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Barriers To Entry of Gig Workers in The Gig Platforms: Exploring The Dark Side of The Gig Economy
Barriers To Entry of Gig Workers in The Gig Platforms: Exploring The Dark Side of The Gig Economy
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Barriers to entry of gig workers in the gig platforms: exploring the dark side of
the gig economy
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Abstract
Purpose – The alternative arrangements to traditional employment have become a promising area in the gig
economy with the technological advancements dominating every work. The purpose of this paper is to explore
the barriers to the entry of gig workers in gig platforms pertaining to the food delivery sector. It proposes a
framework using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) for which systematic literature review is done to
extract the variables. This analysis helps to examine the relationship between the entry barriers to gig
platforms. The study further proposes strategies to reduce the entry barriers in gig sector which would help to
enhance productivity and generate employment opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach – The study uses interpretive structural model (ISM) to ascertain the
relationship between various entry barriers of the gig workers to the gig platforms. It also validates the
relationship and understand the reasons of their association along with MICMAC analysis. The model was
designed by consulting the gig workers and the experts allied to food delivery gig platforms namely Zomato
and Swiggy.
Findings – It was observed that high competition, longer login hours and late-night deliveries are the
significant barriers with high driving power and low dependence power. Poor payment structures and strict
terms and conditions for receiving the incentives are interdependent on each other and have moderate driving
and dependence power. The expenses borne by the gig workers, such as Internet, fuel and vehicle maintenance
expenses have high dependence power and low driving power. Hence, they are relatively less significant than
other barriers.
Research limitations/implications – The study is confined to food delivery sector of India, without
considering other important sectors of gig economy for generalizing the framework. As the study is based on
forming an ISM framework through literature review only, it does not consider other research methods for
analysing the entry barriers to the gig platforms.
Practical implications – The study attempts to dig out the low entry barriers for gig workers in food
delivery platforms as there is a dearth of analysis of these factors. This study would weave them using ISM
framework to help the gig platforms overcome these barriers at various levels, thus adding to the body of
literature.
Originality/value – The study discusses the need for understanding relationship between the entry barriers
in the form of ISM model to identify the dependent and driving factors of the same.
Keywords Gig economy, Interpretive structural modelling, Food delivery sector, Entry barriers,
MICMAC, India
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Digitalization and globalization have led to the growth of the gig economy across the globe to Aslib Journal of Information
Management
support alternative work arrangements that have the advantage of flexible working hours. © Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
With the advancement in technology, people’s preferences for jobs have changed from DOI 10.1108/AJIM-08-2021-0235
AJIM traditional ones to freelance services (Todolı-Signes, 2017). The surge of Internet users and
the demand for food delivery services have created a broad opportunity for India’s sprawling
gig workers to work as per their own convenience. While the demand to access the desired
goods and services is transforming the urban economies, the gig workforce is devalued at its
core due to high competition and unemployment prevailing in the country (Davidson and
Infranca, 2015).
The era of growth-at-all-costs has made many gig workers unhappy because of increasing
discounts and coupons given to the customers (Ray et al., 2019) and market correction rates
prevailing in the gig sector. The monthly income of food delivery gig workers has plummeted,
which is unfair when the demand for such deliveries is at an inflection point (Kaine and
Josserand, 2019). Gig platforms have added delivery persons by thousands due to such high
demand, as this sector has very low entry barriers. Since they are contract workers who are not
even directly hired through the gig platforms, they are not covered in the ambit of labour
regulation and social security. They have no say in the wages and terms of work, and the
incentives are strictly based on their working hours. The gig platforms offer employee benefits
such as accident, medical and life insurance but the claim to such benefits hardly reaches them.
Additionally, the modest income received by the gig workers leads to frequent dropouts or
irregularity in the work schedule of the gig workers (Behl et al., 2021; Anwar and Graham, 2021).
