This introductory chapter situates the book within the global digital transformation of work. It traces howadvanced technologies—especially artificial intelligence, big data, and algorithmic management—havereconfigured production, organisation, and labour relations in what scholars call ‘digital capitalism’ or ‘platformcapitalism.’ The chapter reviews interdisciplinary debates on how platform-mediated work reshapes the labourprocess, generating new regimes of algorithmic control, precarity, and fragmented worker subjectivities, while alsoprompting emerging forms of resistance. It identifies key theoretical gaps in existing research—particularly theneglect of normative control, political-economic context, and Global South perspectives. Focusing on China’srapidly expanding food-delivery sector, the chapter situates platform labour within the country’s distinctiveinstitutional landscape shaped by the hukou system, weak labour regulation, and a techno-developmental stateagenda. By adopting a labour process lens, the book aims to unpack how digital technologies restructure capitallabourrelations and reproduce new forms of subordination and agency in China’s digital workplace.