Employment Models of Platform Companies in Norway: A Distinctive Approach?

Abstract


 
 
 The past decade has seen an increase in ‘platform companies’ functioning as the intermediary between workers and customers.The way these companies structure the labour process has significant implications for working conditions. In this article, we ask: In what ways does platform work in Norway differ from standard employment relationships? And do different employment strategies of platform companies put workers in precarious situations? The article builds on qualitative interviews with CEOs of platform companies in Norway, and aims to contribute to the literature by formulating a typology of the employment models of platform companies emerging in the Nordic countries. The platforms’ employment models are compared to the standard employment relationship and precariousness. Finally, the article suggests that institutions matter for why some platform companies adopt elements of the standard employment relationships as they appear in the Nordic labour market models, and discusses the implications of this.
 
 

Co-creation in Macrotask Knowledge Work on Online Labor Platforms

“…Platform work is typically divided into two kinds of tasks by their skills requirements. 'Microtasks' (Gegenhuber et al 2020;Howcroft & Bergvall-Kåreborn 2019;Rolandsson et al 2020;Sutherland et al 2020), 'microwork' (Panteli et al 2020;Wood et al 2019), and 'low-skilled work' (Jesnes 2019) comprise tasks that require low discretion and skill. These are highly defined and determined by the client or platform and often fragmented.…”

“…Here, we examine the extent to which macrotask jobs enhance co-creation as a mode of operation that advances such skills. As learning on platforms happens through project tasks rather than through the employment relation (Jesnes 2019), we assume that complex and challenging tasks via OLM are necessary for increasing workers' creative capabilities and well-being. The voluntary nature of platform work may evoke intrinsic motivations such as the desire to learn, which can prompt freelancers to invest great efforts into solving problems, in particular when they can choose for themselves which tasks or problems to tackle (Boudreau & Lakhani 2013).…”

Regulating Flexibility: Uber’s Platform as a Technological Work Arrangement

“…The employment relationship of platform workers is often described as nonstandard, atypical, or precarious (Jesnes 2019;Peticca-Harris et al 2020;Rasmussen et al 2019). Uber drivers and other platform workers are usually classified as self-employed independent contractors, lacking the social protections, collective rights, and guaranteed income and hours of workers within standard employment relationship (Prassl 2018).…”

“…Although the Uber Black drivers are actually employed, in contrast to Uber drivers in most other countries, their form of employment should be considered atypical, as it differs significantly from the standard employment relationship. Jesnes (2019) argues that such a hybrid form of employment, also used by the food delivery company Foodora in Norway, endows the employer with workforce flexibility while at the same time formally complying with the institutional framework of the Nordic labor market model. This illustrates the diversity in the employer strategies of platform companies.…”

Resistance to Regulation: Failing Sustainability in Product Lifecycles

“…Software applications take advantage of the spread of the smartphones to turn the 'reserve army of labour' into an algorithmically coordinated market of individual contractors. These workers benefit from improved access to micro-jobs and wage information, but bear all the risks associated with precarious work throughout the various phases of the product lifecycle [25]. In this way, platform work can be said to perpetuate the familiar problem of underemployment (lots of informal work, little remuneration, typical of, for example, street sellers), through a technological fix that undermines the labour contract.…”