The Future of Digital Work: The Challenge of Inequality

I thank the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) for inviting me to this conference and would like to commend it for taking up the difficult task of addressing issues of digital inequality. There are many forms of digital inequality, which I am sure the conference will address. However, in this talk I would like to focus on a particular form, that is gender inequality in the digital world.

Over the last decade, a wave of crises – financial crisis, climate change, and COVID-19 pandemic, antiracism movement - have amplified and made visible the challenges of inequality in our society and global economy.

In an information-based society, having accurate and timely information can influence the success of entrepreneurs in their business. Often, due to limitations in their resources and capabilities, entrepreneurs rely on their social capital to satisfy their information need. Moreover, trust and respect are two fundamental factors that not only influence the information seeking behaviour (ISB) but also the inter-actions within the social capital of an entrepreneur. However, despite the significance and relevance of these concepts, there is a lack of systematic reviews regarding the nexus between trust and respect in entrepreneurs’ ISB. Consequently, this study aimed to conduct a literature review on the ISB of entrepreneurs with an emphasis on the roles trust and respect play in their decision-making when viewed through the lens of social capital theory (SCT). The review findings indicated that both trust and respect influence entrepreneurs’ ISB, especially in their decision-making in selecting their information sources. Entrepreneurs select in-formation sources that they trust, respect and feel respected by in return. The influence of trust and respect in entrepreneurial information source selection is also related to the seeker’s perception of the social cost/risk. Lastly, the review findings showed that when viewed through the lens of SCT, respect plays a key role in forming and nurturing trust within relationships. Based on the review findings, we also point out the gaps in the current entrepreneurship literature and suggest a number of themes for future research.

This paper aims to investigate whether ICT technologies can have an enabling impact by creating opportunities for self-reliance and self-employment for refugees while they rebuild their lives. In the process, we explore the challenges refugee entrepreneurs in Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi face. Drawing on 25 structured interviews with successful refugee entrepreneurs, the findings suggest that refugee entrepreneurs frequently use digital tools. However, digital literacy is the main obstacle towards accomplishing the full potential of ICT tools and achieving the full benefits of this technology. With one exception, data collection using ICT tools regarding current customers is not common. Given the chance, almost all respondents are eager to obtain customer feedback so they can improve customer satisfaction. Among 25 entrepreneurs 7 are female and among them one with a non-traditional female business.

Digitalization of research processes, like those related to open science, for example, has had mixed outcomes for the visibility of African scholarship. One reason for this may be that ICT-based interventions aimed at improving African research systems presume a country deficit model, that is, a view that Africa’s research environment is inherently under-resourced, and failing. Our study set out to explore, through a collaborative rich picture exercise, how research practices are viewed in Rwanda in the light of digitalization by a mixed group of global North and South information specialists. Through an in-depth qualitative inductive analysis of the participants’ accounts, we uncovered not only a dominant discourse of “deficit”, but also an underlying but hidden counter-narrative of resistance to this. We extrapolate how this view could be seen as having the potential for more optimistic outcomes in promoting a more inclusive African research paradigm. We then suggest a research agenda to explore the potential for the digitalization of research processes to provide a means of enabling a dialogue between Western and indigenous forms of knowledge.

The gig economy continues to disrupt different traditional markets such as transport, accommodation, and domestic work in the global South. The gig economy offers flexibility, autonomy and higher earning potential for gig workers. However, it is not without its challenges such as precarious working arrangements, occupational hazards and employment uncertainty. This study explores key survival strategies employed by domestic workers offering their services through one of South Africa’s prominent gig platforms that specializes in domestic work. The study used semi-structured interviews with questions based on an adapted conceptual framework based on Folkman’s cognitive theory of stress and coping. Three main categories of challenges face domestic workers in the gig economy: application induced technology challenges such as platform usability; occupation-specific challenges such as exposure to dangerous and unhealthy environments; and gig work induced service perceptions such as unrealistic expectations. These challenges result in negative consequences such as personal trauma, exhaustion and financial loss. Workers report feeling exploited and unsure about their relationship with the platform. The workers adopt various problem-focused, emotion-focused, support-seeking, and meaning-making survival strategies that include avoiding bookings by previously problematic customers, negotiating alternative terms with customers outside of the app, enduring traumatic experiences and complying with unreasonable demands. Platforms should consider financial and relationship transparency in their relationship with gig workers as well as affording gig workers more choice and flexibility regarding client bookings.

