The social infrastructure of online marketplaces: Trade, work and the interplay of decided and emergent orders

Abstract

This study is designed to remedy the tendency of existing studies to analyze online marketplaces as either sites of work or trading arenas. We argue that the theoretical notion of “social infrastructure” is particularly apt to offer a comprehensive framework that captures the unique intersection of work and trade in online marketplaces. We study the social infrastructure of an online marketplace: the institutions, conditions and forms, and the horizontal and vertical ties between actors that organize work and enable trading. The social infrastructure of online marketplaces deserves research attention because it represents an essential condition for economic activities. In our empirical section we focus on the online marketplace Etsy to illustrate our comprehensive theoretical framework and we identify a complex dynamic between the decided and emergent order of the online marketplace. We demonstrate that the attempt to superimpose order through the constitution of an online marketplace is challenged by sellers and buyers. We find that both dimensions, work and trade, provide actors with material and symbolic resources that inform their strategies and economic actions. The article suggests that “social infrastructure” is a concrete theoretical tool for analyzing online marketplaces that complements existing research on platforms and ecosystems.

Gift-Giving as a Conversion Device in Online Marketplaces

“…My main finding is that gifting flourishes around online reputation systems on the online marketplace studied, possibly pointing to their central role on other trade platforms as well. Indeed, one can argue that ranking and rating has substituted for price as a main market signal (Aspers & Darr, 2022). Reputation systems are promoted by many online marketplaces.…”

“…Reputation systems produce increasingly sophisticated scores and measures of shop owners, and are also described as a means of producing certified knowledge-for example, in the form of standards (e.g., Banks, 1963) calculated and displayed by the platform's algorithm. Online reputation systems are said to partly substitute for price as the main market signal (Aspers & Darr, 2022). Rating systems can also be seen as a form of communication between sellers and buyers (Esposito & Stark, 2020) and gifting surrounding reputation systems is part of this communication process.…”

Digital labour: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

“…It identifies the frequency of two documents co-cited together by other documents (Culnan, 1987), which represents the similarity between the documents. This analysis used a Bellesia et al, 2019Bellesia et al, , 2023Mäntymäki et al, 2019;Aspers and Darr, 2022;Beigi et al, 2022;Hendl and Jansky, 2022;Octavia, 2022;Peng, 2022) 2 Labour process theory 5 (Gandini, 2019;Wu et al, 2019;Anwar and Graham, 2021;Aspers and Darr, 2022;Heiland, 2022) 3 Labour theory of value 3 (Anderson et al, 2016;Ekbia and Nardi, 2019;Gandini, 2019 Job demands-resources (JD-R) theory 1 (Nilsen and Kongsvik, 2023) Source: Data compiled by the authors co-citation threshold of ten documents to focus on the most influential publications in this area (Goyal and Kumar, 2021). The results show that 91 out of the 603 documents have been co-cited by other documents in the network at least 15 times.…”

Social interaction on craft fairs

“…It also stimulates a sensory experience that can only unfold when the physical object is presented in its entirety. Research acknowledging the social dimension emphasises the potential of fairs and trade shows for having an impact on professional careers and occupational communities (Jourdain, 2022;Naulin & Béliard, 2022), facilitating social interactions (Braudel, 1982;Potier, 2022), ordering social relations and hierarchies (Entwistle & Rocamora, 2006;Skov, 2006), shaping and transforming markets and industries (Anand & Peterson, 2000;Aspers & Darr, 2022) and influencing various forms of exchange (Moeran & Strandgaard Pedersen, 2011;Potier, 2022). Based on this, we define a fair as an ordered physical space for a given period, representing a selection of members of a particular field, market or sector that is organised by a complete organisation to further social interaction, including, potentially, trade.…”

“…Our study focuses on craftpersons and reveals how economic and non-economic interactions are interlaced at fairs. Although much research in the field of craft has addressed technological transformations (Kroezen & Heugens, 2019;Poni, 2002;Raffaelli, 2019) and, particularly, digitalisation (Mangematin et al, 2014;Petkova, 2016), apart from studies mentioning the case of Etsy (Aspers & Darr, 2022;Krugh, 2014;Luckman, 2013), we are still short of understanding about the potential of physical fairs for craft-based production. Since socio-cultural embeddedness and the emplacement of production and consumption are central aspects of craft objects (Bell et al, 2021, p. 4), we argue that craft is a case in point to understand the various types of social interactions and their interplay, physically taking place in marketplaces such as fairs.…”