It is important to understand that existing literature in this sector has failed to list the
entry barriers that gig workers face while choosing to work under this platform. Existing
studies focus on barriers and problems faced by the gig workers during their work or the
challenges faced by the gig economy in general (Tan et al., 2021; Koutsimpogiorgos et al.,
2020; Bregiannis et al., 2017). Although the studies mention that there are low entry barriers in
the gig economy, it is essential to portray these entry barriers concerning food delivery
platforms and their impact on the gig sector.
The COVID-19 crisis reveals the unprecedented growth of the gig sector due to the drastic
demand for jobs in the economy. Considering the dearth of literature and paucity of studies in
this field, the following are the objectives of the study:
(1) To explore the entry barriers for the gig workers in the gig platforms in India,
(2) To develop a theoretical framework for understanding the barriers that gig workers
face when entering the gig platforms and
(3) To recommend strategic measures to combat the restrictions and barriers for gig
workers in the gig platforms in India.
The present work aims to address the research gaps in the literature and highlights the
importance of gig workers in the food delivery sector, such as Zomato and Swiggy, with the
help of a hierarchical model. The study utilizes the ISM model that reveals the hierarchy of
the identified barriers to entry in the gig sector based on their interrelationship. The reachability
matrix and level partitioning is done by identifying the barriers and representing them in a
diagraph. There exist umpteen studies that discuss concepts related to the factors that make
gig workers choose gig jobs. However, the entry barriers are not addressed clearly in the
past literature. The relationship link to these barriers is also missing. Hence, the present
study addresses three important research questions, namely:
RQ1. What are the entry barriers for the gig workers in the gig platforms?
RQ2. What are the reasons for developing a theoretical framework to understand the
relationship between these entry barriers for the gig workers in India?
RQ3. What are the driving and dependent factors for these entry barriers in the gig
platforms?
As showcased by the literature review in the next section, which consists of the entry barriers Barriers to
for the gig workers in the gig platforms, this study proposes to design a conceptual entry of gig
framework using interpretive structural modelling (ISM). This will help understand the linear
relationship between all the entry barriers that act as constructs to the study. The theoretical
workers
framework will help understand the factors restricting the gig workers from choosing gig
jobs in the food delivery sector. This study would suggest strategic measures to combat the
same for the mutual benefit to both sides of the gig economy. The study also discusses which
entry barriers are essential in the gig sector that helps in bringing potential outcomes of
growth in the gig economy. To the best of our knowledge, such a study is being conducted for
the first time, by listing down the entry barriers and confirming the same with the gig
workers and their recruiters.
The study is divided into five sections. The first section introduces the topic and discusses
the significance of the study. It explains the gig economy’s background and how the entry
barriers of the gig workers to the gig platforms serve as a dark side of this sector. The second
section depicts the background of scholarly work done in the gig sector to find the entry
barriers that restrict the gig workers from taking gig jobs in the food delivery sector in India.
The section extends the entry barriers by shortlisting the variables and exploring the
relevant work done in this field and identifying the research gaps. The third section discusses
the research designs and research methodology used in the study. The fourth section
discusses the results of the analysis derived from ISM. The last section concludes the study
and lists the unique contributions and limitations, and signifies the future scope of research.
2. Review of literature
2.1 Overview of the gig economy
With the rapid proliferation of technological innovations, the gig economy has contributed to
the development of non-standardized forms of work through digital platforms. These
platforms operate with low basic pay, job insecurity and low fringe benefits. Since the jobs are
contractual and flexible in nature, they tend to be a secondary income source for most gig
workers. This is often termed as on-demand jobs, digital work, just-in-time work or shared
economy, where a short-term task is assigned to an individual, for which they are
contractually paid, and the platforms have high worker turnovers (De Stefano, 2016; Farrell
and Greig, 2016). The contingent work is digitally mediated, and can be performed remotely
at the location of the customers (Graham and Anwar, 2018). With low barriers to entry and
simple accessibility, the gig economy works with complete autonomy of working hours,
developing a boundary-less career for the gig workforce. The study extracts these low entry
barriers to the gig platforms, specifically in the food delivery sector, with the help of past
literature from renowned journals.
