Has the introduction of ride-hailing platforms, such as Bolt and Uber, in Colombia and South Africa reduced institutional voids, or has it created new ones?

In his short presentation, Richard Heeks discusses his recent article, Digital Platforms and Institutional Voids in Developing Countries: The Case of Ride-Hailing Markets.

The paper argues that alongside void-filling they find that these businesses (Uber, Bolt and EasyTaxi) also maintain, expand and create institutional voids. The platform companies’ institutional work has formed a market that is more efficient, effective, complete and formalised. At the same time, though, they have institutionalised problematic behaviours and significant inequalities. They have done this by internally institutionalising – within the digital platform and in their broader business model – previously-distributed market functions and power. The researchers suggest some practical actions to address the downsides of platformisation through the filling of ongoing voids and identify some research priorities for future studies of institutional voids and platforms in developing countries.


You can read the paper, written with Brian Nicholson, Juan Gómez Morantes, Mark Graham, Kelle Howson, Paul Mungai and Jean-Paul Van Belle here: [ Ссылка ]

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