Organising self-referential taxi work with mICT: the case of the London black cab drivers

London Black Cab Drivers have a rich and documented history of mobile work practices that are geographically distributed and driven by situated choices for everyday work. To date mobile studies researchers have not made a close examination of these mobile working practices, hence there is a gap in mobile studies concerning this type of worker. This dissertation aims to study the evolution of Black Cab drivers' work practices since the introduction of mobile Information and Communication Technology (mICT) in their everyday work. The theoretical framework for the research is based on studies of taxi drivers' work practices, mobility research, computer supported co-operative work and organisational change promoted by IS interventions. The ontology of this research pinpoints the factors influencing the situated and idiosyncratic choice associated with the use of mICTs when carrying out planned and unplanned work. The case study references a 420-year history of "old", established work practices as a comparison framework. When compared with the "new" and situated choice of mICT-supported work, it becomes apparent that there has been a change in the dynamics of how this type of work is actually completed. Embedding and mixing elements of self-referenced work - as discretionary and independent - with working practices in which mutual interdependencies are supported by the use of mICT aids seems to provide the case for a re-negotiation of the working practices model as well as its associated organisational forms, together with a social shift in the definition of the role and skills required to perform this type of mobile work. The empirical data have been sourced from one-to-one interviews and video recordings using a combination of ethnographic methods and interpretative approaches for the data analysis. This dissertation makes a theoretical and practical contribution to mobile studies by understanding the changing of working practices; it further offers methodological insights for studying mICT-supported work. Finally, it provides a formative evaluation of the new organisational forms emerging as mICT has been introduced to everyday Black Cab work

Briefing from the 3rd Workshop on Internet Economics @UCSD: “definitions and data”

On December 12-13 2012, CAIDA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hosted the 3rd (invitation-only) Workshop on Internet Economics at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, CA. LSE Tech Research Fellow Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood gives an overview of the workshop and stresses the advances and main challenges about terms and concepts used as well as data issues on communications infrastructure

The future of big and open data and its impact on the digital economy – notes from our participation at #HICSS47

During the second week of January 2014, our LSE team attended the 47 Hawaii International Conference on System Science. In this post, Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood reports the highlights of our participation in the conference, and scores the relevance of research work on the underlying dynamics of the digital economy in the UK and worldwide

Netflix as a player in the digital market

The battle for the growing markets of internet TV is far from ended. In this post, Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood analyses the overview and current situation of one of the key players–Netflix–and offers conclusions based on their strategy of expansion in the European market. “Internet TV is replacing linear TV. Apps are replacing channels, remote controls are disappearing, and screens are proliferating. As Internet TV grows from millions to billions, Netflix is leading the way around the world.” Neflix, 201

Internet metrics, telecom and internet policy: highlights from the TPRC 2013

The TPRC is the oldest and most influential continuous meeting on telecoms policy, always held in Washington, D.C. and nowadays subtitled the “Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy”. Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood and Jonathan Liebenau of the LSE Tech team presented papers and reported on the conference on our twitter account. In this post, they summarise the main debate

EU telecoms competition and regulation: paradoxes of subsidiary and a single digital market

In a previous post, we addressed that the recent massive expansion of online services and mobile applications puts pressure on EU’s traditional telecoms to reassess their business structures. Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood and Jonathan Liebenau reflect on the importance of a well-functioning single European telecoms market but warn about the implications that subsidiary policies may have in the region

The new architecture of the internet: the LSE Tech approach in relation to recent work of Martin Fransman, Brett Frischmann, & Christopher Yoo

The LSE Tech approach in relation to recent work of Martin Fransman, Brett Frischmann, and Christopher Yoo – by Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood and Jonathan Liebena