Cecilia_Manzo

EGOS 2023 (European Group for Organizational Studies) - Scientific Conference

06-08 luglio 2023, Cagliari, Italia

Sub-theme 75: The New Faces and Interfaces of Digital Platforms

Nell'ambito della conferenza, il team di ricerca di Weplat ha presentato il paper:

Platforms that create hierarchies. An institutional logics perspective in the analysis of a psychological counseling platform

Abstract:

The scholarly attention paid to platforms tend to analyze them as a homogeneous corpus. Cansoy et al. (2020) have already questioned this presumed homogeneity, analyzing the heterogeneity of workers, while management scholars have pointed out the heterogeneity of platforms’ business models (Cutolo & Kenney 2021). We intend to propose a similar approach focusing on the organizational model.
In this paper, we aim to answer the first question of the call – What strategies, practices, processes, structures, and/or business models are characteristic for which types of platform organizations? – by analyzing a still little-explored face of platforms, those matching supply and demand in the care sector, questioning the role of platform interfaces in defining the organizational models. Our hypothesis is that the platform can be analyzed as a new institutional logic, which is declined differently in the encounter with other institutional logics of a given organizational field.

Autori:

Francesco Bonifacio, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Ivana Pais, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Qui il programma completo del convegno: LINK

by Cecilia_Manzo

Global Perspectives on Platforms, Labor & Social Reproduction - Scientific Conference

27-28 giugno 2023, Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi

Global Perspectives on Platforms, Labor & Social Reproduction

Nell'ambito della conferenza, il team di ricerca di Weplat ha presentato il paper:

Professionalization and informality in platform care services. The case of Babysits

Abstract:

The rise of digital platforms in care service can be seen as a specific response to the need to maintain profitability and to contain labour costs, both through the exploitation of regulatory loophole and casualization of work. The peculiar ambiguity of the platform lies in the ability to create different regimes of visibility in historically informal markets, while producing new informalities concerning working conditions. On the other hand, scholars have argued that digital platforms engineer professionalization processes tied to their own business model. This appears particularly relevant if we consider the “difficult professionalisation” of care work, characterized by a plurality of needs which often do not correspond to formally legitimized qualifications, and where supply often exceeds demand. The case study is part of the broader research project “WePlat: Welfare systems in the age of platforms” and it is focused on the case of  Babysits, a global platform that provide child care services. Babysits uses professionalism as an organizational strategy less oriented to empower workers, than to enrol the highest number of customers. Albeit without direct imposition of formal rules, babysitters are nudged to add competencies into their public profile and to meet a normative standard based on customers reputation and other parameters (e.g. the average time of answer).However, the increased visibility of workers does not forbid the platform to continue to take advantage from informality without governing babysitters contractualization. Moreover, weak lock-in mechanisms allow users to easily exit in order to circumvent the commission retained by the platform on transactions. Outside the platform, the power asymmetry between parents and workers is strengthened in favour of the former, and informal ways of regulating pay, tasks, and working hours are even reinforced.

Autori:

Davide Arcidiacono, Università di Catania

Francesco Bonifacio, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Ivana Pais, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Qui il programma completo del convegno: LINK

by Cecilia_Manzo

Global Perspectives on Platforms, Labor & Social Reproduction - Scientific Conference

27-28 giugno 2023, Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi

Global Perspectives on Platforms, Labor & Social Reproduction

Nell'ambito della conferenza, il team di ricerca di Weplat ha presentato il paper:

Community, platform and territorial welfare. A critical local case study

Abstract:

The impact of the platform economy on sectors such as tourism and transportation has been extensively studied over the last decade. However, the role of technology in intermediating welfare services such as social and health assistance, childcare and education, and mental and physical health received less attention (Ticona Mateescu 2018; Flanagan 2018). These platforms are often on the sidelines of the current public and academic debate on the platform and the gig economy, despite the transformations they have been implementing in the welfare sector. The welfare platforms assume a different connotation than the traditional on-demand platforms because of the peculiarities of the services they provide. In fact, these platforms could aim to become “digital platforms for the public good” (Huws 2020) by using the technological potential of the platforms and: redistribute the public resources; improve pre-existing services and develop new ones on a local level. For us, the focus of this process is on how each local context shapes the welfare areas (healthcare, ect.) and the platforms' organization, as well as the relations with public actors, third sector and citizens. This new way of welfare services supply shapes the provider/beneficiary relationship through the mediation of the platform. The user takes on multiple roles and often becomes beneficiary, user and customer at the same time (Busemeyer et al. 2022; Previtali Salvati 2021; Robeyns 2005). On the other hand, the “disembedding” process of social relations, which takes place in on-demand platforms, seems to re-configure the ties on the territory by promoting the creation of new networks between local institutions and third-sector organizations. In the welfare platform space, users can become aware of their needs, and they can try and provide a solution for themselves independently.   The contribution aims to investigate the welfare platform phenomenon focusing on WelfareX, an Italian welfare platform. WelfareX was created in 2020 and is the result of a collaboration between public administrations and Third Sector organizations.  The analysis is based on 34 qualitative interviews carried out between February and December 2022 with the creators of the platform (CEO, executive), third-sector operators, welfare managers, and users in two cities in Northern Italy (Biella and Sondrio). The paper aims to investigate the following questions:

• What is the relationship between the welfare provider, the WelfareX platform, and the user?
• Do the welfare platforms provide complementary or replacement services compared to the welfare services present on the territory?
• Do the platforms implement pre-existing welfare services or are they an innovation created by new social actors?
• Are the platforms embedded in the territory capable of creating a new organization of the welfare goods and services? Are they capable of creating new networks of public, private and third-sector actors?
• How empowering can the local platforms providing welfare services be for the users?

The paper presents some of the results of the WEPLAT research project - Welfare systems in the age of platforms (https://www.weplat.it/) funded by Fondazione Cariplo.

Autori:

Cecilia Manzo, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Marialuisa Villani, Università di Padova

Martina Visentin, Università di Padova

Qui il programma completo del convegno: LINK

by Cecilia_Manzo

Le piattaforme di welfare in Italia | Università di Messina

Ivana Pais presenterà alcuni dei risultati della ricerca WE-PLAT  durante il seminario Le piattaforme di welfare in Italia, il giorno 14 giugno alle ore 11:00 presso l'Università degli Studi di Messina 

by Cecilia_Manzo