Understanding Work in the Online Platform Economy: The Narrow, the Broad, and the Systemic Perspectives

This critical review of research on platform-mediated work argues that platform work studies are too focused on gig and remote work platforms. We introduce a framework that identifies three perspectives on how platforms reorganize work: narrow, broad, and systemic. This framework is used to examine the impact of platform-mediated work on four different aspects of work: management power, work processes, social protection and labor rights, and skills and career prospects.

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