Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada

Uber'ing away stigma: the impact of sharing technology on stigmatized occupations

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Abstract

Long-standing research on stigma suggests that when an occupation is stigmatized, new entrants will become stigmatized because stigma is sticky and transfers. While such work has advanced our understanding of stigma, the emergence of the sharing economy, and the new entrants that it has triggered raises questions regarding these assumptions about occupational stigma. For example, why have Uber and their drivers initially appeared to avoid this fate in the taxi-driving occupation? To answer this question, we explore how technology-driven changes, specifically sharing technologies, influence stigmatized occupations. We do this through an inductive longitudinal study of the impact of ride-sharing technologies on taxi-driving in Canada. We find that technological changes can lead to occupational stratification that emerges from the deflection of stigma for new entrants and the exacerbation of stigma for existing workers. In revealing this, we advance existing understandings of stigmatized occupations, occupational change, and the sharing economy.

Biography

Kam Phung is a PhD Candidate in Organization Studies and a Government of Canada Vanier Scholar at the Schulich School of Business, York University in Toronto, Canada. He holds master’s degrees from HEC Paris and the Norwegian School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Victoria, Canada. His research focuses on social issues in management, the good and the bad, from organizational and management perspectives. Some of his specific research interests include inequality, modern slavery, organizational wrongdoing, deviance, and stigma, as well as social entrepreneurship and social partnerships.