Organizing the hosts: flexible strategies of formalized and collaborative labor in Airbnb property management

O'Dowd, Quinn

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132448 Copy

Description

Title

Organizing the hosts: flexible strategies of formalized and collaborative labor in Airbnb property management

Author(s)

O'Dowd, Quinn

Issue Date

2025-07-17

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Gille, Zsuzsa

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Gille, Zsuzsa

Committee Member(s)

• Bayat, Asef
• Cidell, Julie
• Soener, Matthew

Department of Study

Sociology

Discipline

Sociology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• platform labor
• short-term rentals
• property management
• formalization

Abstract

Hosting on Airbnb, once the purview of part-timers renting out their personal spaces, is increasingly carried out in the context of property management companies that oversee large portfolios of full-time vacation rentals. The dominance of such companies on the Airbnb platform intensifies its negative effects on neighborhoods, namely contributing to rising rents and the removal of housing from the long-term rental market. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about the organization of labor within these companies. While existing literature on the transformation of hosting suggests that this is largely a platform-driven phenomenon in which entrepreneurial actors make use of technological tools to grow their businesses, this dissertation contends that the proliferation of property management companies operating on Airbnb emerges through the convergence of multiple institutions, relationships, and norms to stabilize property management companies as a source of capital accumulation for Airbnb. Using participant observation data from one such company operating in Prague, this dissertation demonstrates how company managers attempt to formalize Airbnb’s algorithmic assessments via company rules and managerial oversight, thus extending the scope of platform labor to include workers with no direct relationship to the platform. At the same time, workers collaborate to come up with ways of working that combat their highly flexible labor. In this way, this dissertation presents a heterogeneous landscape of platform work in which certain actors take advantage of the platform to their benefit while reifying its tendency to foster flexible, intensive work for others.

Graduation Semester

2025-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132448

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 Quinn O'Dowd

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