A Comprehensive Research Report on Uber's Driver Management Problems

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This research report delves into the driver management problems faced by Uber, highlighting issues such as overburdened drivers, inadequate pay scales, and ineffective management strategies. It explores the company's challenges in managing its drivers, who are classified as contractors rather than employees, leading to issues like constant vehicle tracking and fare reductions that impact driver earnings. The literature review emphasizes the importance of effective management, driver appreciation, and fair compensation to maintain driver satisfaction and trust. The research design employs both exploratory and descriptive methods, utilizing primary and secondary data sources, including surveys, to gather insights into driver perceptions and potential solutions. The report also addresses ethical considerations and outlines a time framework for the research. The research questions focus on improving driver experience, addressing critical issues, enhancing revenue opportunities, and evaluating the fairness of the Uber system, ultimately aiming to provide recommendations for better driver management practices within the company. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study resources.
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Running Head: Uber’s Driver Management Problem 1
Managing Business Research
Uber’s Driver Management Problem
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 2
Introduction and background
The growth of the company is entirely dependent upon the functions of the management as it is
vital for the manager of the company to have the effective skills for managing the employees
significantly. The management issues will be defined under this research paper to increase better
understanding of the concept of the research. The literature review part of the research will
elaborate the concerns regarding management. The research design is an imperative section as it
facilitates to give details that which factor has a huge role in making the research. Ethical issues
and time framework will be elaborated in this research paper.
The research is focused on the Uber company and the challenges that are faced by them in recent
times. The main focus of the research is on the driver management issues of Uber. However, the
management process of a customer of Uber is excellent but the driver management issues are a
challenge to the company. The company’s strategy towards management is not effective than
being the cause of management issues.
Management problem
The management problem in Uber is overburdened with work, lack of pay-scale and lack of
management skills that lead the business to failure. The drivers of the Uber are not an employee
but are contractors and that is why the management of company put pressure on them by tracking
their vehicles even when a driver is not serving an Uber customer. Company decreases the fares
of the customer which effect on the payment to the drivers. Managers of the company put
pressure on Past CEO of the company to allow drivers to attain tips from the riders.
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 3
The overall issues of the company impact the entire system and reduce the image of the company
in the view of outsiders.
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 4
Literature Review
The major objective of the literature review is to elaborate the knowledge regarding the ongoing
management concerns within an organization. The management issues of the company are
describing under this section with taking help of journal articles, books and online sources.
The management system of Uber
The role of the management and its functions are huge for every kind of organization that is why
it is required for the manager of the company to have the skills of planning, organizing,
controlling, coordinating and leading. There is an inefficient management approach applied by
Uber’s management. There are various challenges that are faced by drivers of the company at
every stage of the activity of the company. Drivers of the company are not considered as the
important asset for the company which increases the demotivation among them and decreases the
potential of them towards performing the job (Fayolle and Gailly, 2015). The management
decision of the company is not strong that lead the business into the adverse situation and the
trust of drivers are losing gradually over the management system of the company.
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 5
Lack of appreciation and improvement program
The management of Uber is not effective as there is a lack of appreciation and improvement
program that enhance the issues within the business. It has been found that the growth-at-any-
cost mentality and the poor management of Uber have brought a culture where issues are ignored
and the toxic culture is made for the employee (Hanrahan, Ma and Yuan, 2018). According to
Mohajeri, Nybreg and Nelson, (2017), motivation is required for each company to increase the
productivity of the employee whether it is a monetary term or non-monetary term (DesJardins
and McCall, 2014). The past behavior of the Uber has suggested that it has entire ignore for the
safety and customers. The company’s employee is not treated as the employee of the company
and due to lack of appreciation and improvement program, employee does not perform in the
well efficient way (Scheiber, 2017).
The lost trust of the drivers
It has been analyzed that the company is manipulating the drivers and allure them to go into
explorative arrangements by involving misclassification as independent contractors and oppose
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 6
their unionization. The trust of the drivers is losing over the management of the company as they
pressurize drivers to do work without motivating them. As per Geitung, (2017), losing trust of
employee may lead the organization in to adverse situation where company can face huge loss.
