How Can New Players Establish Themselves in Highly Institutionalized Labour Markets? A Belgian Case Study in the Area of Project‐Based Work

How can new players seeking to serve nonstandard worker categories (such as project‐based workers) establish themselves into labour markets that are highly institutionalized? This paper explores the case of SMart, a Belgian community‐based labour market intermediary that successfully developed solutions to better represent the interests of project‐based workers and secure their discontinuous careers. Using an organizational legitimacy approach, we find that labour market entry and growth involve different types of boundary‐crossing when addressing the needs of workers that do not fit into established categories. However, to justify boundary‐crossing, the new player must complement its pragmatic work on delivering new services and tools with conceptual (cognitive) and structural (moral) legitimation work.     

Online,on call: the spread of digitally organised just‐in‐time working and its implications for standard employment models

This article questions whether the dominant policy discourse, in which a normative model of standard employment is counterposed to ‘non‐standard’ or ‘atypical’ employment, enables us to capture the diversity of fluid labour markets in which work is dynamically reshaped in an interaction between different kinds of employment status and work organisation. Drawing on surveys in the UK, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands that investigate work managed via online platforms (‘crowdwork’) and associated practices, it demonstrates that crowdwork represents part of a continuum. Not only do most crowd workers combine work for online platforms with other forms of work or income generation, but also many of the ICT‐related practices associated with crowdwork are widespread across the rest of the labour market where a growing number of workers are ‘logged’. Future research should not just focus on crowdworkers as a special case but on new patterns of work organisation in the regular workforce.     

Are family‐friendly workplace practices a valuable firm resource?

We study the determinants and consequences of family‐friendly workplace practices (FFWP) using a sample of over 450 manufacturing firms in Germany, France, U.K., and U.S. We find a positive correlation between firm productivity and FFWP. This association disappears, however, once we control for a measure of the quality of management practices. We further find that firms with a higher proportion of female managers and more skilled workers, as well as well‐managed firms, tend to implement more FFWP. Conversely, a firm's environment does not have a significant impact on the FFWP it provides. © 2010 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.     

Divided we fall: The breakdown of gig worker solidarity in online communities

The ‘gig economy’ presents a contested new work arrangement where freelancers find work on digital platforms. Subsequently, previous research has investigated how gig workers develop solidarity and take collective action against the exploitative practices of the platforms. However, this research is limited by mostly focusing on solidarity in contexts of local gig worker communities. We investigate whether freelancers who work on a global platform, Upwork, which hires people for diverse and complex jobs, can build up solidarity in a global online community. Applying a mixed-methods research design, we analysed how gig workers responded to a policy change by Upwork that affected their working conditions negatively. In doing so, we outline how solidarity breaks down in an online community of gig workers, due to them realising different interests and identities. We contribute to recent discussions on solidarity in the gig economy, and online communities as tools for organising.     

Of crowds and talents: discursive constructions of global online labour

Online platforms not only serve to exchange information and goods but increasingly also service work provided by the self‐employed. The emergence of crowdsourcing of paid work has created a global market for online labour where services can be fully acquired and provided irrespective of location via platforms such as upwork.com or freelancer.com. Drawing on a content analysis of the websites of 44 globally operating platforms, this study has investigated the discursive construction of this new type of labour market. The findings show that platforms address the online workforce in different ways, for instance, as workers or freelancers. Contrary to their blanket characterisation as an anonymous crowd in previous academic debate, in most cases, online workers are forced to present themselves as talented experts to distinguish themselves from the mass of competitors. The control over online labour that these platforms exercise challenges existing conceptions of professionalism and self‐employment.     

Dynamics of contention in the gig economy: Rage against the platform,customer or state?

Protest in the gig economy has taken many forms and targets (platforms, customers and state officials). However, researchers are yet to adequately account for this diversity. We use a European survey of Upwork and PeoplePerHour platform workers to investigate worker orientation towards different forms of protest. Results reveal that worker anger, dependence and digital communication shape contention in the remote gig economy. Support for collective organisation is associated with anger at platforms as well as their dependence on the platform and communication with other workers. Individual action against clients is associated with anger and communication but not dependence. Support for state regulation is associated only with anger but not dependence or communication. We conclude that the relational approach entailed by Mobilisation Theory can aid explanation in the gig economy by shedding light on the dynamic process by which solidarity and dependence alter the perceived cost/benefits of particular remedies to injustice.     

Is There a Public Sector Training Advantage? Evidence from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey

Using matched employer–employee data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (2004), we find a significant training ‘advantage’ exists for public sector workers over private sector workers even after accounting for differences in the composition of the two workforces. This finding is robust to all but one change in specification, designed to account for worker sorting effects which can lead to unobserved workplace‐based effects being correlated with individual worker characteristics. Using the average characteristics of workers within an establishment as a control for these sorting effects all but eliminates the estimated public sector training advantage, which has otherwise been an empirical regularity of many individual‐based training models.     