3. Research design
3.1 Instrument development
We developed a qualitative approach to create a conceptual framework for understanding the
relationship of the entry barriers for gig workers in the gig platforms in the food delivery
sector in India. The study was conducted in several phases. It started with extraction of Barriers to
several entry barriers of gig workers in the gig platforms namely Zomato and Swiggy with entry of gig
the help of literature review.
Table 1 briefly summarizes the existing literature on barriers and references that impact
workers
gig workers’ entry on gig platforms in the food delivery gig sector, as identified from the
above literature survey.
It is essential to mention that there were ten constructs/barriers initially identified through
the literature review, which are clearly depicted in Table 1 above. But out of those ten
constructs, only six were shortlisted with the help of interviews from gig workers of Zomato
and Swiggy. These barriers were cross-examined with the experts who are recruiters of food
delivery platforms to understand the relationship between them. The four constructs which
were excluded from the analysis of gig workers and experts encompass:
(1) Digital skills
(2) Background checks
(3) Language barriers
(4) Gender discrimination
Brief description
S. no of the barriers References
B1 Payment structures Bergman and Jean (2016), Ahmad (2020), Belanche et al. (2021), Prassl
(2018), Roy-Mukherjee and Harrison (2020), Heeks et al. (2021),
Woodcock and Graham (2019), Anwar and Graham (2021)
B2 Incentives Parwez and Ranjan (2021), Mukhopadhyay and Chatwin (2020),
Krijger (2019), Wu and Zheng (2020), Allon et al. (2018), Butschek et al.
(2019), Collier et al. (2017), Adams et al. (2018), Ray et al. (2019), Horton
(2017), Kung and Zhong (2017), Taylor et al. (2017)
B3 High competition Gomez-Herrera et al. (2017), Anwar and Graham (2021), Johnston and
Land-Kazlauskas (2018), Schwellnus et al. (2019), Collier et al. (2017),
Williams et al. (2021), Ostoj (2019), Graham et al. (2017), Shibata (2020)
B4 Operating expenses Prabhat et al. (2019), Schwellnus et al. (2019), Buchak (2019), Herrera
et al. (2020), Manriquez (2019), Todolı-Signes (2017), Xiao (2019),
Bharadkar et al. (2020)
B5 Login hours and late-night Yakubovich et al. (2018), Dunn (2020), Cano et al. (2021), Shevchuk
deliveries et al. (2021)
B6 Social protection and Van Doorn et al. (2020), Hunt et al. (2018), Chen et al. (2020), Aranguiz
retirement benefits and Bednarowicz (2018), Bregiannis et al. (2017), Chaudhary (2021),
Roy and Shrivastava (2020), Rahim et al. (2021), Friedman (2014),
Donovan et al. (2016), Etzioni (2018), Leenoi (2021), Veluchamy et al.
(2021), Osorio (2020)
B7 Digital skills Huang et al. (2018, 2020), Heeks (2017), Gandhi et al. (2018), Jarrahi and
Sutherland (2019), Soriano and Panaligan (2019)
B8 Background checks Van Doorn et al. (2020), Heeks (2017), Hunt et al. (2018), Collier et al.
(2017), Norlander et al. (2021), Donovan et al. (2016), Christie and Ward
(2019), Enwukwe (2021) Table 1.
B9 Language barriers Van Doorn et al. (2020), Montgomery and Baglioni (2021), Page- Summary of entry
Tickell et al. (2020) barriers for gig
B10 Gender discrimination Pober (2019), Kasliwal (2020), Tan et al. (2021), Milkman et al. (2021), workers in the food
Galperin (2019), Vyas (2021), Kaine et al. (2020), Bansal et al. (2021), delivery gig platforms
Chaudhary (2021), Churchill and Craig (2019) in India
AJIM 3.2 Sampling design and data collection
The study used ISM that commences with shortlisting variables considered relevant to the
issue (Attri et al., 2013). This was followed by taking opinions from both the gig workers and
the experts and recruiters from the gig platforms respectively, who helped identify entry
barriers and identify relationships among them. ISM is one such technique that helps
understand the directional relationship between various constructs (Warfield, 1974). A
questionnaire was developed to identify the entry barriers, for which the gig workers of
Zomato and Swiggy were consulted. To understand the relationship between the identified
barriers, we interviewed the recruiters from the recruitment agencies of Zomato and Swiggy.
