages from professors/workers in the popular website of reviews Indeed to discuss key trends in working conditions. Although platformization discourses update promises of flexibility and autonomy of digitalization, in practice, they are bounded by an increasing job insecurity and work intensification that pressures health of workers. Platformic management (beyond algorithmic management) is based on orchestrating a number of resources (simultaneously acting as controls) that in interaction with the management of the self imply a cognitive and emotional work intensification. The platformization of work needs regulation that, beyond the legal status of workers, include a more sociological vision of platform work.
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