Global Capital in Local Context Platform Power and Labour Agency in Food Delivery in Croatia and Serbia

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Published: Aug 5, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14288/workplace.v36i1.187149
Keywords:
platform work, algorithmic resistance, subcontracting, labour agency, hybrid institutional regimes

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Jelena Starcevic
Cornell University

Abstract

This article examines labour agency among food delivery couriers in Croatia and Serbia, two Central and Eastern European markets where public protest and legal actions against platforms remain scarce. Drawing on 53 interviews with food delivery couriers in Croatia and Serbia, the paper identifies a triple constraint in the form of algorithmic control, subcontracting model of work organization, and structurally weak institutions that divert the agency away from collective channels and into two individualized repertoires: strategic non-compliance and strategic misappropriation. Strategic non-compliance refers to individual actions such as task selection, rejections, and timed logoffs that deliberately bend or break platform rules with the aim of maximizing profit. Strategic misappropriations involve couriers’ use of subcontracting and institutional weaknesses to externalize costs, thereby increasing their take-home earnings. These individual actions are not just responses to production regimes but constitutive elements of platform capitalism as it materializes in hybrid institutional regimes.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 36 No. 1 (2025): Teachers’ Work in Contentious Political Times (Special Series, Part 1) + GLRC Symposium + Featured Articles & Commentary
Section
GLRC Symposium
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Author Biography

Jelena Starcevic, Cornell University

Jelena Starcevic is an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She holds a PhD in Labour Studies (2024) from McMaster University, an MA in Peace and Justice (2017) from the University of San Diego, and an LLB (2006) from the University of Belgrade. Her research focuses on assessing the impact institutions have on the business strategies and organization of work within digitally enabled work across different countries. Jelena’s doctoral thesis investigated these dynamics in the context of subcontracting and multi-party arrangements as adaptation strategies of platform companies to hybrid and incomplete institutional arrangements in countries of Southeast Europe. Her postdoctoral project will explore why companies differ in deploying AI-based tools and how those choices affect job quality. She has taught at Tec de Monterrey (Mexico), University of Guelph, and McMaster University, and served as a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University’s ILR School, as well as a participant in the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Programme.