The promise of Open Government Data (OGD) rests on the publication, availability, use and reuse of government data. This research focused on how social factors such as data ownership, network creation and power enabled or constrained the publication and use of OGD in Ghana, a developing country in West Africa. Ghana’s government data was expected to be both legally and technically open. However, socially constructed behavioral patterns and practices such as power, data ownership and network creation played critical roles in influencing the institutionalization of OGD in Ghana. An interpretive descriptive case study analysis helps understand how social processes influenced the institutionalization of OGD publication and use in Ghana. Giddens’ Structuration Theory was used as the main theoretical lens in this study because of its ability to investigate the dynamic interplay between social agency and social structures. Findings from the study indicated that power within Ghana’s OGD ecosystem is associated with legitimatized practices and behaviors such as data ownership, culture and networks.

Digital labour is viewed as having the capacity to drive the technological and economic development by addressing critical issues that often encountered in African countries like South Africa, such as high unemployment, low local wages, lack of local demand and others. As such, it is seen as a crucial steppingstone towards (South) Africa’s move towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). However, digital labour could also bring significant drawbacks such as exploitation of workers, unguaranteed or no remuneration. This research investigates the attitudes toward digital labour, intention to participate in digital labour; initial experiences from participating in digital labour and continued participation in digital labour practices. We propose, validate and empirically test a new integrative model, and supplement our model with qualitative findings. Digital workers’ attitudes and experiences toward digital labour did, unsurprisingly, correlate significantly with the intention and participation of people in digital labour with key aspects of digital labour pertaining to the Global South being identified. Most individuals responded positively toward their experience with digital labour, particularly based on the compensation that they expected or experienced for their digital work.

It has been several years since ride-sharing platforms such as Ola and Uber have entered the Indian market. As a type of matching service, mainstream economic theory predicts that they will bring economic efficiencies to hired transportation. In this study, we investigate the impact of ride-sharing on drivers of taxi cabs and auto-rickshaws in New Delhi through a mixed-methods study involving 60 drivers. We find mixed outcomes for drivers with little clear evidence of overall benefit. We saw no statistically significant impact of ride-sharing on drivers’ average revenue per day, though the data is suggestive of income gains of 7–18% which seem likely to be due to longer hours driven. In contrast to the corporate marketing where driver autonomy and flexibility are oft-cited perks, our participants tended to report less autonomy and control with ride-sharing. And, we find evidence that drivers face greater uncertainty with respect to their income as ride-sharing companies offer intermittent promotional incentives. Our findings are consistent with technological amplification theory. Through ride-sharing platforms, unequal power dynamics between large corporations and low-wage workers are amplified: ride-sharing companies wrest control from drivers while providing little in return.

With on-demand labour and location-based services becoming increasingly common, this paper explores the complex social justice impact of spatial and temporal elements of digital platforms. A conceptual framing of ‘spatiotemporal justice’ is proposed to explore the consequences of algorithmic control of space and time experienced by workers. An interpretive case-study is built focusing on work practices of food-delivery platforms in the south Indian city of Chennai. The qualitative methods used include semi-structured interviews of food-delivery workers and an autoethnographic study by the author as a worker on digital platforms. The empirical analysis demonstrates that (in)justice is involved with the workers’ negotiation of multiple micro-spatiotemporalities in their daily work practice. The impacts include workers being forced to balance spatiotemporal risk and stress against the benefits of employment. This is contextualised by inequities propagated due to imperfect digital representation of, and the asymmetrical information on spatiality and temporality within the platform. The workers are further affected adversely in their spatiotemporally subordinated power relationship with other groups of digital platform’s stakeholders. Spatiotemporal justice as conceptualised here has direct implications in how future of work is defined, governed and how digital platforms are held accountable – particularly in the global South.

