A processual approach to skill changes in digital automation: The case of the platform economy in the service sector

Abstract

We introduce the “processual approach” to skill changes in the current wave of digital automation, which imposes comprehensive and complex impacts on skills. The approach conceptualizes work as a set of processes, each consisting of a sequence of events. In each event, a worker and/or machine make judgments and take actions to move to the next event. The processual approach asks whether and how machines influence workers' judgments or actions during each event and interrupt or transform relationships between judgments and actions. The approach enables micro-to-middle-range, inductive theorization of skill changes. To further refine the approach and demonstrate how to apply the approach, we study the case of taxi and ride-hailing, finding that service skill changes emphasize the repositioning and refocusing of skills and the interruption of workers' micro-adaptations rather than the replacement or elimination of skills. We also compare our theory with the classic Zuboffian reskilling thesis, revealing that the dual potential—automating and informating—of the current automation technologies influence distinct and separate parts of organizations, excluding platform workers from opportunities to learn transferable skills. The processual approach avoids pre-assigned and hierarchical categorization of skills, adopts a symmetric view of the role of technological and social factors in skill changes, and applies to a wide spectrum of work, especially service work.