Stories of resistance: The role of online forums in response to Uber’s algorithmic management

IF 5.7 2区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Critical Perspectives on Accounting Pub Date : 2025-03-20 DOI:10.1016/j.cpa.2025.102790

Emma McDaid , Clinton Free

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study investigates the dynamics of worker resistance within the gig economy. Drawing on a combination of 36 qualitative interviews with Uber drivers and a netnographic analysis of the forum Uberpeople.net, we investigate how drivers use digital communities to challenge precarity. Despite Uber’s efforts to individualize and control their labour, we reveal that resisting drivers use online forums to share experiences, develop resistance strategies, and foster collective identity. Specifically, we identify three primary mechanisms through which online forums facilitate resistance: (1) fostering in-group solidarity through shared grievances and collective identity formation; (2) enabling information exchange that empowers drivers to navigate and challenge platform constraints; and (3) providing discursive justifications for non-compliance with platform rules. This study contributes to research on labour resistance and algorithmic management by demonstrating how gig workers leverage digital spaces to contest control, highlighting the central role of storytelling and online communities in shaping contemporary labour struggles within the gig economy.

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抵制的故事：在线论坛在应对优步算法管理方面的作用

这项研究调查了零工经济中工人抵抗的动态。通过对优步司机的36次定性访谈和Uberpeople.net论坛的网络分析，我们调查了司机如何利用数字社区来挑战不稳定性。尽管优步努力个性化和控制他们的劳动，但我们发现，抵制司机使用在线论坛来分享经验，制定抵制策略，并培养集体认同。具体来说，我们确定了在线论坛促进抵抗的三种主要机制：(1)通过分享不满和形成集体身份来促进群体内的团结；(2)实现信息交换，使司机能够驾驭和挑战平台约束；(3)为不遵守平台规则提供话语辩护。本研究通过展示零工工人如何利用数字空间争夺控制权，突出了讲故事和在线社区在塑造零工经济中当代劳工斗争中的核心作用，为劳工抵抗和算法管理的研究做出了贡献。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Critical Perspectives on Accounting BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

9.40

自引率

7.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to provide a forum for the growing number of accounting researchers and practitioners who realize that conventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and corporate behavior are inextricably connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era. From such concerns, a new literature is emerging that seeks to reformulate corporate, social, and political activity, and the theoretical and practical means by which we apprehend and affect that activity. Research Areas Include: • Studies involving the political economy of accounting, critical accounting, radical accounting, and accounting''s implication in the exercise of power • Financial accounting''s role in the processes of international capital formation, including its impact on stock market stability and international banking activities • Management accounting''s role in organizing the labor process • The relationship between accounting and the state in various social formations • Studies of accounting''s historical role, as a means of "remembering" the subject''s social and conflictual character • The role of accounting in establishing "real" democracy at work and other domains of life • Accounting''s adjudicative function in international exchanges, such as that of the Third World debt • Antagonisms between the social and private character of accounting, such as conflicts of interest in the audit process • The identification of new constituencies for radical and critical accounting information • Accounting''s involvement in gender and class conflicts in the workplace • The interplay between accounting, social conflict, industrialization, bureaucracy, and technocracy • Reappraisals of the role of accounting as a science and technology • Critical reviews of "useful" scientific knowledge about organizations