The main objective of this study was to determine the relevant barriers that impact the gig
workers the most while entering the gig platforms.
The questionnaire was handed out to 45 gig workers who were the respondents of the
study, and the data from 30 respondents has been used in the study (Rafiq et al., 2021); hence,
the response rate of the study is 67%. The reliability of the questionnaire was checked
through Cronbach’s alpha and was found to be 92.1%. This value is significantly high.
The identification of six barriers out of a total of ten barriers depicted the impact and
significance of these barriers on the entry of gig workers in the food delivery gig platforms.
All the other barriers were rejected because their contribution in creating an impact on the gig
workers was extremely low.
The experts also helped to cross-examine the barriers shortlisted by the gig workers.
The experts included five recruiters from recruitment agencies of Zomato and Swiggy. The
interrelationship of these entry barriers was discussed with these experts and all the
irrelevant barriers, those having the least impact, were removed. All the overlapping barriers
were clubbed under one head. Experts also discussed the significance of the barriers
identified through literature review and held that some of them were just the essential
requirements of gig workers to join a gig platform rather than a barrier, and hence they
should be eliminated from the list. For example, the documents required for joining gig
platforms include PAN card and Aadhar card, which is a mandatory requirement and not an
entry barrier for any gig worker. A similar explanation was developed for gendered
employment and discrimination, which was eliminated as a barrier because all the
respondents interviewed were males. The recruiters held that women are generally reluctant
to work in the food delivery sector. They are unable to get incentives as they cannot dedicate
long hours to this work, and sustainability always remains an issue for them. Internet
connectivity and knowing the local language was another basic requirement of the gig work
rather than being an entry barrier. Since all these barriers were of very low significance and
were considered more like requirements of gig workers to enter in their gig jobs, they were
eliminated from the list.
The selected barriers were discussed in detail with both gig workers and experts. The next
step was to frame structural self-interaction matrix (SSIM) with the help of these selected
variables. The shortlisted constructs were arranged in a matrix, discussed with the gig
workers and crosschecked with the recruiters. The responses from both the classes of
respondents were clubbed to understand the contextual relationship between these barriers.
The questionnaire was successfully understood by most of the respondents to identify the
unique relationships between these six constructs of the study. The recruiters, who were the
study experts, helped fill the entire set of questions in V, A, X and O format, as depicted in
Table 2.
A SSIM matrix classifies the entire set of variables into factors “i” in columns and factors
“j” in rows and explains the direction of these variables with the help of four symbols. This
helps in understanding which variable drives or influences the other variable. Thus, VAXO
matrix depicts:
V – barrier “i” needs to be addressed before barrier “j” Barriers to
A – barrier “j” needs to be addressed before barrier “i” entry of gig
X – both barriers “i” and “j” need to be addressed simultaneously
workers
O – barriers “i” and “j” can be addressed independent of each other
This helps in identifying and assessing the precedence and association of linear relationships
between these barriers. This precedence drawn between the constructs omitted showing the
relationship of each barrier with itself to bring clarity regarding their associations with each other.
Considering the objectives of the proposed study, ISM was used to develop a conceptual
and theoretical model through semi-structured interviews. This was extended with Matrice
d’Impacts Croises-Multiplication Applique (MICMAC analysis) by analysing the driving and
dependence power of these barriers. The MICMAC analysis is also called cross-impact matrix
and it classifies these variables into four parts: autonomous, linkage, dependent and
independent factors.
ISM technique is divided into several steps according to Figure 1, as discussed here:
(1) A list of constructs which are relevant to the study are identified and shortlisted with
the help of existing literature.
