Hi everyone! Hope you are doing well during these trying times.
Here is a short and sweet roundup on interesting articles and projects we recently found covering Platform Cooperativism.
Platform Cooperativism
On-Demand and on-the-edge: Ride-hailing and Delivery Workers in San Francisco
Author(s): Chris Benner with Erin Johansson, Kung Feng, and Hays Witt
Publisher: Institute for Social Transformation, University of California Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz)
Year: 2020
Related Organizations:
Chris Benner
UC Santa Cruz
Erin Johansson
Jobs With Justice
Kung Feng
Jobs With Justice
Hays Witt
Drivers Seat Cooperative
Area(s): Platform Cooperativism, Data Cooperatives, Ownership, Cooperativism, Digital Cooperatives, Ridesharing, Partnerships, Local-to-Global, Mutualization, Delivery workers, Transportation
Article
https://transform.ucsc.edu/on-demand-and-on-the-edge/
https://transform.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/OnDemandOntheEdge_ExecSum.pdf
https://transform.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/OnDemand-n-OntheEdge_MAY2020.pdf
The Politics of Platform Capitalism. A Case Study on the Regulation of Uber in New York
Author(s): Timo Seidl
Year: 2020
Related Organizations:
Timo Seidl
European University Institute
Area(s): Platform Cooperativism, Data Cooperatives, Ownership, Anti-trust, Cooperativism, Digital Cooperatives, Partnerships, Local-to-Global, Mutualization, Alternative Organizing, Political Economy, Laws and Regulations, Platform Capitalism, Institutionalism
Abstract
Platform companies like Uber not only disrupt existing markets but also contest existing regulatory regimes. This raises the question of how, when, and why such companies are regulated. This paper develops, tests and defends a theoretical framework that explains the politics of regulatory response to the rise of platform capitalism. Using discourse network analysis and a case study on the regulation of Uber in New York, it shows that the success or failure of regulations depends on the ability of actors to mobilize broad coalition; that narratives affect the composition of these coalitions; and that platform companies have both unique political strengths and vulnerabilities. The paper makes substantive contributions to our understanding of the politics of platform capitalism, and it makes theoretical contributions to the literatures on coalitional politics, ideational institutionalism, and business power.
Article
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340065937_The_Politics_of_Platform_Capitalism_A_Case_Study_on_the_Regulation_of_Uber_in_New_York
Exploring the governance of platform cooperatives: A case study of a multi-stakeholder marketplace platform cooperative.
Author(s): Fredrik Andersson Bohman
Year: 2017
Related Organizations:
Fredrik Andersson Bohman
University of Gothenburg
Area(s): Platform Cooperativism, Data Cooperatives, Ownership, Internet Marketplace, Governance Models, Business Models, Commons, Cooperativism, Digital Cooperatives, Partnerships, Local-to-Global, Mutualization, Alternative Organizing, Sharing Economy, Solidarity Economy
Abstract
Platform cooperativism is a movement that criticise corporate-owned sharing economy platforms regarding their negative role in generating poor social conditions of labour and extracting huge profits simply by controlling the flows between supply and demand. The aim of this movement is to bring about a change in ownership structures in favour of the platforms workers, establish democratic governance and reinvigorating the notion of solidarity. There is however a serious need to expand our current theoretical and empirical knowledge regarding this concept. Especially concerning the governance of such initiatives which is moving away from centralized top-down decision making towards complex multi-stakeholder arrangements. The objective of this thesis is therefore to identify the implemented governance mechanisms in a platform cooperative and to define the effects that these governance mechanisms has generated in the cooperative. To achieve these objectives, an inductive case study was conducted on a multi-stakeholder marketplace platform cooperative called Fairmondo. The empirical findings revealed four categories of effects generated by Fairmondos governance mechanisms, these are navigating capitalism, facilitating democratic participation, enabling mandatory transparency, engaging the community. Having identified these four categories of effects, four interwoven components constituting a general governance system for multi-stakeholder platform cooperatives was proposed, which can guide further research and practical endeavours. The theoretical contributions to commons governance and platform cooperativism is to have shown that similarities exist between both streams of literature which enrichens the novel research on platform cooperative governance with empirically tested design principles. Additionally, the proposed governance system can act as a tool for practitioners of platform cooperativism to analyse and develop their own governance structure according to the four components presented.
