Social relations and worker resistance in the platform economy: towards a future research agenda

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Date
2025-02-07
Authors
Dasgupta, Prakriti
Carbery, Ronan
McDonnell, Anthony
Jooss, Stefan
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Taylor & Francis
Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2025.2462138
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Abstract
This paper examines how the social relations of platform work shape workers’ acts of resistance. We critically discuss the broad spectrum of resistance approaches employed by platform workers, bringing attention to how the heterogeneity and novelty of some practices stem from the dynamic and complex social relations of platform work. Accounting for resistance practices at both individual and collective levels, as well as across different types of platform work, enables one to consider the extent to which worker resistance has evolved from its more traditional association with the presence of a ‘shopfloor’ and established organisational structures and processes for social relations with supervisors and co-workers. We elucidate how worker resistance has emerged despite the considerable efforts by platform firms to marginalise the potential for resistance through their business models and conclude with an agenda to guide future research efforts.
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Keywords
Platform economy , Gig work , Resistance , Algorithmic control , Trade unions
Citation
Dasgupta, P., Carbery, R., McDonnell, A. and Jooss, S. (2025) 'Social relations and worker resistance in the platform economy: towards a future research agenda', New Political Economy, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2025.2462138
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https://hdl.handle.net/10468/17043
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Cork University Business School - Journal Articles
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© 2025, the Authors. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.