Purpose - While the potential of digital platforms for socio economic development is recognized, limited knowledge exists on the development of these platforms beyond the literature that is focused on commercial for-profit business models in the Global North. Platforms that host application ecosystems have the most potential for value creation for the platform owner and all users. However, little is understood about how public-sector platform owners can enable the creation of application ecosystems where traditional economic incentives for 3^rd party, generic application development are not so explicit. Drawing on case study data drawn from the recent proliferation of third-party applications in the district health information software (DHIS2) digital platform, the authors propose themes influencing the innovation by 3^rd party application developers for a digital global public goods (DGPG).

Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on a study of the DHIS2 that is implemented in over 80 countries globally. The platform operates a free and open source (FOSS) philosophy, has a core application that can be downloaded for free, and an app hub containing supplementary, generic 3^rd party developed applications. The platform core is supported by University of Oslo and major international donor organizations to support its implementation in contrast to the business models of commercial digital platforms that require explicit monetization. Following a thematic analysis case study methodology, this paper investigates the motivators of complementors to create innovative apps thus creating a virtuous cycle of value generation for the platform.

Findings - The data reveal that there are three themes that exist in the decisions by 3^rd-party developers to produce generic applications within the DHIS2 platform; boundary resources, networks for innovation, and enlightened self-interest. Working in concert, these themes influence the complementor to create a generic application that can be applied across thousands of DHIS2 databases and generate value for the platform and all users equitably.

This paper addresses the importance of using a power perspective to understand the social impact of technology in society. We use the Foucauldian concept of technologies-of-the-self to highlight the dialectical relationship between dominating structures of power and the individual capabilities of human actors, as mediated through technology, within a given context. This is done by studying the use of an mHealth intervention by health workers within a PHC (primary health care) centre in India. The study generates theoretical implications for understanding the processes of empowerment through technology within a developing country context.

We have seen increased adoption of electronic medical records (EMR) to facilitate the monitoring and recording patient trajectories. Information systems and allied discipline researchers have argued that paper persistence post EMR implementation is pervasive because: limitations in the system design and institutional policies lack an understanding of the clinical workflow. I question the doctor focused and clinical workflow-oriented understanding of medical record-keeping that ideates EMR as having a role only within the hospital boundaries. By providing empirical data from two settings: a rural secondary care hospital, and a metropolitan multinational hospital, I unpack situations when patients’ healthcare needs were central to the doctor’s work, instead of using information technologies, i.e., EMR. The projection of EMRs as artefact limited to the hospital setting and only for clinical purposes discounts the role of patients’ life world in clinical interactions, and runs the risk of devaluing the experiential and affective knowledge of both patients and doctors. EMR, I argue, cannot support doctors’ work unless the patient’s role is recognized. I propose that EMR systems be flexible, situated in the patient’s practical context, rather than administrative and clinical work-oriented only.

This paper reports on a rare story of sustainability success of a HMIS implementation in a low and middle income country context of India. The narrative is set in the Indian state of Odisha, where the DHIS2 is being implemented for the state Health Management Information System since 2008. The authors of this paper have been engaged both in research and practice supporting the implementation since the start, and draw upon this rich and longitudinal data source to analyze from the perspective of the state government “the challenges they faced with respect to sustainability, and how have they overcome them”. Three sets of sustainability qualifiers were identified-benefits/continued benefits, institutionalisation/ routinisation and development - which have been key in enabling sustainability. However, going forward, the authors identify the need for additional qualifiers to strengthen the aspect of data use, which till date remains weak as compared to data quality management.

