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Balsiger, Philip
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Balsiger, Philip
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Email
philip.balsiger@unine.ch
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- PublicationAccès libreWhen Platforms Challenge Professions: A Clash Between Models of Professionalism Among Swiss Hoteliers?(2024)
; The sociology of professions has begun to study how digital platforms impact the status and skills of professionals. Our article expands on this line of research by exploring how platforms challenge professions and how professionals react by advocating different types of professionalism. Based on a case study of hoteliers in Switzerland, we look at how the rise of online travel agencies (OTAs) has affected this professional group. Drawing on an analysis of data gathered through interviews with hoteliers (owners, managers, representatives of associations), our findings identify divergent responses to how platforms have undermined the jurisdiction built up by hoteliers. They highlight impacts on the capacity for self-regulation and customer service skills. The article contributes to the literature by showing that platforms foster divisions within occupational groups. Some members use platform tools because they fit their model of management-oriented professionalism. Others distance themselves from them, adopting a defensive professionalism. - PublicationAccès libreWhat is Digital Valuation Made of? The integration of valuation poles on a reservation platform and its effects on the hotel industry in Switzerland(2022)
; Digital platforms act as new powerful intermediaries challenging existing market orders in many sectors. Algorithmically producing ratings and rankings often built from online consumer reviews, platforms are important players in the digitizing of valuation. This article asks how these new platform-generated valuations relate to other forms of valuation. It presents a qualitative case study of valuation in the hotel sector in Switzerland, drawing on interviews with professionals and a description of valuation categories on the Booking.com website. Going beyond the description of the opposition between online consumer reviews and traditional judgment devices, the analysis shows that valuation on the platform is based upon a permissive hierarchical integration of a plurality of valuation poles, with algorithmic valuation at its center. This destabilizes the evaluative landscape with regard to three issues: lack of transparency of the algorithmic ranking; weakening and even undermining of formulaic valuation; and the issue of singularization of the online offer.