There is not proper driver launching campaign in the company and the drivers are not getting
respect from the company that they deserve at prior basis.
Insufficient ride fee to the drivers
The management of the company is not focusing on the performance of the drivers and the
company initiated number of coupons policy in which the customers get discount on each trip as
per the conditions and policy of the company. This policy is initiated by the company to retain
the customers without taking consideration of the drivers. Insufficient ride fee to the driver effect
on the payment to the drivers. According to Cloutier, Felusiak, Hill and Pemberton-Jones,
(2015), it is vital for any company to motivate its employees to get the effective and favorable
structure of revenues.
Dissatisfaction from the job
According to Harper, (2015) there are various aspects that affect the organizational performance
in a negative manner. Baptista, Karaöz and Mendonça, (2014), suggests that multi-tasking,
decision-making skills, leadership, motivation, business development skills and effective
communication are basic skills that should be in manager as it facilitates to cope up any conflict
situation. Dissatisfaction in a job can increase the ratio of employee turnover which may bring
the crisis situation in the company. It is necessary for the company to have the launch a driver
improvement campaign, by which the drivers can understand their duties in a more efficient
manner (Bridge and Dodds, 2018).
It has been found that the Uber company has taken various initiatives to improve the drivers’
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 7
management issues in which the company initiates policy with keeping consideration of the
drivers. Along with that it has been analyzed that the company has to fix more issues such as
lack of senior execs, waymo suit, profitability and failure venture (Rubin, 2017). Uber has had an
ineffective bonding with its drivers, who are considered as a contractor in legal terms rather than
employees. it has been found that in April, the company had spent around $100 million to settle a
lawsuit with drivers in Massachusetts and California, this had happened in return for concurrent
to remain independent contractors (Mills, 2017). It is essential for the company to keep the focus
on management training to provide proper guidance to the employees from them so that the
drivers of the company can connect with the company for a long time.
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 8
Research Design
The research design is important for making research paper more effective as it provides the
description to know where data is collected.
Research design and justification
Research designs have several methods that significantly assist to determine the design of the
project of the research. There are two kinds of research design such as exploratory and
descriptive that amplifies the importance of the research. Exploratory research design refers the
development of ideas in case of the inefficient description of the hypothesis. This research design
is applied in the research to evaluate the concerns and screen the alternatives. The innovative
ideas can be generated in a more efficient manner with the help of this research. The main
motive of the exploratory research design is to produce insights and handle the issues in relation
to the research project. On the other hand the use of descriptive research design is made in the
research to show the synopsis of some aspects of the environment at the time of having nature of
cautious and tentative by hypothesis. The strength of the descriptive design within the research is
accurate description.
Exploratory and descriptive research designs are taken in the form of combination for this
research because with the help of exploratory research design, the researcher can collect the
information regarding the management issues in more sophisticated manner. While, by using
descriptive research design, researcher would be able to define the characteristics of an
individual and group. The different point of view of the participants can be collected with more
efficient manner (Helfat and Peteraf, 2015).
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 9
Sources of data for the research
Primary and secondary sources are being taken together with the information regarding the
research topic. The primary data is provided the fresh information and it is used in the research at
very first time. Whereas the secondary sources of data have been accumulated previously for
another project. Both methods have been chosen by the researcher to gather the information
(Helfat and Peteraf, 2015). The primary data of the research facilitates researcher to gather the
data by interacting directly with people for the purpose of knowing their perception in relation to
the management issues within the company. The depth and theoretical information are being
encouraged by secondary sources. The use of various resources such as articles, books, websites,
and journals are being done by researcher to gather the information regarding making the
trustworthiness of research outcomes (Harper, 2015). Survey is effective approach to gather the
information through primary data because it provides the quick responses from participants
regarding the management issues.
Conceptualisation and measurement
Qualitative approach and quantitative approach are being taken to conduct the research as they
facilitate to draw the effectual conclusion from the evaluation of the subjective and quantitative
data. However, there are several kinds of variables in which independent and dependent
variables are most important (Flick, 2013). The independent variable is deemed in the form of
core of the experiment. It is considered as the isolated which can be controlled by the researcher.
