The Emergence of the On-Demand Economy and Its Significance for Workers The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:39987909 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Emergence of the On-Demand Economy and Its Significance for Workers A dissertation presented by Mazen Elfakhani to The Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Sociology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts July 2017 © 2017 Mazen Elfakhani All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Christopher Winship Mazen Elfakhani The Emergence of the On-Demand Economy and Its Significance for Workers Abstract This dissertation examines the emergence of the on-demand economy and its significance for workers, taking Uber Technologies as the primary empirical case. I ask three questions involving the social processes underlying the (1) emergence of Uber, (2) how Uber drivers evaluate their work experiences, and (3) how committed drivers re-organize their lives around on-demand work. I integrate concepts from literatures on emergence, organizations, and culture within a “pragmatist” framework, and collect and analyze data from mainly news accounts of Uber’s interactions (2009-2017) as well as interviews (2015-2017) I conducted with 62 drivers in the Greater Boston area (Massachusetts). I make the following findings. First, Uber’s emergence centered on two inter-related processes: (1) Uber’s ecology was poised to the emergence of the on-demand organizational model given labor- market developments, political vulnerabilities, and technological advancements; and (2) Uber’s mode of action (e.g. legal claim-making, mobilizing support) allowed it to rapidly gain market share and legitimacy. These findings provide new ways of explaining and predicting the kinds of innovations that emerge in different social-ecologies. Second, behavioral differences between drivers’ work-evaluations depended on cultural configurations, (e.g. personal-norms), problem-situations (e.g. income shocks), and knowledge- activation mechanisms. For example, drivers with U.S.-based college degrees tended to feel “out of place” with Uber, partly due to personal career-norms acquired through formal-education. Yet, college- educated immigrant drivers’ personal-career norms were attenuated by various factors (e.g. degree- inequivalency, networks), resulting in greater commitment to Uber. Other findings involved the effects iii of negative prior labor market experiences and acutely-experienced problem-situations. Key implications include new ways of understanding worker behavior (e.g. job-switching). Third, the structural properties of on-demand work generate distinct modes of creative action among drivers, described as “projective” and “responsive” creativity. Regarding projective creativity, many drivers experienced, for the first time, a strong sense of financial self-efficacy and “freedom” that impelled them to concrete steps toward personal projects (e.g. entrepreneurship, familial problem- solving). Regarding responsive creativity, Uber’s work-structure (e.g. pricing) triggered various behavioral changes (e.g. reduced weekend partying) in workers. These findings improve our understanding of human “agency” and social-selection, and help us rethink the relationship between changing work-relations, social inequality, and human freedom. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... viii Chapter One – Introduction ................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 1 Empirical and Theoretical Connections ................................................................................................ 1 Dissertation Roadmap ........................................................................................................................... 2 Roadmap to this Introductory Chapter ............................................................................................... 11 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ON-DEMAND ECONOMY: EMERGENCE, COPING WITH DISPLACEMENT, AND CREATIVE ACTION ........................................................................................................................... 11 Uber as Purveyor of the On-Demand Economy: Emergence and Social Reverberations ................... 12 The Normative Significance of Understanding the Social Experiences of Uber Drivers ..................... 22 A GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SOCIAL-ORGANIZATION OF ON-DEMAND WORK ................................ 32 On-Demand Platform-Marketplaces and Supply-Side Worker-Networks: Strategic Orientation and Organizational Practices ..................................................................................................................... 34 Uber Drivers: Intra-Organizational Position and Social Characteristics .............................................. 44 Chapter Two – A Pragmatist Framework for Understanding Nonstandard Work Relations ................. 62 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 62 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR UNDERSTANDING NONSTANDARD WORK RELATIONS: ALTERNATIVES TO PRAGMATISM ........................................................................................................... 65 Macro-structural Historicist Perspectives on Nonstandard Work as a Mechanism of Capitalist Reproduction ...................................................................................................................................... 66 The Cornell Industrial Labor and Relations Program on Precarious Work ......................................... 67 “Individualized” Nonstandard Work in Reflexive Modernity ............................................................. 69 Applying these Theoretical Perspectives to the Empirical Questions ................................................ 72 PRAGMATIST ACTION FRAMEWORKS: CURRENT AND PROPOSED FORMULATIONS ............................. 75 A Critique of Contemporary Pragmatism ............................................................................................ 77 The Proposed Pragmatist Action Framework: Components, Distinctiveness, Implications ............... 93 Chapter Three – Taking the State for a Ride: The Emergence of the On-Demand Economy ............... 118 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 118 THE GENESIS AND REPRODUCTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL NOVELTY .................................................. 124 Organizational Novelty: Network Folding and Autocatalysis ........................................................... 126 A Pragmatist Extension of the Concept of Ecological Poisedness .................................................... 131 THE EMERGENCE OF THE ON-DEMAND ECONOMY: ECOLOGICAL POISEDNESS AND CONTENTIOUS REPERTOIRES ......................................................................................................................................... 140 v Ecological Poisedness to the On-Demand Economy ......................................................................... 144 Uber’s Repertoire-in-Action: Blitzkrieg, Prophylaxis, and Janus-like Tactics .................................... 159 DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................................... 179 Work-Organization and Consumer Politics as Dimensions of Poisedness ........................................ 180 The Mutual Social-Construction of Uber and its Ecology: Actor-Relation Transformations and their Social Mechanisms ............................................................................................................................ 183 Future Directions on Ecological Poisedness ...................................................................................... 188 Chapter Four – Social-situational Displacement and Personal (Dis)order among On-Demand Workers ...................................................................................................................................................... 191 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 191 A “DIFFERENCE OF PRACTICE”: UNDERSTANDING HABIT THROUGH ITS EFFECTS ............................... 197 SOCIAL-SITUATIONAL DISPLACEMENT AND CULTURAL PRAGMATICS: ADAPATION VERSUS HYSTERESIS .............................................................................................................................................................. 200 Cultural Versatility Vis-a-Vis Ecological Demands ............................................................................. 201 Cultural-Ecological Hysteresis ..........................................................................................................