Cognitive flexibility and adaptive decision‐making: Evidence from a laboratory study of expert decision makers

Research Summary : How can strategic decision makers overcome inertia when dealing with change? In this article we argue that cognitive flexibility (i.e., the ability to match the type of cognitive processing with the type of problem at hand) enables decision makers to achieve significantly higher decision‐making performance. We show that superior decision‐making performance is associated with using semiautomatic Type 1 cognitive processes when faced with well‐structured problems, and more deliberative Type 2 processes when faced with ill‐structured problems. Our findings shed light on the individual‐level mechanism behind organizational adaptation and complement recent work on strategic inertia. In addition, our findings extend management studies that have stressed the relevance of cognitive flexibility for responding to the demands of increasingly open, flexible, and rapidly changing organizations. Managerial Summary : Humans are creatures of habits. We tend to prefer known courses of action over new ones. In many cases, habits are good. However, when things change in unpredictable ways, the past may not be good guidance for the future. We argue that “cognitive flexibility”—the ability of understanding when to rely on habits vs. when to explore new courses of action—enables managers to switch from a “fast” decision mode, based on habits, to a “slow,” more deliberate decision mode that facilitates the exploration of new courses of action. Managers high in cognitive flexibility reflect on the situation at hand, recognize and value diversity in viewpoints, and integrate such diversity in their own decision processes. By valuing diversity, they are more likely to overcome inertia.     

Paid and Unpaid Labour in Non‐Profit Organizations: Does the Substitution Effect Exist?

In non‐profit organizations (NPOs), volunteers often work alongside paid workers. Such a co‐production setting can lead to tension between the two worker groups. This article examines for the first time if and how volunteers influence the separation of paid employees, and thus it contributes to the debate over whether volunteers can substitute paid workers. Using Austrian data at the organizational level, we find a significant impact of volunteers on the separations of paid workers in NPOs facing increased competition. These findings support the assumption that a partial substitution effect exists between paid workers and volunteers.     

Making gigs work: digital platforms,job quality and worker motivations

Technology has driven new organisations of work and employment relationships, rendering changes that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. The rise of digital platforms has not only enabled new forms of work activity but also transformed the way workers find new opportunities. This development, referred to as gig work, is distinct from traditional employment in that it is mediated through online platforms. While we can somewhat objectively designate traditional job characteristics as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, designating gig work itself as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ overlooks the fact that workers are inclined to evaluate the quality of their jobs according to their own individual needs, priorities, backgrounds and other circumstances—even if those jobs are objectively the same. Unlike previous scholarship on gig work, which has viewed job quality largely from a platform-focused perspective, this article takes a worker-centric approach and provides a typology of gig workers. The typology demarcates how gig work is used and indicates key attributes that differentiate how workers approach such jobs. Moreover, the typology reveals heterogeneity in gig workers’ motivations, characteristics and intentions. Consequently, platforms with ‘bad’ job quality characteristics can still offer work that some workers will see as ‘good’ and vice versa.     

Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries

This article presents findings regarding collective organisation among online freelancers in middle‐income countries. Drawing on research in Southeast Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa, we find that the specific nature of the online freelancing labour process gives rise to a distinctive form of organisation, in which social media groups play a central role in structuring communication and unions are absent. Previous research is limited to either conventional freelancers or ‘microworkers’ who do relatively low‐skilled tasks via online labour platforms. This study uses 107 interviews and a survey of 658 freelancers who obtain work via a variety of online platforms to highlight that Internet‐based communities play a vital role in their work experiences. Internet‐based communities enable workers to support each other and share information. This, in turn, increases their security and protection. However, these communities are fragmented by nationality, occupation and platform.     

Boundary management in an ICT‐enabled project‐based organising context

This paper explores the boundaries that emerge and exist within an information and communication technology (ICT)‐enabled project‐based organising context and the ways knowledge workers manage these boundaries through the use of technology. This is done through an exploratory qualitative case study of an early instance of the phenomenon in a knowledge‐intensive professional services organisation. Through the experiences of a group of knowledge workers who started to work in project‐based ways that were highly mediated by ICT, this study aims to understand the boundaries that they faced and the practices they undertook to manage these boundaries. In so doing, this study contributes to the existing literature on new forms of work and organisation, particularly on the issue of boundaries where ICT‐enabled project teams are used. In particular, this study extends our current understanding of boundaries through expanding the lens of investigation beyond a predominant focus on work–home boundaries and considers boundaries within the work sphere.     