On the other hand the nature of dependent variable is the computable outcome. In relation to the
research topic, the dependent variable for the research is the performance of the Uber because it
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 10
can be amended time to time. it entirely relies on the management concerns because when the
concerns of the management are resolved the performance of Uber can be improved considerably
(Gray, 2013).
In the context of qualitative research, the research questions will be addressed in more
sophisticated manner. the research questions of the research paper are mentioned below:
How can the company make the driver’s experience easier and distinguished?
What are the critical issues and complaints the majority of the drivers are having?
How can the company create opportunity for the drivers to earn better revenues?
(Geitung 2017)
Why are drivers feeling the Uber system is not fair?
Does the Uber management also require leadership training and Driver administration
workshop?(Mohajeri, Nybreg and Nelson 2017).
The combination of both methods of the research area facilitated to achieve the objectives of the
research (Gratton and Jones, 2010). The data will be elaborated from quantitative approach as
well in which graphs with brief summary will be mentioned.
Data collection/generation methods
Data collection is considered as the compilation of the data in more effective way from the
number of sources to meet the requirements of the research. The researcher gets facilitated from
the collected data to enhance the knowledge regarding the management concerns, which is also
assisting to make conclusions about the issues of the research. Data is gathered with taking help
of both primary as well as secondary sources in which survey is being conducted to get the data
regarding the management issues from large population. Random sampling technique is being
preferred to accumulate the data from the survey as it gives the chance to every individual of
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 11
being selected.
The method of survey was opted for the research to gather the information due to its efficient
features of defining the view points of whole population. The survey is more effective in
comparison of other methods of the research which ensures a certain sample to gather targeted
results to draw conclusions. It is an impartial approach to make decisions that help the researcher
to evaluate the response of number of people on the concerns of management which has become
the reason of today’s management world (Valerio, Parton and Robb, 2014).
Data analysis
It is essential for the researcher to evaluate the data for enhancing the valid as well as reliable
outcomes in relation to the research issues. it has been found that there is a number of research
methods which can be utilized in developing the valid and reliable outcomes to the research
issues which entails conversational analysis, content or thematic analysis, disclosure analysis and
statistical analysis. These methods of data analysis are effective for making a significant analysis
of gathered data. The use of Statistical data analysis method is effective as it helps in analyzing
the collected data (Sherafati, Mohammadi and Ismail, 2015). The researcher would be able to
represent the statistics in the more descriptive manner by including cross tabulation, correlation
and regress which facilitates in interpreting the definition behind the responses of the questions
of the participants. Along with that the use of MS Excel and SPSS software are being considered
to define the data in graphs and tables. The main purpose behind this is to enhance the
effectiveness about the responses and findings regarding the concerns of Uber’s driver
management.
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 12
Ethical Issues and Limitations of the proposed research
The meaning of the ethical consideration is to accomplish each task of the research in an ethical
manner by considering the privacy of the participants. Ethical consideration assists the researcher
to adopt valuable behaviour for accomplishing the research in a systematic form. The issues of
ethical is reduced with the help of giving entire credit to the researchers along with the authors
by doing proper in-text citation in each paragraph. The researcher has taken consideration of the
time of the Uber’s drivers for collecting the primary data in relation to the concerns of the
management. It is considered as the valuable approach from which the researcher is assisted to
accumulate the data from the participants in more depth way (Wan, Mao, Hsieh, and Chen,
2017).
There are some limitations as well which bound the researcher to gather the information in more
reliable manner. Lack of availability of the time, inadequate access of the data and small size of
sample are considered as the major limitations. There is a lot of pressure on the driver of the
Uber company that is why there is a doubt in the response of the participants regarding the
questions.
Proposed time frame and budget of the research
S.
No.
Actions were
taken in research
Time
duration
Description of the taken steps Expenses
on
Research
A Preparation of the 2 Week This is the initiate stage of the research $10000
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 13
research project plan which is considered as the roadmap.
The entire planning about the research
program is initiated in this step.
B Carrying out of the
research project’s
plan
2 week After making plan of the research in first
step, it will be carried out in the second
stage in which the involvement of
effective team, resources, relevant data
and data collectors are been taken.
