IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infosf/v24y2022i2d10.1007_s10796-020-10036-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Digital Platforms of Work and the Crafting of Career Path: The Crowdworkers’ Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Ayomikun Idowu

    (Royal Holloway University of London
    University of Sussex)

  • Amany Elbanna

    (Royal Holloway University of London)

Abstract

Work and Employment is a critical area that is undergoing major change influenced by the widespread connectivity and utilisation of the Internet and the rise of digital platforms. Crowdwork is an emerging new way of working that is witnessing exponential growth. It is surrounded by a fixed debate between opposite perspectives on its impact on workers. However, both perspectives adopt a static view that does not pay much attention to crowdworkers’ progress in their job over time. In this study, we seek to advance this debate by adopting a dynamic view of crowdwork to explore the trajectory of workers over time based on their own accounts. Through rich qualitative data and inductive analysis, the study unravels that crowdworkers craft what could be conceptualised as a career development path. It identifies five stages in this career path and workers’ efforts to mould their work demands and job-related resources to create a future for themselves. The discussion shows the fruitful insight that this approach brings to theory and practice. Limitations and future avenues for research are then discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayomikun Idowu & Amany Elbanna, 2022. "Digital Platforms of Work and the Crafting of Career Path: The Crowdworkers’ Perspective," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 441-457, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infosf:v:24:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10796-020-10036-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10796-020-10036-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10796-020-10036-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10796-020-10036-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Keith Chen & Judith A. Chevalier & Peter E. Rossi & Emily Oehlsen, 2019. "The Value of Flexible Work: Evidence from Uber Drivers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2735-2794.
    2. John Zysman & Martin Kenney, 2017. "Intelligent Tools and Digital Platforms: Implications for Work and Employment," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 52(6), pages 329-334, November.
    3. Araz Taeihagh, 2017. "Crowdsourcing, Sharing Economies and Development," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 33(2), pages 191-222, June.
    4. Kässi, Otto & Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2018. "Online labour index: Measuring the online gig economy for policy and research," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 241-248.
    5. Wei-Feng Tung & Guillaume Jordann, 2017. "Crowdsourcing social network service for social enterprise innovation," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 1311-1327, December.
    6. Michiel Frederick Coetzer & Mark Bussin & Madelyn Geldenhuys, 2017. "The Functions of a Servant Leader," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, February.
    7. John Horton & William R. Kerr & Christopher Stanton, 2017. "Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows," NBER Chapters, in: High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences, pages 71-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Mann, Laura & Graham, Mark, 2016. "The domestic turn: business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85048, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Yuxiang Zhao & Qinghua Zhu, 2014. "Evaluation on crowdsourcing research: Current status and future direction," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 417-434, July.
    10. Chris Nosko & Steven Tadelis, 2015. "The Limits of Reputation in Platform Markets: An Empirical Analysis and Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 20830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Paschen, Jeannette, 2017. "Choose wisely: Crowdfunding through the stages of the startup life cycle," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 179-188.
    12. Siou Chew Kuek & Cecilia Paradi-Guilford & Toks Fayomi & Saori Imaizumi & Panos Ipeirotis & Patricia Pina & Manpreet Singh, 2015. "The Global Opportunity in Online Outsourcing," World Bank Publications - Reports 22284, The World Bank Group.
    13. Soe-Tsyr Daphne Yuan & Ching-Fang Hsieh, 2018. "An impactful crowdsourcing intermediary design - a case of a service imagery crowdsourcing system," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 841-862, August.
    14. Laura Mann & Mark Graham, 2016. "The Domestic Turn: Business Process Outsourcing and the Growing Automation of Kenyan Organisations," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(4), pages 530-548, April.
    15. Benjamin Saunders & Julius Sim & Tom Kingstone & Shula Baker & Jackie Waterfield & Bernadette Bartlam & Heather Burroughs & Clare Jinks, 2018. "Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1893-1907, July.
    16. Louise Muhdi & Michael Daiber & Sascha Friesike & Roman Boutellier, 2011. "The crowdsourcing process: an intermediary mediated idea generation approach in the early phase of innovation," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 14(4), pages 315-332.
    17. Cai, Hongbin & Jin, Ginger Zhe & Liu, Chong & Zhou, Li-an, 2014. "Seller reputation: From word-of-mouth to centralized feedback," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 51-65.
    18. Brown, Terrence E. & Boon, Edward & Pitt, Leyland F., 2017. "Seeking funding in order to sell: Crowdfunding as a marketing tool," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 189-195.
    19. Yiwei Gong, 2017. "Estimating participants for knowledge-intensive tasks in a network of crowdsourcing marketplaces," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 301-319, April.
    20. