Good Corporate Governance and the Crisis of Precarity in the Digital Age: a Systematic Literature Review of Gig Labour Resistance
TL;DR
Examination of the intersection of corporate governance and the crisis of precarity in the digital age of gig economy showed that platforms often reproduced systemic inequalities, misclassified workers, and obscured accountability through algorithmic opacity, yet fissures in digital management created opportunities for collective agency.
Abstract
This study examined the intersection of corporate governance and the crisis of precarity in the digital age of gig economy, focussing on how workers resisted algorithmic control and structural inequalities. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted, synthesizing 104 documents published between 2017 and 2025, retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science databases. Bibliometric mapping and thematic synthesis were applied to classify research types, methodological approaches, and policy models. The article was structured around performance analysis, thematic evolution, and governance linkages, highlighting how corporate accountability, fairness, transparency, and stakeholder inclusivity had been challenged in digital Labour regimes. The novelty of this work lay in its comprehensive mapping of gig Labour resistance strategies—ranging from communicative unionism to entrepreneurial solidarities—while explicitly linking them to good corporate governance (GCG) principles. Findings showed that platforms often reproduced systemic inequalities, misclassified workers, and obscured accountability through algorithmic opacity, yet fissures in digital management created opportunities for collective agency. The implications suggested that corporate governance needed to evolve towards human-centred accountability, algorithmic transparency, and inclusive stakeholder protection to mitigate precarity and reinforce labour rights in the digital age.