Exploring the Implications of Working Conditions for Corporate Sustainability in Last-Mile Delivery Platform Companies

Research output: Indexed journal article Articlepeer-review

Abstract

Last-mile delivery platforms have recently emerged as effective business models to match supply and demand, even though they have been criticized for potentially exploiting their workers. This paper investigates the corporate sustainability and socio-economic trade-offs of platform companies in relation to working conditions (i.e., work relationships, social subsystems, and technical subsystem). A survey of 392 paid-per-order workers from six food delivery platforms across Spain was conducted to validate our research framework. Our findings provide a nuanced understanding of the impact of working conditions on corporate sustainability in platform companies. On the one hand, there are positive implications for both social and economic sustainability in the presence of higher earnings, rights and protections, and empowerment for workers. Conversely, prolonged work relationships between workers and platform companies are negatively related to workers’ perceived stress and individual performance. Based on these insights, we advance our understanding of how platform companies can deal with conflicting objectives regarding working conditions by adopting an instrumental approach in the case of short-term workers and an integrative approach with long-term workers.

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages25
JournalJournal of Business Ethics
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Nov 2024

Keywords

  • Last-mile delivery
  • Sharing economy
  • Social sustainability
  • Worker well-being

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Exploring the Implications of Working Conditions for Corporate Sustainability in Last-Mile Delivery Platform Companies'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this