Article
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/53721/1/gupea_2077_53721_1.pdf
#CoopTech: Platform Cooperativism as the Engine of Solidary Growth
Author(s): Anna Burnicka and Jan J. Zygmuntowski
Year: 2019
Publisher: Fundacja Inicjatyw Strategicznych (Instrat)
Related Organizations:
Jan J. Zygmuntowski
Fundacja Inicjatyw Strategicznych (Instrat)
Area(s): Platform Cooperativism, Data Cooperatives, Ownership, Internet Marketplace, Governance Models, Business Models, Cooperativism, Digital Cooperatives, Partnerships, Local-to-Global, Mutualization, Alternative Organizing, Sharing Economy, Solidarity Economy, European Cooperatives
Article
www.instrat.pl/cooptech
Potentials and Challenges of the Health Data Cooperative Model
Author(s): Ilse van Roessel, Matthias Reumann and Angela Brand
Year: 2018
Publisher: S. Karger AG, Basel
Journal: Public Health Genomics
Related Organizations:
Ilse van Roessel,
Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Matthias Reumann
The United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Angela Brand
IBM – Research, Zurich, Switzerland
Area(s): Platform Cooperativism, Data Cooperatives, Health Data Cooperatives, Data Sovereignty, Ownership, Data Trusts, Data Collaboratives, Data Privacy, Cooperativism, Digital Cooperatives, Partnerships, Local-to-Global, Mutualization, Alternative Organizing, Data Democratization, Data Analytics, Data Economy
Abstract
Introduction: Currently, abundances of highly relevant health data are locked up in data silos due to decentralized storage and data protection laws. The health data cooperative (HDC) model is established to make this valuable data available for societal purposes. The aim of this study is to analyse the HDC model and its potentials and challenges. Results: An HDC is a health data bank. The HDC model has as core principles a cooperative approach, citizen-centredness, not-for-profit structure, data enquiry procedure, worldwide accessibility, cloud computing data storage, open source, and transparency about governance policy. HDC members have access to the HDC platform, which consists of the “core,” the “app store,” and the “big data.” This, respectively, enables the users to collect, store, manage, and share health information, to analyse personal health data, and to conduct big data analytics. Identified potentials of the HDC model are digitization of healthcare information, citizen empowerment, knowledge benefit, patient empowerment, cloud computing data storage, and reduction in healthcare expenses. Nevertheless, there are also challenges linked with this approach, including privacy and data security, citizens’ restraint, disclosure of clinical results, big data, and commercial interest. Limitations and Outlook: The results of this article are not generalizable because multiple studies with a limited number of study participants are included. Therefore, it is recommended to undertake further elaborate research on these topics among larger and various groups of individuals. Additionally, more pilots on the HDC model are required before it can be fully implemented. Moreover, when the HDC model becomes operational, further research on its performances should be undertaken.
Article
https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/489994
Democratizing Health Research Through Data Cooperatives
Author(s): Alessandro Blasimme, Effy Vayena and Ernst Hafen
Year: 2018
Publisher: Springer Link
Journal: Philosophy & Technology
Related Organizations:
Alessandro Blasimme
Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Effy Vayena
Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Ernst Hafen
Department of Biology, ETH Zurich, Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, Zurich, Switzerland
Area(s): Platform Cooperativism, Data Cooperatives, Health Data Cooperatives, Data Sovereignty, Ownership, Data Trusts, Data Collaboratives, Data Privacy, Cooperativism, Digital Cooperatives, Partnerships, Local-to-Global, Mutualization, Alternative Organizing, Health Research, Data Democractization, Data Analytics, Citizen Empowerment, Policy Change, Data Economy
Abstract
Massive amounts of data are collected and stored on a routine basis in virtually all domains of human activities. Such data are potentially useful to biomedicine. Yet, access to data for research purposes is hindered by the fact that different kinds of individual-patient data reside in disparate, unlinked silos. We propose that data cooperatives can promote much needed data aggregation and consequently accelerate research and its clinical translation. Data cooperatives enable direct control over personal data, as well as more democratic governance of data pools. This model can realize a specific kind of data economy whereby citizens and communities are empowered to steer data use according to their motivations, preferences, and concerns. Policy makers can promote this model by recognizing citizens’ rights to access and to obtain a copy of their own data, and by funding distributed data infrastructures piloting new data aggregation models.
Innovative data mining capabilities, such as natural language processing and machine learning, can detect clinically relevant patterns in an ever-expanding sea of health data. Emerging paradigms like precision medicine (Collins and Varmus 2015; Blasimme and Vayena 2017) and digital health (Vayena et al. 2018) are premised on such advanced capabilities (Hawgood et al. 2015). However, before deploying such tools, phenotypic, clinical, lifestyle, and multi-omic data—including data generated directly by patients and healthy individuals—must become available for analysis. This is not happening at the desired pace, as different kinds of individual-patient data reside in disparate, unlinked silos (Tenopir et al. 2011; Blasimme et al. 2018).
We propose that data cooperatives can promote much needed data aggregation and consequently accelerate research and its clinical translation. The rationale for adopting data cooperatives is that people (healthy and sick) are the legitimate controllers of their personal data. Data cooperatives offer tools for exerting direct control over personal data, and for participating in the democratic governance of data pools. This model can realize a specific kind of data economy whereby citizens and communities are empowered to pull multifarious types of data in one place, and steer data use according to their motivations, preferences, and concerns. Policy makers can promote the creation of data cooperatives by recognizing citizens’ right to access and to obtain a copy of their own data, and by funding the creation of distributed data infrastructures piloting new data aggregation models.
Article
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-018-0320-8
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