Precarious Work and Technology
A distinguishing feature of platform-mediated gig work is platform firms’ reliance on—and continued experimentation with—algorithmic management. My research into various types of location-based gig work in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States has examined how algorithmic management facilitates labor control, exacerbates worker precarity, and shapes workers’ everyday tactics and possibilities for collective resistance. This program of research addresses the following research question: How do platform firms deploy algorithmic management to manufacture worker consent and facilitate labor control in service workplaces? How do workers fight back? How do prolonged precarious (platform) work experiences extend into other domains of social life and shape one’s future projections?
Ongoing and completed projects
“Precarious Working Lives and Projected Futures: Biographical Narratives of Delivery Riders, Care Workers, and Social Media Content Creators in Hong Kong” (ongoing; 2027—2029) (supported by the General Research Fund, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong SAR)
“Moral Economies of Labor Platforms: A Comparative Study of Platform Power in Hong Kong and Taiwan” (completed; 2023—2025) (supported by the Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong SAR)
“Algorithms and Labor: How Gig Workers Manage Corporations, Technology and Customers” (completed; 2017—2021) (supported by CALS Alumni Association Research Grant, Cornell University)
Selected publications
Chan, N. K. (in press). “Striving for hope”: The cycle of worker resistance against food delivery platforms in Hong Kong. In A. Wolf & M. Figueroa (Eds.), Global gig economy and the local conditioning of algorithmic work. University of Illinois Press.
Chan, N. K. (in press). Understanding the ambivalence of platform work through a moral economy approach: Narratives from food delivery and ride-hailing workers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In C. A. Scolari, M. Guerrero-Pico, & M. Piña (Eds.), Working in/for platforms (pp. 276–289). Wiley.
Chan, N. K. (2026). Platform worker organizing for power: Relational dynamics of platform unionism in Taiwan’s food delivery sector. Work in the Global Economy.
Chan, N. K. (2025). Dynamics of platform architecture and labor unrest: Mobilizing and contesting solidarity in the 2021–2022 Foodpanda delivery rider strikes in Hong Kong. Social Media + Society, 11(1), 20563051251319578.
Chan, N. K. (2022). Algorithmic precarity and metric power: Managing the affective measures and customers in the gig economy. Big Data & Society, 9(2), 1–13.
Vasudevan, K., & Chan, N. K. (2022). Gamification and work games: Examining consent and resistance among Uber drivers. New Media & Society, 24(4), 866–886.
Chan, N. K. (2019). “Becoming an expert in driving for Uber”: Uber driver/bloggers’ performance of expertise and self-presentation on YouTube. New Media & Society, 21(9), 2048–2067.
Chan, N. K. (2019). The rating game: The discipline of Uber’s user-generated ratings. Surveillance & Society, 17(1/2), 183–190.
Chan, N. K., & Humphreys, L. (2018). Mediatization of social space and the case of Uber drivers. Media and Communication, 6(2), 29–38.