The rapid growth of the platform economy has provoked scholarly discussion of its consequences for the nature of work and employment. We identify four major themes in the literature on platform work ...and the underlying metaphors associated with each. Platforms are seen as entrepreneurial incubators, digital cages, accelerants of precarity, and chameleons adapting to their environments. Each of these devices has limitations, which leads us to introduce an alternative image of platforms: as permissive potentates that externalize responsibility and control over economic transactions while still exercising concentrated power. As a consequence, platforms represent a distinct type of governance mechanism, different from markets, hierarchies, or networks, and therefore pose a unique set of problems for regulators, workers, and their competitors in the conventional economy. Reflecting the instability of the platform structure, struggles over regulatory regimes are dynamic and difficult to predict, but they are sure to gain in prominence as the platform economy grows.
TERMINOLOGIJA I KONCEPT GIG EKONOMIJE Huđek, Ivona; Širec, Karin
Ekonomski pregled,
02/2023, Letnik:
74, Številka:
1
Magazine Article, Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Novi poslovni modeli pojavili su se krajem 20. stoljeća razvojem internetske tehnologije (IT) i digitalne transformacije. Jedan od njih – poznat pod nazivom gig ekonomija – predstavlja novi poslovni ...koncept koji se odnosi na tržišni sustav u kojem pojedinci nude svoje usluge na određeno vrijeme drugim tvrtkama putem digitalnih platforma. Svrha je ovog rada istražiti relativno novo područje gig ekonomije i njezin kontekst na temelju prethodnih istraživanja i literature. Prema tome koncept gig ekonomije temelji se na trokutastom odnosu između pojedinca (radnika; davatelja usluga), digitalnog posrednika procesa (mrežne platforme rada) i krajnjeg korisnika usluge (poslodavca). Takav koncept podrazumijeva različite koristi za sve uključene strane, ali donosi i brojne izazove. Cilj je rada pružiti opisni uvid u literaturu i istraživanja te uvesti, odnosno predstaviti terminologiju koja se odnosi na koncept gig ekonomije. Također je cilj raspraviti o prirodi rada unutar gig ekonomije, njezinim trenutnim značajkama, stvaranju vrijednosti za tvrtke i poduzetništvo te pitanjima koja treba riješiti vezano za radnu snagu gig ekonomije i budućim implikacijama na politiku. Ograničenja rada su nedostatak sporazuma o standardnim definicijama i nacionalnim i međunarodnim okvirima radne snage iako studije sugeriraju da je radna snaga gig ekonomije među najbrže rastućim silama u suvremenim radnim odnosima. Stoga rad potiče razvoj politika i programa za identificiranje specifičnosti, koristi i izazova gig ekonomije te njezinog utjecaja na društvo kako bi se olakšala i promovirala nova, rastuća poduzetnička kategorija.
Many workers have been drawn to the gig economy by the promise of flexible, autonomous work, but scholars have highlighted how independent working arrangements also come with the drawbacks of ...precarity. Digital platforms appear to provide an alternative to certain aspects of precarity by helping workers find work consistently and securely. However, these platforms also introduce their own demands and constraints. Drawing on 20 interviews with online freelancers, 19 interviews with corresponding clients and a first-hand walkthrough of the Upwork platform, we identify critical literacies (what we call gig literacies), which are emerging around online freelancing. We find that gig workers must adapt their skills and work strategies in order to leverage platforms creatively and productively, and as a component of their ‘personal holding environment’. This involves not only using the resources provided by the platform effectively, but also negotiating or working around its imposed structures and control mechanisms.
Faire Arbeit in der Gig Economy? Berli, Sara; Weichbrodt, Johann; Welge, Katrina
Arbeit,
06/2023, Letnik:
32, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Zusammenfassung
In diesem Praxisbeitrag fokussieren wir auf die arbeits- und organisationspsychologischen Aspekte von Fairness in der Gig Economy. An unserem aktuellen Innovationsprojekt FAMOS ...(„Faires Arbeitsmodell ‚Office Services‘“) werden Möglichkeiten aufgezeigt und diskutiert, wie ein faires Gig-Arbeitsmodell aussehen könnte. Im Projekt gehen wir davon aus, dass Fairness in der Plattformarbeit hergestellt werden kann, indem Maßnahmen für fachliche und persönliche Entwicklung sowie Community Building angeboten werden. Dadurch wird eine gewinnbringende Beziehung im Sinne eines ausgewogenen psychologischen Vertrags zwischen Plattformbetreibenden und Leistungserbringenden gefördert. Community Building scheint zudem ein wichtiges Instrument zur Steigerung von subjektivem Gerechtigkeitsempfinden und Zugehörigkeit zu sein. Unsere ersten Erkenntnisse zeigen, dass Personalentwicklung sinnvollerweise in die Community-Strukturen integriert wird und Partizipation bei der Regelgestaltung innerhalb von Plattform und Community eine zentrale Rolle für wahrgenommene Fairness in der Gig Economy spielt.
Purpose
High-quality employee motivation can contribute to an organization’s long-term success by supporting employees’ well-being and performance. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research ...concerning how organizations motivate workers in non-traditional work contexts. In the algocratic context of the gig-economy, the purpose of this paper is to understand the role that technology can play in motivating workers.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the self-determination theory, job-characteristic theory and enterprise social media research, this conceptual paper explores how the architecture of the digital labor platforms underlying the gig-economy (and the characteristics of jobs mediated through these IT artifacts) can impact key antecedents of self-motivation.
Findings
Combining theory and empirical evidence, this paper develops a mid-range theory demonstrating how organizations can support the self-motivation of gig-workers through the thoughtful design of their digital labor platforms and the integration of two social media tools (namely, social networking and social badging).
Research limitations/implications
This paper answers calls for psychologically-based research exploring the consequences of gig-work as well as research studying the impacts of advanced technologies in interaction with work contexts on motivation. In theorizing around a large set of social-contextual variables operating at different levels of analysis, this paper demonstrates that individual-level motivation can be influenced by both task-based and organizational-level factors, in addition to individual-level factors.
Originality/value
The proposed theory provides novel insight into how gig-organizations can leverage widely accessible social media technology to motivate platform workers in the absence of human supervision and support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Existing research has shown that people experience third-party evaluations as a form of control because they try to align their behavior with evaluations’ criteria to secure more favorable resources, ...recognition, and opportunities from external audiences. Much of this research has focused on evaluations with transparent criteria, but increasingly, algorithmic evaluation systems are not transparent. Drawing on over three years of interviews, archival data, and observations as a registered user on a labor platform, I studied how freelance workers contend with an opaque third-party evaluation algorithm—and with what consequences. My findings show the platform implemented an opaque evaluation algorithm to meaningfully differentiate between freelancers’ rating scores. Freelancers experienced this evaluation as a form of control but could not align their actions with its criteria because they could not clearly identify those criteria. I found freelancers had divergent responses to this situation: some experimented with ways to improve their rating scores, and others constrained their activity on the platform. Their reactivity differed based not only on their general success on the platform—whether they were high or low performers—but also on how much they depended on the platform for work and whether they experienced setbacks in the form of decreased evaluation scores. These workers experienced what I call an “invisible cage”: a form of control in which the criteria for success and changes to those criteria are unpredictable. For gig workers who rely on labor platforms, this form of control increasingly determines their access to clients and projects while undermining their ability to understand and respond to factors that determine their success.
What are the distinctive traits that characterize work(ing) through (and for) a digital platform? In the burgeoning debate on the ‘gig economy’, a critical examination that comprehensively addresses ...this issue beyond specific examples or case studies is currently missing. This article uses labour process theory – an important Marxist approach in the study of relations of production in industrial capitalism – to address this gap. Supported by empirical illustrations from existing research, the article discusses the notions of ‘point of production’, emotional labour and control in the gig economy to argue that labour process theory offers a unique set of tools to expand our understanding of the way in which labour power comes to be transformed into a commodity in a context where the encounter between supply and demand of work is mediated by a digital platform, and where feedback, ranking and rating systems serve purposes of managerialization and monitoring of workers.
Labour markets are thought to be in the midst of a dramatic transformation, where standard employment is increasingly supplemented or substituted by temporary work mediated by online platforms. Yet ...the scale and scope of these changes is hard to assess, because conventional labour market statistics and economic indicators are ill-suited to measuring this “online gig work”. We present the Online Labour Index (OLI), an experimental economic indicator that approximates the conventional labour market statistic of new open vacancies. It measures the utilization of online labour across countries and occupations by tracking the number of projects and tasks posted on major online gig platforms in near-real time. The purpose of this article is to introduce the OLI and describe the methodology behind it. We also demonstrate how it can be used to address previously unanswered questions about the online gig economy. To benefit policymakers, labour market researchers and the general public, our results are published in an interactive online visualisation which is updated daily.
•We present the Online Labour Index (OLI), a new economic indicator•The OLI tracks the number of projects and tasks posted on the major online labour platforms in near real time•We find that the demand for online gigwork has increased by roughly 20 percent year on year•The majority of jobs are in technology, followed by graphic design and writing•Roughly half of the labour demand originates from the United States•Our results are published in an interactive online visualisation which is updated daily
Summary
Gig workers have become an important component of the contemporary workforce and have generated extensive interest among researchers. The purpose of this article is to provide an integrative ...review of the literature on gig workers. Consistent with the more recent studies, we adopt a broad definition of gig work, which is characterized by the temporary nature of the work, project‐based compensation, work flexibility, and non‐membership in an organization. We first discuss the major themes in the literature based on an input–process–output framework. Specifically, we review what factors drive individuals to engage in gig work, how gig work impacts gig workers based on four theoretical approaches, and what outcomes individuals experience as a result of engaging in gig work. Based on the literature review, we highlight six future research agendas. We also discuss practical implications for gig workers, traditional organizations, digital labor platforms, and society.
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