Public health information systems in LMICs have an been studied in the context of primary health care while systems in district hospitals have not attracted the required attention. This is a sad neglect, given that district hospitals in LMICs cater to a high proportion of the population in a district and also provide life-saving healthcare services. ICTs have played a significant role in improving social trust in LMICs and we explore this in context of public health in India. While getting hospital information systems to work in district settings is a non-trivial and expensive challenge, it becomes imperative to understand what benefits citizens experience with the introduction of such systems. Drawing from an empirical base of a successful 10-year implementation of a hospital information system across a network of 20+ district hospitals in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India, the authors use the conceptual perspective of institutional and interpersonal trusts to analyze the perceived benefits seen for patients, and how this has helped shape patient trust towards the technological intervention and the hospital from where they avail services.

Agile methods have been popular in the software industry particularly in relation to technical innovations. However, agility in terms of providing health information support within a crisis laden pandemic situation such as COVID-19 is less well understood. This paper focused on an ongoing response of design, development, and implementation of a COVID-19 surveillance system based on DHIS2 platform in Sri Lanka. Our analysis aims at understanding; and developing agility.

An interpretive case study approach was adopted where qualitative data were gathered using multiple methods such as participant observation, document analysis, historical accounts, informal interviews and using secondary data. Thematic analysis technique was adopted where themes were identified collectively following multiple iterations of collaborative analysis.

We argue that the flexibility of the software platform, good technical and medical capacity and new modes of collaboration on systems development across institutional borders have contributed to the agility shown in the Sri Lankan context and its success in meeting health information challenges posed by COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for good quality data. The World Health Organization (WHO) has published recommended data standards for managing information about the pandemic, and in this paper we study an initiative to rapidly disseminate and implement these standards at the national level. A common challenge in standardisation initiatives is the tension between global, “universal” standards and the local. We contribute to the body of knowledge around this tension, through our case that concerns the diffusion of a global standard for management of COVID-19 information using a digital platform. A defining feature of the platform architecture is how it consists of a relatively stable platform core, which can be extended with variable complements. We show how this characteristic can facilitate the dissemination of standards, by allowing implementors of the standards to adapt the standard through innovative complements, thus easing the tension between the “universal” aspects of the standard and the local reality.

This paper reports on the process of designing an Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) surveillance platform based on expertise from multidisciplinary approach involving informatics, infectious diseases and global health. Conceptualizing the surveillance platform as an Information Infrastructure (II), we draw upon design principles for its development based on the free and open source digital platform - DHIS2. We describe the scaling process over three action research cycles, with the learning from each cycle feeds into the other both practically and conceptually. The first two cycles are based in India, the first at the regional level of surveillance and the second at a hospital facility level. The third cycle concerns efforts to build global networks to facilitate scaling efforts. The paper builds learning around the design and development process, with a particular focus on functional and geographical scaling, contributing to building the information systems response to address a very urgent and fast rising global health challenge of AMR.

This paper aims to understand how digital technology can support businesses in unmasking labour exploitation in supply chains towards more effective remediation. It presents a case study using empirical evidence collected through expert interviews, document analysis, and a survey. Our findings illustrate that digital technology has the potential to support businesses in identifying cases of labour exploitation in supply chains during social compliance audits if tools are used within enabling environments. This research constitutes an original analysis of the intersection between corporate social responsibility and social compliance auditing, digital technology, and the critical issue of labour exploitation in supply chains. It identifies a flawed logic in expecting workers to use technology to report on exploitation without providing necessary scaffolding or support structures. We identify the role of intermediaries or surrogate accountability as critical in assisting workers and transforming working conditions.

Increasing use of ICTs in organisations has contributed to a resurgence of automation anxiety centred around issues of human skills and employability. Prior work, however, shows that human skill and knowledge are necessary for supervision, adjustment, maintenance, improvement and expansion of new technologies. Through our ethnographic case study of work practices of Front-End Executives in three retail bank branches in India, we find that customers continue to rely heavily on both technical and functional skills of these bank employees even with the increasing presence of ICT-based self-service technologies. We argue that human skills and intermediation help in the process of adoption of digital technologies in banking and thereby retain trust in digital banking despite substantial disruption caused by new technologies. The aim of the paper is to reiterate the importance of human skill in enabling meaningful engagement with new technologies for diverse actors across different strata of society.

