Uber Hits a Bump in the Road: Ethical Challenges and Risks Faced by the Company

This presentation explores the ethical challenges faced by Uber, including poor relations with stakeholders and lawsuits from independent contractors. It also discusses the risks the company faces, such as driver management, customer satisfaction, and regulatory compliance. The presentation concludes with the importance of experimental regulations in helping Uber overcome these challenges and continue to grow.

Presentations on
‘Uber Hits a Bump
in the Road’

Introduction
 Uber Technologies Incorporation is an American multinational
transportation network company
 It offers services like bicycle-sharing system, peer-to-peer
ridesharing, food delivery, and ride service hailing
 The presentation will discuss the ethical challenges faced by the
company
 It will also identify the risks faced by Uber and different ways to
overcome the risks

Ethical challenges faced by Uber by using
app-based peer-to-sharing technology
 The app has forced the drivers to execute their work by utilizing their
resources
 The app-based technology has resulted in poor relations with its
stakeholders
 The drivers are enforced to work during night time, during holidays,
and even on the weekends (Gonzalez-Padron, 2017)
 Uber has faced lawsuits as the independent contractors have filed
lawsuits against the company

Continued…
 Uber faces ethical challenges related to legal and regulatory needs
 The expansion of a sharing economy leads to the occurrence of legal
issues
 The most significant legal issues facing Uber is based on consumers
privacy
 The company is facing criticism of not complying with the safety
standards for its customers (Ferrell, Ferrell and Huggins, 2017)

Continued…
 The Americans with Disabilities Act is determined to be a significant
challenge for Uber
 Uber faces difficulty in regulating with the standards set by countries
such as the United States (Verschoor, 2017)
 It becomes difficult for Uber to gather data as the factors of sharing
economy is regulated greatly by themselves

Continued…
 Uber faces ethical challenges like
taking away customers from
professional drivers
 Surging price rides is another
challenge for the company
(Windekilde and Henten, 2017)
 Ridesharing rating system creates
challenges for Uber due to the level
of rider's objectivity
 The low driver scores create
challenges for the drivers
Ridesharing system of Uber

Risks need to be overcome by Uber to
be successful
Uber faces several risks, and to
become successful within the
market; it is essential for the
company to overcome these risks.
The following key risks faced by the
company are as follows:
Drivers
 Uber fails to control the number of
drivers driving cars
 The company needs to develop
training programs to improve the
driving skills of the drivers
(Ravenelle, 2017)
Monthly taxi picks of Uber

Continued…
Customer Base
 Maximizing the demand for rides-for-services is a constant and future
challenge for Uber
 Unpredictable demand is determined to be a future risk that could be
resolved through product diversification (Skok and Baker, 2019)
Competitors
 Uber faces huge competition from the competitors
 The company must emerge more rides-for-hires

Continued…
Customer satisfaction
 Customers experience sexual harassment, inexperienced drivers,
long waits
 Uber must use the internet to check customer complaints and provide
an immediate response
Technology
 Most of the online businesses have been hacked for receiving
information based on credit card (Flores and Rayle, 2017)
 Uber must upgrade its data-based security system

Continued…
Surge pricing
 Utilization of surge pricing tool puts the company into risk
 Uber must control the use of surge pricing tool
Fares
 The fare rate of Uber will not be competitive as taxi's fare if it
increases the price rate too much
 The biggest selling point of Uber is to have lower fare rates than
taxicab service

Continued…
Keeping drivers happy
 The drivers are facing various challenges that makes them frustrated
 Uber must provide various benefits to its drivers (Anwar, 2018)
Privacy
 Uber is facing risks related to the use of God view tool
 Safeguarding the information of the consumers is a significant step
that must be taken by Uber

Regulations for Uber to build compliance
with standards
 Governments must not make Uber comply with the regulations
already passed by the countries
 Vehicle-for-hire Innovation Amendment Act of 2014 (VIAA) is
regarded as a regulatory success for Uber (Leighton, 2016)
 VIAA facilitates an amazing framework for states and cities that
seek to enhance Uber

Continued…
 Uber needs to comply with experimental regulations
 The experimental regulations will lead to ideal policy solutions
 Uber must address the social pressures differently
 The experimental safety regulations will enhance Uber to understand
the regulatory requirements (Collier, Dubal and Carter, 2018)
 Uber will be able to solve the challenges and overcome the risks to
expand its business in different states and cities

Continued…
 Regulatory framework of VIAA enables Uber to continue to grow and
innovate
 Regulators must not force Uber to comply with taxi regulations
(Harding, Kandlikar and Gulati, 2016)
 Uber uses peer-review and tracking systems that offer protection to
its customers

Continued…
 Uber app possess drivers accountable
 The regulation enables the company to gain knowledge regarding
drivers safety and traffic laws
 Experimental regulations will support Uber to innovate and enhance
in the ever-changing community (Sinclair, 2016)

Conclusion
 The presentation demonstrated the ethical challenges faced by Uber
 The company faces risks related to customers, competitors,
technology, surge pricing, fares, drivers
 The experimental regulations will help the company to enhance its
growth within the market

References
 Anwar, S.T., 2018. Growing global in the sharing economy: Lessons from Uber and Airbnb. Global Business and
Organizational Excellence, 37(6), pp.59-68.
 Collier, R.B., Dubal, V.B. and Carter, C.L., 2018. Disrupting regulation, regulating disruption: The politics of Uber in
the United States. Perspectives on Politics, 16(4), pp.919-937.
 Ferrell, O.C., Ferrell, L. and Huggins, K., 2017. Seismic shifts in the sharing economy: Shaking up marketing
channels and supply chains. Journal of Marketing Channels, 24(1-2), pp.3-12.
 Flores, O. and Rayle, L., 2017. How cities use regulation for innovation: the case of Uber, Lyft and Sidecar in San
Francisco. Transportation research procedia, 25, pp.3756-3768.
 Gonzalez-Padron, T.L., 2017. Ethics in the sharing economy: Creating a legitimate marketing channel. Journal of
Marketing Channels, 24(1-2), pp.84-96.
 Harding, S., Kandlikar, M. and Gulati, S., 2016. Taxi apps, regulation, and the market for taxi
journeys. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 88, pp.15-25.
 Leighton, P., 2016. Professional self-employment, new power and the sharing economy: Some cautionary tales
from Uber. Journal of Management & Organization, 22(6), pp.859-874.
 Ravenelle, A.J., 2017. Sharing economy workers: selling, not sharing. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and
Society, 10(2), pp.281-295.
 Sinclair, M., 2016. Fair and efficient regulation of the sharing economy. Economic Affairs, 36(2), pp.204-211.
 Skok, W. and Baker, S., 2019. Evaluating the impact of Uber on London's taxi service: A critical review of the
literature. Knowledge and Process Management, 26(1), pp.3-9.
 Verschoor, C.C., 2017. UBER culture causes big losses: harassment and mismanagement have led to steep losses
for this high-flying company. Strategic Finance, 99(3), pp.23-25.
 Windekilde, I. and Henten, A., 2017. Domesticating the monster–the case of Uber in a social contract
perspective. Nordic and Baltic Journal of Information and Communications Technologies, 2017(1), pp.1-16.