Despite flexibility being central to the gig economy, platform businesses face challenges balancing operational needs with labor mobility. Through empirical analysis of China’s food delivery platforms, this study finds that professionally oriented couriers in the outsourced model, while viewing platform work as a steppingstone to formal employment and exhibiting higher exit intentions, simultaneously develop stronger organizational identification through identity-building strategies that produce a suppressing effect on turnover intentions. Analysis further reveals heterogeneous effects across economic dependency groups, with platform-dependent couriers more sensitive to work model influences. The theoretical contribution of this study lies in identifying organizational identification as the central mechanism through which platforms reconcile the tension between flexibility and stability. Through this mechanism, platforms achieve organizational management of labor mobility without altering the legal form of flexible employment. These findings provide new insights into labor relations transformation and management innovation in emerging economic forms.
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