We advance a structured view of the Futures of Work (FoW) using a futurist’s lens to advance two goals: advancing core dimensions to the FoW while outlining the Futurist’s approach to considering possible futures. Professional futurists point out that they do not predict the future, but rather, build a number of futures – in plural. These views of the futures are presented as scenarios to help decision makers consider alternatives and better understand interactions among the planning dimensions. The scenarios that drive planning are constructed by drawing on characteristics or dimensions that will shape our futures. It is these dimensions that we present here. We offer five foundational dimensions for the FoW, articulating them as opposing perspectives to frame the issue: (1) Virtuality versus Compressed working arrangements; (2) Atomistic work versus Holistic work; (3) Algorithmic versus Human decision-making; (4) Neoliberal capitalism versus Safety-net capitalism; (5) Übermensch versus Nihilists. We use these dimensions to provide scenarios to illustrate their use. We conclude by reflecting on the shock of the 2020 pandemic and the roles of firm size relative to the futures of work.

This paper reports on several studies in the context of implementing the humanoid social robot Pepper in a financial institution. The results show that the robot can affect the boundary relations between the roles of customer and service worker differently from common-sense expectations. While employees initially feared to be automated away by the robot, the results suggest that the relationship is more likely to change through an emotional bonding to the robot being projected to the company deploying it. Therefore, the robot might, at least partially, assume the role of the service worker as an ambassador of the company, which could recede more into the background in this regard. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of current literature on the changing boundary relations through robot innovations.

Inter-ethnic violence has flared in recent years across Kenya’s periphery due to struggles around processes of political devolution, corrupt systems of governance, elite sponsorship, cattle rustling, climate change, famine, land, politicization of ethnic relations and illicit arms. Violence has resulted in loss of life, loss of livelihood, increased hatred between communities and large-scale displacement. New ways of violence prevention are needed to achieve sustainable peace, and contribute to broader efforts of social development. This article analyses the implications of integrating ICT in mitigation of ethnic violence in Northwestern Kenya. The theoretical lens of social capital is used, with a focus on different forms of bonding, bridging and linking to analyse how ICTs can reduce those forms of capital that enhance violence and simultaneously promotes those that can promote peace. Our study finds that relatively simple ICT applications that can help inform anonymously on potential violent conditions and initiate speedy and effective response to them, can help promote binding social capital at the expense of bonding forms. This changing dynamics around the constitution of social capital has contributed to effectively promoting peace building efforts. The paper thus contributes to the important domain of ‘ICTs for Peace’ research and more broadly to ICT4D.

Many professions, in the most diverse sectors of activity, have undergone great changes over time, largely due to the responsibility of technological evolution.

The rapid evolution of information technologies will, certainly imply, that employment in general and employment in Information Systems (IS), in particular, undergoes major changes both in terms of creating new professions and even for the extinction of others, as indeed it has already happened when professions such as telephone operators, typists, telegram distributors, typographers and even encyclopedias sellers disappeared.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the changes that can be expected in employment in IS for 2030 - how will work in IS be: what professions will be extinguished, which ones must adapt to the new reality and what the need for professions that do not yet exist.

After a review of the literature on the evolution of employment in IS over the years, realizing the trends of its evolution, a guide was elaborated for semi-structured interviews that were used in meetings with 6 (six) Portuguese organizations, in order to list their perceptions of the changes that are expected in the very near future.

From the analysis of results, it will be possible to have a clearer idea of the changes that are already occurring today, as well as what still needs to be changed. This answer will allow us to reflect on how to prepare tomorrow’s professionals, in IS, for the job market in 2030.