(2) The Delphi method or expert opinion is used to understand the theoretical
relationship among various study barriers, which helps achieve the study’s main
purpose.
(3) SSIM is developed for variables to understand their pair-wise relationship.
(4) SSIM is converted into a reachability matrix to depict the relationship of variables in
binary numbers.
(5) The transitivity check is conducted to check if these variables are dependent on each
other to get the final reachability matrix
(6) Iteration levels are assigned to the final reachability matrix to understand their levels.
(7) A diagraph is developed with these iteration levels and VAXO matrix is converted
into an ISM model.
(8) The ISM model is reviewed and MICMAC analysis is done to analyse each variable’s
driving and dependence power for better insight into interdependencies.
1 Payment structures V O V A X
2 Incentives O A O A
3 High competition V V O Table 2.
4 Operating expenses O A Structural self-
5 Login hours and late-night deliveries O interaction
6 Social protection and retirement benefits matrix (SSIM)
AJIM List of entry barriers of gig
Literature review
workers to th e gig pla orms
Yes
Replace variable nodes with Is there any
rela onship statement conceptual
inconsistency?
No
1 Payment structures 1 1 0 1 0 1
2 Incentives 1 1 0 0 0 0
3 High competition 1 1 1 0 1 1
4 Operating expenses 0 0 0 1 0 0 Table 3.
5 Login hours and late-night deliveries 0 1 0 1 1 0 Initial reachability
6 Social protection and retirement benefits 0 0 0 0 0 1 matrix
AJIM Table 4 explains the driving power and dependence power of the constructs. The driving
power depicts that all the factors that consist of 1s drive and impact other factors. The
dependence power depicts that all the factors consisting of 1s can be depended upon in
the ISM model. The transitivity shows the numerical changes by eliminating errors from all
the constructs in the model. The maximum value of any driving or dependence power in the
entire reachability matrix will be 6, and the minimum value will be 1. The diagonal number
shown in the matrix will always remain 1 as this shows the effect of the factor on itself. All the
binary numbers directly impact the MICMAC analysis also, which is explained in the next
section.
After developing the final reachability matrix, we derive the reachability sets and
antecedent sets. The reachability set (the number of 1s from the driving power) consists of the
factor itself and other factors which it can create an impact on. The antecedent set (the
number of 1s from the dependence power) consists of the factor itself and other factors that
may impact it. This is accompanied by the intersection set derived from reachability and
antecedent set respectively to assess the levels of ISM hierarchy. All the entry barriers placed
on the topmost level are independent in nature, and they do not lead to the other entry barriers
in the ISM hierarchy. All the entry barriers placed in the subsequent levels lead to the other
barriers in the study. The entire process of finding the level of each entry barrier helps in
building a diagraph as shown in Table 5.
Table 5 represents the iteration levels of all the entry barriers that are developed with the
help of a conical matrix which clubs all the barriers that fall on the same level in the final
reachability matrix. This is done by matching the numbers of reachability set and
intersection set, which helps allocate levels to these barriers. The highest or the topmost level
is given to those barriers with common numbers between reachability set and intersection
set, and subsequently, the levels are decided. Once the conical matrix is developed, the
diagraph is converted into an ISM model by employing the transitive links attained in
Table 5.
Entry barriers
“j”
S. no Brief description of the entry barriers (i) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Driving power
1 Payment structures 1 1 0 1 0 1 4
2 Incentives 1 1 0 1* 0 1* 4
Table 4. 3 High competition 1 1 1 1* 1 1 6
Final reachability 4 Operating expenses 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
matrix indicating the 5 Login hours and late-night deliveries 1* 1 0 1 1 0 4
driving and 6 Social protection and retirement benefits 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
dependence power Dependence power 4 4 1 5 2 4
B1 1, 2, 4, 6 1, 2, 3, 5 1, 2 II
B2 1, 2, 4, 6 1, 2, 3, 5 1, 2 II
B3 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 3 3 IV
Table 5. B4 4 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 4 I
Diagraph representing B5 1, 2, 4, 5 3, 5 5 III
levels partitioning B6 6 1, 2, 3, 6 6 I
4.2 Results of ISM framework Barriers to
The ISM framework depicts the study’s outcome, representing a four-level hierarchical model entry of gig
consisting of six barriers that gig workers face while entering the gig platforms in the food
delivery sector in India. The ISM model is created to depict the association of each entry-level
workers
barrier with the other barrier and the directional connection between them.