Crowdsourcing and work: individual factors and circumstances influencing employability

The development of a fast and reliable Internet, new technologies online payment systems, and changes in work structure that enable and demand flexible working patterns have driven a move to a new form of Internet‐enabled labour exchange called crowdsourcing. Evidence from an in‐depth qualitative study is presented, focusing on selected users' interactions and experiences of working on two UK‐based crowdsourcing platforms. The paper shows that workers engaged in this form of labour exchange need to deploy existing employability skills and networks to effectively meet the challenges, and take advantage of the opportunities, that crowdsourcing presents. Individual factors and circumstances emerge as paramount for workers' continued engagement in this form of employment. Using selected components from an employability framework, the findings suggest that crowdsourcing can offer new pathways to practising skills and enhancing employability for some workers.     

Management,Organizational Justice and Emotional Exhaustion among Chinese Migrant Workers: Evidence from two Manufacturing Firms

This article explores how Human Resource (HR) policies and practices influence employee perceptions of organizational justice, which in turn impacts employee emotions and feelings of emotional exhaustion. Using structural equation modelling and based on employee survey data drawn from two manufacturing organizations, we find that a strong HR system — perceived by workers as distinctive, attractive and consistently implemented — fosters perceptions of distributive, procedural and interactive justice. However, only distributive injustice leads to negative emotions and emotional exhaustion. This is explained by reference to the cultural and institutional context (China), status (migrant) and type of workers (semi‐skilled, manual) included in the study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications that arise from these findings.     

The Ethnographic Contribution to Understanding Co‐worker Relations

Relations among co‐workers are becoming both more important and more complex in modern workplaces as authority over job decisions is shifted from supervisors to quasi‐independent teams. The author develops a model of co‐worker relations that recognizes these changes and evaluates this model using data content coded from the full population of published book‐length workplace ethnographies (N = 204). Confirmatory factor analysis techniques support the existence of three distinct aspects of co‐worker relations: cohesiveness, conflict and peer supervision. The most important determinants of co‐worker relations are employee involvement programmes and management behaviour. Returning to specific case studies allows a theoretical elaboration of how employee involvement and management behaviour condition co‐worker relations. The author concludes by noting the importance of intellectual exchanges between qualitative and quantitative methods for generating new advances in the study of work and employment relations.     

Actions in phygital space: Work solidarity and collective action among app-based cab drivers in India

This study delineates the microprocesses of solidarity development and the subsequent collective actions of gig workers in India amidst multiple structural constraints. Using netnography, semi-structured interviews and direct observation, we show how digitally naive app-based cab drivers amalgamate physical and digital spaces, construct a phygital space free of managerial gaze and leverage it to bond and bridge, create webs of care and share and resist multiple oppressive forces, individually and collectively. Thus, we broaden the conceptualisation of worker agency beyond labour-management antagonism and extend the extant literature on solidarity development and resistance in gig work by identifying a spatial enabler, phygital free space and the expansive role of relationship-based commitment. Relationship-based commitment not only functions as a membership mobiliser but also helps mobilise collective resistance when interwoven with an external threat-based identity created through injustice framing.     

Happier with the Same: Job Satisfaction of Disadvantaged Workers

Job satisfaction evaluations depend not only on the objective circumstances that workers experience in their jobs, but also on their subjective dispositions, such as their aspirations, expectations, feelings of entitlement or personal evaluation criteria. We use matched employer–employee data from the United Kingdom to examine whether and how subjective dispositions influencing job satisfaction vary across workers with different socio‐demographic traits. We approximate jobs using detailed occupations within workplaces and find that most of the variability in job satisfaction is at the worker rather than the proximate‐job level, and that workers with disadvantaged statuses report higher satisfaction with the same jobs than those with advantaged statuses.     

Profit Sharing for Increased Training Investments

This article investigates whether paying a profit‐related wage stimulates training investments. The results point to increased worker effort and wage flexibility as two channels through which profit sharing enhances investments in training. While both effects are found for young workers, for older workers, profit sharing mainly affects training investments through greater worker effort. The results suggest that profit sharing can be especially useful for stimulating training among older workers, a growing group in the labour force with a relatively weak labour market position due to a lack of training.     

Platform capitalism and neo-normative control: “Autonomy” as a digital platform control strategy in neoliberal Chile

A key element of the platform business model is concentrating great organisational power over the work process while simultaneously allowing workers certain degrees of autonomy and encouraging them to see themselves as self-employed. This study applied the neo-normative control concept to analyse the mechanisms platforms use to promote freedom of choice and self-regulation values, which are formed extra-organisationally in deeply neoliberal societies such as Chile. The Uber ride-hailing and Pedidos Ya home delivery platforms in Chile were examined using a labour process theory framework based on an ethnographic design. The results show the specific ways in which these platforms deploy forms of neo-normative control, how this deployment is anchored in the labour context of neoliberal Chilean society, and how workers re-signify, stress, or seek to subvert this control strategy. The findings' theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.