The use of customer ratings to evaluate worker performance is increasingly worrisome because of its widespread use in the gig-economy. As scholars in computer and social sciences denounce, this practice entails the risk of producing discriminatory outcomes, by reproducing biases existing in society. By drawing an analogy with discriminatory practices adopted by an employer to satisfy its customers' preferences, we propose a legal analysis of this phenomenon grounded in EU non-discrimination law. Thus, we first analyse the issues related to the application of non-discrimination law to (alleged) self-employed workers. Then, we address the lack of access for the individual worker to the data regarding customers' ratings. We conclude by arguing that the use of customer ratings should be considered as a suspect criterion, while the current (EU) non-discrimination laws should be modernised through a clearer inclusion of (alleged) self-employed workers. / Series: ohne Reihe

With many kinds of personal information becoming available online in the past decades, this dissertation addresses the personal, managerial, and societal implications of personal information online that used to be private in the past. Essay One (Chapter 2) investigates the role of social information (such as names and profile photos) in racial discrimination against Blacks using a correspondence method on an online rental housing platform. It examines whether Blacks with non-Black-sounding names are discriminated against, compared to those with Black-sounding names or Whites, when race is signaled through profile photos. In addition, it studies whether building less complete profiles (e.g., using pseudonyms or not presenting profile photos) impartially hurts Blacks and Whites. Essay Two (Chapter 3) compares involuntary discovery and voluntary disclosure of personal information (invisible stigma) in a hiring context. It examines how the two modes of learning about job applicants’ social media differently influence hiring outcomes. Essay Three (Chapter 4) looks at party identity as antecedents of online privacy decisions for public safety such as personal data for contact tracing and crime detection. Additionally, it investigates two interventions that promote online privacy decisions for public safety when party identity is salient: deemphasis on party identity and recategorization as national identity. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the literature on information systems, social psychology, and economics by highlighting the role of digital technology in enabling a greater depth of identity disclosure and discovery and thus changing the landscape of perception and decision-making today. / Business Administration/Management Information Systems

Nowadays, people have many business activities and entertainments on a variety of online platforms. Despite their various functionalities, online platforms have a fundamental administrative problem: How do platform designers or administrators create proper online environments, including mechanisms and policies, to better manage user behaviors, in order to reach the goals of the platforms? Starting with a taxonomy of online platforms, I introduce three critical dimensions that help to characterize such platforms, including revenue model, heterogeneity in the role of users and level of user interaction. Then, I choose three online platforms as research contexts and conduct empirical studies, trying to identify and understand the impact of the incentive program, quality information disclosure, and social influence, on users' decision-making in online platforms. The first essay investigates the effectiveness of incentive hierarchies, where users achieve increasingly higher status in the community after achieving increasingly more challenging goals, in motivating user contribution in the same platform. The findings have important implications for crowd-based online applications, such as knowledge exchange and crowdsourcing. The second essay focuses on online consumer review sites, and studies whether and how consumer-generated word-of-mouth of restaurants-both volume and valence-is influenced by the disclosure of quality information from health inspectors, by conducting analytical modeling and econometric analyses using data from a leading consumer review site. The third essay examines how social interactions matter in a large-scale online social game that adopts an increasingly popular freemium revenue model. The study leverages an econometric model to quantify the effect of peer consumption on players' repeated decisions for the consumption of both free services and premium services. Finally, I conclude the dissertation by highlighting the three fundamental issues of design and management of online platforms.

Tesis

This thesis examines the role of online platforms in relation to anti-progressive counterpublic dynamics. Counterpublicsare understood as alternative discursive arenas that form in response to exclusion from the wider public sphere. The relevance of counterpublics derives both from their ability to influence mainstream political discourse and from how anti-progressive counterpublics have been found to contribute to real-life violence. As the internet becomes an increasingly important venue for political discussion and contestation, the public sphere is extended online. This study explores how platforms can be seen as enabling (or constraining) the dual function of online counterpublics, i.e. as both inward and outward-oriented in relation to opposing publics, by examining the anti-feminist online community known as “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW). The role of platforms is understood in terms of platform affordances, and netnographic methods were used to study these in relation to two online platforms. The results show that the two platforms presented different opportunities for the MGTOW counterpublic to some extent, suggesting that this counterpublic is able to utilise platforms for different purposes. Twitter was found to be particularly suitable for the outward-oriented function, i.e. for interacting with and opposing other publics, while mgtow.com was shown to be fertile ground for the inward-oriented function, and in that sense enabled contact between members in a way that contributed to the development of anti-progressive counterdiscourse.

Background: Online platforms have nowadays been more developed and used by the population. For this reason, companies use to share more information through them. Moreover, the interest in sustainability also increases by people. Therefore, companies are trying to communicate sustainability through different techniques and actions.   Problem: we have noticed that companies create different content depending on which social media are they communicating. For this reason, we found interesting to look for how companies communicate sustainably.   Purpose: the purpose of this thesis is to answer the question about how companies communicate sustainability through social media. Moreover, the thesis aims to contribute to the existing knowledge.   Method: To answer this question the researchers conducted a multiple case study of three companies that communicate sustainability through the different 4 online platforms studied (Website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter).   Results: the main result find by conducting the research is in how companies place the product in order to communicate sustainability, as some of them place it as a protagonist and some others do not.

