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Journal ArticleDOI

Enclosure 4.0: Seizing Data, Selling Predictions, Scaling Platforms

01 Jan 2020-Sociologia-Vol. 14, Iss: 3, pp 241-265
TL;DR: The essay sets off by reiterating the agentic qualities of machinery for understanding the dynamics of platformization and elucidates the dialectical dynamics of (dis)embedded digital platform labor, and explores the platformization of manufacturing and agriculture and the morphing of the material and the digital in the Internet of Things (IoT).
Abstract: Advance notice: Rather than a straight narrative, this is a roadmap, roughing out rather divergent pathways for the further exploration of platforms The essay sets off by reiterating the agentic qualities of machinery for understanding the dynamics of platformization and elucidates the dialectical dynamics of (dis)embedded digital platform labor Subsequently, the societal implications of the “asset-light” business model of platforms as well as of the framing of platform labor as independent entrepreneurship are explored After perceiving datafication through the optic of assetization, the essay finally explores the platformization of manufacturing and agriculture and the morphing of the material and the digital in the Internet of Things (IoT) A somewhat restless journey, no doubt But positioning the various pathways vis-a-vis Karl Polanyi’s stand should prevent us from losing orientation
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The platform model is the distinguishing organizational form of the early decades of the twenty-first century Whereas actors in markets contract, hierarchies command, and networks collaborate, platforms co-opt assets, resources, and activities that are not part of the firm as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The platform model is the distinguishing organizational form of the early decades of the twenty-first century Whereas actors in markets contract, hierarchies command, and networks collaborate, platforms co-opt assets, resources, and activities that are not part of the firm As a distinctive organizational form, the platform model confronts a distinctive managerial challenge: how to manage value-creating activities that are undertaken on the platform but not in the firm? In a triangular geometry, platform owners co-opt the behavior of providers and users, enrolling them in the practices of algorithmic management without managerial authority having been delegated to them Acting on their own behalf, the ratings and other activities of providers and consumers are algorithmically translated into rankings and other calculating devices that circulate through feedback loops that are twisted rather than circular Algorithmic management involves a peculiar kind of cybernetic control because at each fold of the feedback loop accountability can be deflected and denied Whereas Scientific Management in the early twentieth century offered a legitimating principle for the growth of a new managerial class, algorithmic management in the early twenty-first century is reshaping the managerial class Its power asymmetries at the organizational level are related to coalitions at the regulatory level in which platform owner and investors are in alliance with platform consumers

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that an archetypal transaction platform is comprised of three canonical social relationships which exist in tension with each other: mutuality, autonomy, and domination.
Abstract: This Special Issue advances a new understanding of digital platforms as dynamic and relational. An archetypal transaction platform, we argue, is comprised of three canonical social relationships which exist in tension with each other. The first is mutuality—the practices of sharing and reciprocity which animated the early days of the ‘sharing economy’. The second is autonomy—representing the desire for freedom and independence attracting many earners to platforms. The third is domination—the exercise of power and control which drives many platform owners and managers. As we argue below, these three social relationships are present in varying degrees on all platforms. By conceptualizing platforms as contested relational structures, we aim to bridge prior attempts to classify ‘what platforms are’ with diverse empirical studies of ‘what platforms do’ in different contexts. In our view, platforms can do different things at the same time because they are different things at the same time.

29 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the processes through which non-corporate platforms are created, maintained, disseminated, and locally implemented; given this type of platform's absence of critical size.
Abstract: The Covid19-pandemic has accelerated processes in which digital platforms, privileged by their critical size, become central instances of urban life. While most scholars associate platform urbanism with transnational platform corporations, such as Amazon or Facebook, local non-corporate platforms unexpectedly persist despite lacking critical size. This article analyzes processes through which non-corporate platforms are created, maintained, disseminated, and locally implemented; given this type of platform's absence of critical size. We explain the persistence of local non-corporate platforms by drawing on the concept of embeddedness. Embeddedness accounts for non-market-based, i.e. socially and culturally influenced behavior, that shapes economic interactions. We distinguish between network embeddedness, in which organizations maintain permanent and exclusive relationships with one another, and local embeddedness, which combines Hess' (2004) notions of societal embeddedness and territorial embeddedness. This article is empirically grounded on an analysis of two most different ways of creating and maintaining, disseminating, and locally implementing non-corporate platforms: Platform cooperativism and free/libre open-source software-based platforms (FLOSS-based platforms). Two empirical case studies of collaboratively governed Western-European non-corporate platforms, Gebiedonline and Decidim, respectively inform the analysis of platform cooperativism and FLOSS-based platforms. Gebiedonline is a platform cooperative through which neighborhood and theme-specific platforms are created. Decidim is a FLOSS-based platform that is mainly used for civic and political participation processes. We find that governments and civil society stakeholders create non-corporate platform technology by disentangling processes related to the creation, maintenance, and dissemination of platform technology from platform implementation processes. Following platform creation, platform maintenance is embedded in a network. Non-corporate platforms pool cost-intensive technology maintenance, while platform implementation necessarily takes place in a locally embedded manner.

