The Formation and Repercussions of Routine Resistance in Online Labor Platforms

There is growing research into worker resistance in organizations that focuses on routine or mundane forms of resistance, and this study attempts to advance this field by examining the formation and repercussions of routine resistance on an online labor platform. Several studies suggest that workers cannot resist the control imposed by technology in modern organizations such as online labor platforms, which encourage independent work. But another set of studies suggests that some characteristics of these organizations encourage worker resistance. In this paper, we examine this paradox through a detailed ethnographic investigation of routine resistance and its ability to limit the management control of an online labor platform. Using the findings of Netnography - ethnographic fieldwork conducted in online environments, we examined routine resistance of the labor platform’s contract workers against the platform’s appointment of a vice president for community. The routine resistance was discursively formed and restricted the control mechanism of the online labor platform by confirming the identities of independent business owners and renegotiating the dominant discourse by the management.