Instead of having managers, these workers are beholden to customer reviews. The relationship is rocky
Anyone who buys goods or services online has come to rely on the guidance of the stars—that is, the five-star rating system that aggregates customer evaluations of everything from products to restaurants to nursing homes.
On digital labor platforms like Uber, TaskRabbit, and Upwork, that rating system is applied to individual workers—with tremendous consequences for those being evaluated.
[This article has been republished, with permission, from Kellogg Insight, the faculty research & ideas magazine of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University]