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Societies
Special Issues
Digital Transformation and the Labour Market Inequalities
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Digital Transformation and the Labour Market Inequalities

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 11356

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Maria Urbaniec

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Cracow University of Economics, 31-510 Kraków, Poland
Interests: sustainable entrepreneurship; social entrepreneurship; green entreprenurship; innovation; sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Victor Fabian Climent Peredo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Universidad de Alicante, Campus de San Vicente, Edificio Germán Bernácer, Ctra. San Vicente S/N, 03690 – San Vicente del Raspeig, Spain
Interests: labour market; inequality; social structure; stratification

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Special Issue focuses on labour market inequalities in the age of digital transformation. New challenges in the labour market are associated with terms such as gig economy, sharing economy, collaborative economy, on-demand economy, platform economy. These terms describe a modern economy based on tasks and projects carried out on digital platforms, rather than on jobs. For several decades, there has been a systematic increase in the demand for workers in the service sector, with temporary work based on tasks and projects becoming more common.

This Special Issue contributes to the discussion on the impact of digital transformation on the labour market. The research highlights labour market challenges in the digital economy, with a particular focus on inequalities and consequences. Inequality is a central issue in contemporary debates in business and the social sciences, exemplified by Piketty's research on inequality in his landmark book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”.

A key objective of this Special Issue is to present the current state of research on the impact of the digital economy on various labour market inequalities. Digitisation contributes significantly to new challenges of labour market inequalities related to job insecurity, income irregularity, weak protection of labour rights, etc. This Special Issue focuses on examining the consequences of growing social and labour market inequalities across countries, economic sectors and organizations and companies. An important issue is also to provide strategic recommendations to mitigate these disadvantages.

However, the scope is not limited to these issues and new dimensions are encouraged. Papers with both theoretical and empirical contributions rooted in different disciplines are particularly welcome. Research methodologies may include qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches.

Contributions have to follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Maria Urbaniec
Prof. Dr. Victor Fabian Climent Peredo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • labor market inequality
  • precarious work
  • alternative work arrangements
  • non-standard forms of work
  • flexible forms of employment
  • industrial relations
  • resilience and flexibility
  • social stratification
  • digital economy
  • gig economy
  • platform economy

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 632 KiB  
Article
Putting Fairness into the Gig Economy: Delivery Cooperatives as Alternatives to Corporate Platforms
by Ernest Cañada, Carla Izcara and María José Zapata Campos
Societies 2023, 13(3), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030068 - 13 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4010
Abstract
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, platform capitalism has expanded greatly in the delivery sector. The consolidation of an oligopoly controlled by a few corporate platforms has led to precarious working conditions for “gig economy” workers. Increasing protests and strikes have led to the [...] Read more.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, platform capitalism has expanded greatly in the delivery sector. The consolidation of an oligopoly controlled by a few corporate platforms has led to precarious working conditions for “gig economy” workers. Increasing protests and strikes have led to the reform of labour directives and to the emergence of alternative ways of organising work through platform cooperatives. This article examines how these emergent platform cooperatives are mobilised and their challenges and implications. Barcelona, the cradle of many platform economy and delivery sector start-ups, is a critical case for examining the recent birth of alternative delivery cooperatives. This article is informed by the cases of three cooperatives, organised by those working as riders, providing delivery services in the city of Barcelona: Mensakas, Les Mercedes, and 2GoDelivery. The paper shows how the embeddedness of these nascent platform cooperatives in favourable governance arrangements, a supportive social and solidarity movement, the knowledge and experience of workers, and the territory where the cooperatives are embedded are essential for their creation. This multi-layered embeddedness is necessary, but not sufficient, to explain how platform cooperatives thrive. The study concludes that the agency of platform workers, who triggered this transformation, was essential for the emergence of alternative ways of organising work in the platform economy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digital Transformation and the Labour Market Inequalities)
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17 pages, 1568 KiB  
Article
The Post-COVID-19 Era, Fourth Industrial Revolution, and New Globalization: Restructured Labor Relations and Organizational Adaptation
by Theodore Koutroukis, Dimos Chatzinikolaou, Charis Vlados and Victoria Pistikou
Societies 2022, 12(6), 187; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12060187 - 10 Dec 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3604
Abstract
This paper explores the directions of adaptation for socioeconomic organizations in the current global crisis and restructuring. We carry out an integrative and critical review, presenting the main questions—and possible directions of response—concerning how the post-COVID-19 era, the fourth industrial revolution, and new [...] Read more.
This paper explores the directions of adaptation for socioeconomic organizations in the current global crisis and restructuring. We carry out an integrative and critical review, presenting the main questions—and possible directions of response—concerning how the post-COVID-19 era, the fourth industrial revolution, and new globalization seem to affect contemporary labor relations. We focus on the different levels of their manifestation (macro, meso, and micro levels), emphasizing worsening inequality trends in the work environment and the resulting organizational readaptation that seems to be required nowadays. The restructured labor markets can benefit from the diffusion of institutional innovations based on integrated social partnership schemes at the macro–meso–micro levels. We emphasize organizational adaptation at the microlevel, as the innovation and change management mechanisms it enables, presupposes, and harnesses are imperative for exiting any crisis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digital Transformation and the Labour Market Inequalities)
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19 pages, 1072 KiB  
Article
Identities and Precariousness in the Collaborative Economy, Neither Wage-Earner, nor Self-Employed: Emergence and Consolidation of the Homo Rider, a Case Study
by Gabriel López-Martínez, Francisco Eduardo Haz-Gómez and Salvador Manzanera-Román
Societies 2022, 12(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12010006 - 28 Dec 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2606
Abstract
In recent years, courier and home delivery services have experienced extensive growth around the world. These platform companies, that operate through applications on smartphones, have experienced the benefits of the technological leap that has been produced by the conditions imposed by the COVID-19 [...] Read more.
In recent years, courier and home delivery services have experienced extensive growth around the world. These platform companies, that operate through applications on smartphones, have experienced the benefits of the technological leap that has been produced by the conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions on traditional commerce. This business model integrates novel elements that move away from a classic contractual relationship, employer-employee. They combine a strong cooperative culture, integrated by company values and principles that make the rider assume an identity that defines him/her as a worker and a member of a community. In addition, on the other hand, precarious working conditions, in which extreme competitiveness among colleagues and dependence on high standards of service compliance are encouraged. In Spain, there is a lack of research on the identity of workers in this type of platform. By means of in-depth interviews with drivers of two different companies in the Region of Murcia (Spain), the main objective of this article is to identify and describe the figure of what we define as homo rider, understood as a prototype individual in the context of contemporary labor relations, linked to the incorporation of new technologies for the intermediation and interconnection between people, goods and services. We approach to the socioeconomic spectrum and identity imaginary of the homo rider through two dimensions, material and ideological, to construct this broad, ambiguous figure between self-employment and wage-earner that would also represent a complex relation between precarious work and new technologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Digital Transformation and the Labour Market Inequalities)
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