4 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society, is examined, and it is argued that reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong.
Abstract: How behavior and institutions are affected by social relations is one of the classic questions of social theory. This paper concerns the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society. Although the usual neoclasical accounts provide an "undersocialized" or atomized-actor explanation of such action, reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong. Under-and oversocialized accounts are paradoxically similar in their neglect of ongoing structures of social relations, and a sophisticated account of economic action must consider its embeddedness in such structures. The argument in illustrated by a critique of Oliver Williamson's "markets and hierarchies" research program.

25,601 citations


"Enclosure 4.0: Seizing Data, Sellin..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…245 The soft-Polanyi perception of embeddedness, championed by the new economic sociology built around the paramount contributions of Mark Granovetter (1985), scales down the focus from societal institutions to the analytical level of concrete personal relations and networks (Dale,…...

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1966
TL;DR: The Tacit Dimension, originally published in 1967, argues that such tacit knowledge - tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments - is a crucial part of scientific knowledge.
Abstract: 'I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell', writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. "The Tacit Dimension", originally published in 1967, argues that such tacit knowledge - tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments - is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

13,830 citations

ReportDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that the stock of human capital determines the rate of growth, that too little human capital is devoted to research in equilibrium, that integration into world markets will increase growth rates, and that having a large population is not sufficient to generate growth.
Abstract: Growth in this model is driven by technological change that arises from intentional investment decisions made by profit-maximizing agents. The distinguishing feature of the technology as an input is that it is neither a conventional good nor a public good; it is a nonrival, partially excludable good. Because of the nonconvexity introduced by a nonrival good, price-taking competition cannot be supported. Instead, the equilibrium is one with monopolistic competition. The main conclusions are that the stock of human capital determines the rate of growth, that too little human capital is devoted to research in equilibrium, that integration into world markets will increase growth rates, and that having a large population is not sufficient to generate growth.

12,469 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that the stock of human capital determines the rate of growth, that too little human capital is devoted to research in equilibrium, that integration into world markets will increase growth rates, and that having a large population is not sufficient to generate growth.
Abstract: Growth in this model is driven by technological change that arises from intentional investment decisions made by profit maximizing agents. The distinguishing feature of the technology as an input is that it is neither a conventional good nor a public good; it is a nonrival, partially excludable good. Because of the nonconvexity introduced by a nonrival good, price-taking competition cannot be supported, and instead, the equilibriumis one with monopolistic competition. The main conclusions are that the stock of human capital determines the rate of growth, that too little human capital is devoted to research in equilibrium, that integration into world markets will increase growth rates, and that having a large population is not sufficient to generate growth.

11,095 citations


"Enclosure 4.0: Seizing Data, Sellin..." refers background in this paper

  • ...436): They obviously are not scarce resources and their utilization is non-rivalrous (utilization by one actor does not preclude utilization by another), while the marginal costs of reproducing data is essentially zero (Romer, 1990)....

    [...]

  • ...…a particular class of “troublesome commodities” (Gandy, 2011, p. 436): They obviously are not scarce resources and their utilization is non-rivalrous (utilization by one actor does not preclude utilization by another), while the marginal costs of reproducing data is essentially zero (Romer, 1990)....

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Book
28 Mar 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the key to the institutional system of the 19 century lay in the laws governing market economy, which was the fount and matrix of the system was the self-regulating market, and it was this innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization.
Abstract: But the fount and matrix of the system was the self-regulating market. It was this innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization. The gold standard was merely an attempt to extend the domestic market system to the international field; the balance of power system was a superstructure erected upon and, partly, worked through the gold standard; the liberal state was itself a creation of the self-regulating market. The key to the institutional system of the 19 century lay in the laws governing market economy. (p. 3).

8,514 citations


"Enclosure 4.0: Seizing Data, Sellin..." refers background in this paper

  • ...And crucially (and therein lies our inattentiveness), the commodity fiction disregards “the fact that leaving the fate of soil and people to the market would be tantamount to annihilating them” (Polanyi, 1944/2001, p. 137)....

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  • ...The hard-Polanyi perspective of embeddedness is firmly anchored in the fundamental critique of marketization and unravels the efforts necessary to break labor free from “the rest of life” (Polanyi, 1944/2001, p. 76)....

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  • ...For all the ambiguity (generative or not) of his writing, Polanyi is exceptionally plain when it comes to the transformative role of machinery (Polanyi, 1944/2001; pp. 12, 44, 75–76, 92, 98)....

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