$10,000
C Gathering of the
data
3 weeks The data will be gathered to take the
research to the subsequent level for
brining the effective conclusion. The
expenses will be occurred in this stage
for appointment of data collector,
conduct the survey and the fees of the
data collector. The monkey survey is
being used to gather the information from
whole population in more efficient
manner.
$15,000
D Data analysis 2 weeks After collecting the data in noteworthy
manner, it will be assorted and managed
$12000
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in systematic way. It will be showed in
the tables and graphs for making better
understanding about this. Software will
be used to analyse the data which
increase the cost of the research.
E Discussion 1 week Discussion will be helpful for gathering
the information in more efficient manner
in which the research questions are being
addressed efficiently.
-
F Conclusion and
Recommendation
1weeks With the help of data analysis, the final
conclusion and recommendations will be
drawn for making better researches in
future.
-
G Critical Evaluation 1 week This step will be critically reviewed by
the researcher and higher expertise at
high level so that the outcome can be
come in more sophisticated manner.
$5,000
Gantt chart
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Reference List
Bridge, J. and Dodds, J.C., 2018. Managerial decision making. Routledge.
Cloutier, O., Felusiak, L., Hill, C. and Pemberton-Jones, E.J., 2015. The importance of
developing strategies for employee retention. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and
Ethics, 12(2), p.119.
DesJardins, J.R. and McCall, J.J., 2014. Contemporary issues in business ethics. Cengage
Learning.
Fayolle, A. and Gailly, B., 2015. The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial
attitudes and intention: Hysteresis and persistence. Journal of Small Business
Management, 53(1), pp.75-93.
Flick, U. 2013. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. USA: SAGE.
Geitung, I., 2017. Uber drivers in Cape Town: Working conditions and worker agency in the
sharing economy(Master's thesis).
Gibbs, C., Guttentag, D., Gretzel, U., Yao, L. and Morton, J., 2017. Use of dynamic pricing
strategies by Airbnb hosts. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,
pp.00-00.
Gratton, C. and Jones, I. 2010. Research Methods for Sports Studies.UK: Taylor &
Francis.
Gray, D. E. 2013. Doing research in the real world.USA: Sage.
Hanrahan, B.V., Ma, N.F. and Yuan, C.W., 2018. The Roots of Bias on Uber. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1803.08579.
Harper, C., 2015. Organizations: Structures, processes and outcomes. Routledge.
Helfat, C.E. and Peteraf, M.A., 2015. Managerial cognitive capabilities and the microfoundations
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Uber’s Driver Management Problem 17
of dynamic capabilities. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), pp.831-850.
Helfat, C.E. and Peteraf, M.A., 2015. Managerial cognitive capabilities and the microfoundations
of dynamic capabilities. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), pp.831-850.
Mills, C. 2017. Uber’s next CEO has six huge problems to fix. Available [online]
http://bgr.com/2017/06/23/uber-new-ceo-biggest-problems-analysis/. Accessed on 27th May,
2018.
Mohajeri, B., Nybreg, R. and Nelson, M., 2017. Collaborative Service Networks, Case Study of
Uber and Airbnb.
Rubin, E., 2017. Independent Contractors or Employees: Why Mediation Should Be Utilized by
Uber and Its Drivers to Solve the Mystery of How to Define Working Individuals in a Sharing
Economy Model. Cardozo J. Conflict Resol., 19, p.163.
Scheiber, N., 2017. How Uber uses psychological tricks to push its drivers' buttons. The New
York Times, 2.
Sherafati, M., Mohammadi, R. and Ismail, M.N., 2015. The Study of the Effect of Organizational
Culture on Organizational Spirituality. European Online Journal of Natural and Social
Sciences, 4(1 (s)), p.165.
Valerio, A., Parton, B. and Robb, A., 2014. Entrepreneurship education and training programs
around the world: dimensions for success. World Bank Publications.
Wan, X., Mao, J., Hsieh, J.J. and Chen, F., 2017. The Influence of Data Analytics Capabilities on
Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of Exploitative and Exploratory Innovation.
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