Digital platforms as institutional actors in the Global South – Evidence from India's informal sector

Digital platforms are transforming labour markets, yet their role in shaping institutional contexts, particularly in informal settings, remains underexplored. Drawing on institutional voids and plurality frameworks, paper examines how platforms act as significant institutional actors, mediating the relationship between workers, and the market. We place this under empirical scrutiny through qualitative research with gig workers in Mumbai, India. Our findings identify three key voids: agency, structural, and transactional, which are interpreted using Hodgson's (2003) conceptualisation of institutions as simultaneously creating opportunities and constraints. By shaping routines, aspirations, and social and economic lives, we argue that platforms actively build institutional structures that reconfigure the boundaries between formal and informal labour. The study underscores the importance of centring workers' experiences in analyses of platform labour and highlights the need for governance and policy approaches that address the complex, dual role of platforms in informal labour markets.