Producing speed on demand: Reconfiguration of space and time in food delivery platform work

Abstract

Existing IS research on platform work has narrowly focused on the managerial operations of algorithmic management or its business implications. Limited research has paid attention to the scalar effects and societal implications of platform work. In this study, we address the phenomenon of ‘speed’ in the on‐demand economy through a qualitative study of Chinese food delivery workers. We construct a performative view of spatiotemporality to illustrate the reconfiguration of multiple spatiotemporal orders. The paper thus broadens the theorisation of time and space in IS research and provides a more nuanced and critical understanding of platform work against the backdrop of structural inequality in platform capitalism.

Happy riders are all alike? Ambivalent subjective experience and mental well‐being of food‐delivery platform workers in China

“…Providing for the family might be a particularly strong drive for rural‐to‐urban migrants in China who choose to work in cities to earn money and remit back home (Meng & Xue, 2020). For instance, in a recent paper by Zheng and Wu (2022), Chinese food‐delivery workers frequently refer to their breadwinning responsibility as the ultimate reason for taking up the job (‘At the end of the day I am doing this for my family—my wife and kids’). The strong correlation between income level and job satisfaction (see Table 2) also provides supporting evidence for the income‐oriented meaningfulness in the food‐delivery work.…”

“…It is concerning to see that the riders rely heavily on familial ties for social support, whereas online and offline friends appear to play a nonsignificant role. Unlike traditional business organizations where mentorship and collegiality help workers manage stress and build solidarity, gig labor platforms are designed to promote atomized work relations (Ashford et al, 2018; Tassinari & Maccarrone, 2020) and pit workers against each other to compete for assignments (Barratt et al, 2020; Zheng & Wu, 2022). The income‐oriented meaningfulness discussed earlier further accentuates the inter‐worker competition.…”

“…A particularly vocal critique in the literature is on the omnipresent algorithmic control imposed by platforms on their workers. A number of studies in recent years have convincingly shown that under the surface of flexible employment there lies intensive management and precarious labour conditions (de Vaujany et al, 2021; Galière, 2020; Zheng & Wu, 2022).…”

Affective temporal experiences and new work modalities: The role of Information and Communication Technologies

“…The novelty of such work modalities does not really relate to the spatial dimension of work, but rather the temporal dimension, as time-related requirements are being reinterpreted. For example, in the gig economy, it is time and speed that are monitored, measured and valued ( Zheng & Wu, 2022 ), and yet, the need to speed up and accelerate (‘time is money’) during Covid-19 was at odds with parts of our society that needed to ‘slow down’, so that altogether we could overcome the challenges ( Kunisch et al, 2021 , Suckert, 2021 ).…”

Do scholarly journals have cultural values?

“…In this issue of the journal, we present five papers. In the first paper, Cui et al (2022) In the second paper, Zheng and Wu (2022) focus on how digital labour platforms could reconfigure spatial and temporal orders at multiple scales to produce 'speed' in the on-demand economy. Through a qualitative study of food delivery platform workers in China, the authors demonstrate how the acceleration of platform capitalism is built upon and reproduces existing social inequalities in the daily practice of algorithmically managed labour.…”