Flexible Platforms? An Ethnographic Study of Flexible Scheduling in Platform-Mediated Delivery

This paper explores flexibility in platform-mediated work through a multi-sited ethnographic study of delivery workers' "flexible scheduling"in three European countries: Denmark, Finland, and Malta. While workers generally value the ability to schedule flexibly, this flexibility is constrained by structural factors such as piece-rate remuneration, demand fluctuations, surge pricing, and income dependency. The constraints result in markedly different experiences across the different instantiations of the same, standardised delivery platform: workers in Denmark benefit from the system, in Finland workers face seasonal precarity, and in Malta workers endure exploitative cycles of long hours and low pay. The findings demonstrate how the same platform's standardised design can produce divergent outcomes in local contexts. The paper highlights the need for platform designers and regulators to balance the benefits of flexible scheduling with its trade-offs, ensuring that flexibility supports worker well-being as the flexible platforms manifest locally.