2025/07 | LEM Working Paper Series | ||||||||||||||||
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Leveraging Workforce Flexibility to Navigate Platform-Induced Uncertainty: A study of the Italian Restaurant and Hospitality Sectors |
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Valeria Cirillo, Donato Cutolo, Dario Guarascio, Martin Kenney and Jacopo Tramontano |
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Keywords | |||||||||||||||||
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digital platforms; labor; platform dependence; employment relationships, Industrial
organization, industrial economics; Cross-sectional large-N, survey; Power, domination, resistance
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JEL Classifications | |||||||||||||||||
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L22, O23, D22, D80, J21, J23, J82
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Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
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As the platform economy continues to reshape the way we live, work,
and consume, firms across industries are increasingly dependent upon
platforms to engage with customers. Although prior research highlights
how these firms develop strategic responses to cope with risks and
vulnerabilities stemming from platform power, it tends to overlook how
such uncertainty may affect their internal organizational
structures. In this study, we examine how reliance on digital
platforms influences firms’ employment practices. Drawing on a
comprehensive dataset from the Digital Platform Survey (DPS),
administered by Italy’s National Institute for Public Policy Analysis
(INAPP) to over 20,000 hotels and restaurants, we find that platform
participation has a positive correlation with the use of non-standard
employment relationships (NSERs). Specifically, holding everything
else constant, companies that rely on platforms for customer
acquisition exhibit roughly 5% higher share of NSERs compared to those
that do not. Multiple tests indicate that this effect varies according
to structural characteristics, competitive strategies, and contextual
factors that expose firms to differing levels of dependence on
platforms—findings that support our conjecture of reliance on NSERs
being a coping mechanism for platform-induced uncertainty. Our study
advances the literature on how firms respond to the risks of
platform-based intermediation and contributes to ongoing debates about
the labor implications of digital transformation. As platform
intermediation intensifies across sectors, these insights have
important academic and policy implications.
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