Mens & Maatschappij - Volume 93, Issue 3, 2018

Public interests in the sharing and gig economy

The success of Airbnb and Uber has given rise to a public debate about the pros and cons of online sharing and gig platforms. This article reports on five case studies of platforms operating in car sharing (SnappCar), home sharing (Airbnb), home restaurants (Airdnd), ride hailing (UberPop) and cleaning (Helpling). The article then puts the sharing and gig economy into a historical perspective to highlight that the platforms build on pre-existing social practices. and presents a policy framework based on four basic policy options: enforce existing regulations, enact new regulations, deregulate, or tolerate.

The erosion of the Polder model

The central thesis of this article is that the formal institutions of the Dutch neo-corporatist model appear to display a remarkable stability and continuity, but that their actual functioning goes through a gradual transformation, whereby the system has essentially changed its character and has been eroded. First of all, the stability and continuity of the most important formal institutions of Dutch neo-corporatism since the Second World War is described. A number of developments are then outlined that indicate that the model is nevertheless subject to erosion in practice. These include a (contract) wage development that lags far behind productivity developments, the passing on of risks by companies to the employees and a growing number of collective agreements lacking the signature of the largest trade union(s). While the formal rules of the game have largely remained the same, the game of labor relations has changed dramatically in recent decades. As a result, the balance of power between trade unions and employers has changed strongly in favour of the employers.

Blockchain and the future of the work organisation

Blockchain has become popular because of Bitcoin. This Information and Communication Technology offers several opportunities as backbone IT-infrastructure for organisations. To understand the impact of blockchains on organising, a theoretical framework on information and communication costs has been used. The immutable ledger, smart contracts and decentralized autonomous organisations (DAO) help to reduce information costs, and hence help decentralize decision making and reduce labour division. Tokens and forking reinforce communication processes and may lead to more centralizing and stronger labour division. A case study of the company Numerai was conducted as illustration. Some risks are identified with this organising future.

Human resource management in the platform economy

The use of online platforms is a central aspect of the digitalization of organizations. In that light, some authors have coined the term “platform economy” to describe today’s organizational landscape. Besides the question how widespread the use of online platforms is, the question is how it relates to the human resource policies of organizations. This article investigates how the human resource policies of organizations – in terms of policies aimed at the development of human resources and innovation of human resource policies – relate to the use of online platforms (to offer goods and services and to collaborate with other organizations). Based on theoretical insights, two contrasting hypotheses are formulated, which are tested with data from 747 Dutch organizations. The analyses show that the use of online platforms is associated with policies aimed at the development of human capital and innovation of human resource policies.