BUS362: As Independent Contractors, Uber Tells its drivers “you can be your own boss” and set your own hours: IT-Enabled Business Transformation Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

(a) The IS Triangle is a framework employed to link the business strategy and
organisational strategy to the IS strategy. Formulate the IS Triangle by determining:
(i) whether the IS strategy is aligned with Uber business strategy. Support your
answers with case facts.
(ii) whether the IS strategy is aligned with Uber organisational strategy. Support your answers with case facts

(b) Discuss the impact of culture on IS by describing two (2) ways in which organisational culture could affect Uber’s drivers in relation to its use of IS. Justify your answer with case facts.

(c) Appraise the strategic use of information resources by providing an example of each Uber value chain primary activity through case facts.

Case Study

3-1 Uber’s Use of Technology-Mediated Control Uber Technologies, founded in 2009, is a ride-hailing company that leverages the cars and time of millions of drivers who are independent contractors in countries around the globe. One recent estimate by Uber Group Manager, Yuhki Yamashita, is that Uber drivers globally spend 8.5 million hours on the road—daily.

As independent contractors, Uber tells its drivers “you can be your own boss” and set your own hours. Yet, Uber wants to control how they behave. Uber exerts this control not through human managers, but through a “ride-hail platform on a system of algorithms that serves as a virtual ‘automated manager.” Drivers’ work experiences are entirely mediated through a mobile app.
Uber’s mobile app collects data and guides the behaviour of the drivers in such a way that in reality, they aren’t as much their own boss as they might like to be. For example, while they can work when they want, Uber’s surge fare structure of charging riders more during high-volume periods motivates them to work during times that they might not otherwise choose.

The app even sends algorithmically derived push notifications like: “Are you sure you want to go offline? Demand is very high in your area. Make more money, don’t stop now!” Hence, Uber uses technology to exert “soft control” over its drivers. Uber employs a host of social scientists and data scientists to devise ways to encourage the drivers to work longer and harder, even when it isn’t financially beneficial for them to do so. Using its mobile app, it has experimented with video game techniques, graphics and badges and other noncash rewards of little monetary value.

The mobile app employs psychologically influenced interventions to encourage various driver behaviours. For example, the mobile app will alert drivers that they are close to achieving an algorithmically generated income target when they try to log off. Like Netflix does when it automatically loads the next program in order to encourage binge-watching, Uber sends drivers their next fare opportunity before their current ride is over.