Suchergebnisse

Dans un article de science politique, Colin Elman présente une analyse de la démarche par typologie. Il se sert de cette démarche pour critiquer la manière dont deux auteurs ont conçu leurs propres typologies. C'est sur cet aspect critique que le papier qui suit met l'accent, montrant comment une typologie ingénieuse, « parlante », construite à partir d'études empiriques, peut cacher des problèmes méthodologiques graves.

Dans un article de science politique, Colin Elman présente une analyse de la démarche par typologie. Il se sert de cette démarche pour critiquer la manière dont deux auteurs ont conçu leurs propres typologies. C'est sur cet aspect critique que le papier qui suit met l'accent, montrant comment une typologie ingénieuse, « parlante », construite à partir d'études empiriques, peut cacher des problèmes méthodologiques graves.

This article aims at gaining a better understanding of how, in a market environment, categorized actors construct their identity in relation to the category to which they are assigned. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted at eBay, we consider how the newly categorized 'business sellers' connected eBay's framing of the category (categorical framing) to their subjective interpretations of it (categorical self). We find that business sellers perceived varying levels of discrepancy between categorical framing and categorical self, which led them to engage in processes of identification, identity work and disidentification. Based on our findings, we present a framework relating the level of perceived discrepancies to distinctive paths of identification and we draw implications for understanding the interaction of categorization and identification. The framework highlights how feelings of self-enhancement, injustice and alienation intervene in orienting individuals' paths of identification.

Drawing on interviews with 77 high-performing eBay business sellers in France and Belgium, this article investigates the power asymmetries generated by customers' evaluations in online work settings. Sellers revealed a high degree of sensitivity to negative reviews, which, while infrequent, triggered feelings of anxiety and vulnerability. Their accounts exposed power asymmetries at two levels: the transactional level between sellers and customers and the governance level between sellers and eBay. Our findings highlight three main mechanisms underlying power asymmetries in this context. First, online customer evaluations have created a new form of employee monitoring in which power is exercised through the construction of visibility gaps between buyers and sellers and through an implicit coalition between buyers and the platform owner, who join together in the evaluation procedures. Second, by mediating and objectifying relations, algorithms reproduce power asymmetries among the different categories of actors, thereby constraining human agency. Third, online customer evaluations prompt sellers to exploit their practical knowledge of the algorithm to increase their agency. Through the lived experience of working for an algorithm, our findings contribute new understandings of power and agency in online work settings.