The discussion with the recruiters of food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy helped
in understanding the association between all the six entry barriers as shown in Figure 2. The
results reflect the following observations:
The model shows that the entry barrier “high competition” appears at the bottom of the
hierarchy and has the maximum impact on the gig workers while choosing food delivery gig
platforms for their jobs. During the interviews, the gig workers discussed their concerns
about the lack of jobs in the market and high unemployment, especially during the pandemic.
Hence, a lot of people are turning towards gig platforms for work. Although the food delivery
platforms are much in demand, the demand for gig workers is also high. With the rise in
competition and availability of these gig workers at peak timings, they keep themselves
logged in for longer hours to get more orders for deliveries (Mulcahy, 2017). To avoid high
competition during the daytime and earn some extra bucks, gig workers also work for late-
night deliveries. Hence high competition drives/influences late-night deliveries and prolonged
login hours for the gig workers, thus making this an entry barrier in the gig platforms.
Since the terms and conditions required for getting incentives are stringent, gig workers
need to work for fixed hours and make sure that they make a fixed number of deliveries every
single day. Hence, more gig workers try to work for longer hours and during night shifts to
get incentivized for their work apart from basic delivery rates (Christie and Ward, 2018). The
basic pay per delivery or the payment structures offered to gig workers is revamped and
reduced to much lower levels. The gig workers shared their concerns about working more
than 12 h a day to sustain themselves in this work. They hardly have any bargaining powers
in these complex systems where they cannot even decline the orders assigned to them – if
they do, these gig platforms have the right to suspend their IDs. Most of the time, the
kilometres that the app shows ignores the long U-turns that these gig workers need to take to
deliver food to the destinations.
4 5 1,2
1 6 4
WEAK
I II Figure 3.
0 Driving and
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 dependency power
WEAK DEPENDENCE POWER STRONG mapping of barriers to
entry of gig workers in
Note(s): Cluster I: Autonomous factors; Cluster II: Dependent factors; the gig platforms
Cluster III: Linkage factors; Cluster IV: Independent factors
influence this barrier. Similarly, gig workers have many concerns about the daily expenses
they have to bear to provide services to the customers. Due to low basic pay these gig workers
get for their deliveries, these expenses sometimes get challenging to manage. On a parallel
front, some customers do not receive calls for guiding them to the address, make them wait for
cash on delivery and misbehave with them, and they get penalized if orders are not delivered
on time.
The third quadrant represents two barriers at the same point, that is, poor payment
structures, economic vulnerability and strict terms and conditions for receiving incentives.
These are linkage factors that signify strong driving and dependence power. During the
interviews, the discontent from the payment structures was majorly quoted by most gig
workers, irrespective of the weather conditions they work in. The fourth quadrant comprises
independent or driving factors comprise two barriers, namely “high competition” and “longer
login hours or late-night deliveries”. These factors have strong driving power but weak
dependence power in the system. High competition has the strongest driving force to drive all
other variables directly or indirectly in the system. This has been a concern for those gig
workers who entered the gig platforms during the pandemic when most people lost their jobs.
The demand for food deliveries has increased during these times, exerting a strong control on
its market share. Hence, the government needs to frame policies to fix a basic pay structure if
unemployment cannot be controlled at this stage. Currently, neither the state government nor
the central government is taking steps for the providing benefits to these workers (Parigi and
Ma, 2016). The union budget of 2021 proposes a portal to collect information on gig workers,
but not many steps have been taken towards this.
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Corresponding author
Aastha Behl can be contacted at: aasthabehl1610@gmail.com
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