The study investigates the rise of online platforms that support teacher-to-teacher knowledge mobilisation. The adoption of the interpretative approach focuses the investigation on how the online platforms, their resources and the learning opportunities they provide are conceptualised by teachers in relation to their broader teaching practice, workplace culture and professional learning. The study is framed by two overarching research questions. (1) What is the nature of the knowledge being shared and reconstructed by teachers in Internet-mediated knowledge mobilisation? (2) What is the nature of the learning arising from teacher-to-teacher Internet-mediated knowledge mobilisation? The study employs a multiple case-study design to investigate two United States based online platforms, which facilitate teacher-to-teacher knowledge sharing. Twenty teachers from across the two cases were selected to participate in the study. A qualitative methodology was utilised. Teachers participated in an individual, face-to-face interview. In the two months following the initial interview teachers completed a weekly journal log detailing their engagement with the platform. Upon the completion of their journal logs, teachers participated in a follow-up interview via Skype. To help to contextualise the individual teachers within the broader case and to enrich their personal stories, observations of the platforms occurred throughout the data collection period. The study proposes a new theoretical model for how to conceptualise Internet-mediated knowledge mobilisation, the knowledge that is produced and the learning that occurs through the reconstruction process. It emphasises the connection between offline and online contexts and the role the platforms play in breaking down the boundaries between teachers' school-based practice and online resources and learning opportunities. The framework encapsulates the combining of the individual and their contexts of action, together with the platform and the information and knowledge it contains, to determine and shape the operation of the knowledge reconstruction process and the learning that transpires. Internet-mediated knowledge mobilisation facilitates the development of teachers' personal, practical knowledge by providing insight into the instructional practice of teachers and exposing teachers to new ideas and perspectives, which support the expansion of their propositional structures and episodic knowledge. Access to relevant, teacher-created materials increases the efficiency and effectiveness with which teachers can undertake elements of their practice, while also promoting learning through participation in work-based tasks. Individualism emerges as the dominant mode of engagement and learning in the study, with individual teachers regulating not only how and when they engage but also determining the outcomes they construct from their actions. The Internet, as a knowledge mediator, opens up new possibilities that are not available in teachers' offline contexts. It not only breaks down boundaries between teachers, but it also collapses boundaries between the various settings of teachers' professional practice and learning, effectively merging the offline and online contexts of teachers' work. The dual contexts of the platforms offer specific affordances that help to shape teachers' engagement, while also acting to promote new learning processes that do not exist in offline knowledge mobilisation.

Against the background of urban transformation processes aggravated by e-commerce, this paper discusses chances and challenges of local online platforms. Three hypotheses are introduced. Firstly, the rapid emergence of numerous local online platforms in various European countries is linked to the urban heritage of the European City. Secondly, the success of these platforms depends on the integration of diverse services. Thirdly it is argued, that platforms need to adapt to future topics of smart retail which is why a more holistic approach is appropriate. A best practice analysis is conducted, which gives an insight into the variety and complexity of local online platforms.

In conjunction with the rise of populism all over the globe, social media has been acknowledged as an important arena for populist actors to disseminate their political ideas. This thesis aims to examine the relationship between social media and right-wing populism by exploring how an online platform mediates right-wing populist discourses. In contrast to the existing literature on this relationship, the social media platform TikTok is studied in this thesis. This study examines how online activists that are campaigning for the Sweden Democrats utilize the possibilities provided by TikTok’s material functions in relation to the social context in which they are used. Participant observation was conducted to study these dynamics, understood as platform affordances. The results show that the activists disseminate right-wing populist ideas on TikTok by utilizing functions for self-publication (of video). In terms of the proliferation of these videos, populist communication styles appear to be favored on this platform. A mapping of the social composition and available resources of these activists shows that their usage of the platform to conduct activism is affected by these factors, demonstrating different pathways to becoming an influential activist on TikTok.

This paper starts by an explanation of the context of personal branding and online personal branding and the problem identified by the authors. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate on the perception of students towards online personal branding through their own personal brand and with the perspective of matching employer’s expectations. A section reviewing online personal branding and related literature is provided in order to describe among others, the several components of the elaboration of an online personal brand and the different employers’ expectations towards this brand. Next, a section describing the different methods used in the study is implemented. The data of this paper is gathered through 13 semistructured interviews based on an operationalization of the different concepts presented in the theoretical framework section. The results are then presented in the empirical investigation section following recurrent identified themes bring by the respondents: The need to fit the norm, to stand out and of control. Then the data is analyzed through the theories and is therefore following the different components of an elaboration of a personal brand including the different items related to employer’s consideration and practices. Then the conclusion is drawing in order to answering the research question as well as providing some acknowledgement and recommendations. This paper has permitted to describe the perception of student towards online personal branding with the perspective of matching employers’ expectations. This perception is a rather incomplete online personal brand, consisting of a normalized image of the self, a tool for a certain self-realization towards a limited audience and a have a certain perception of an overall control of this online personal brand.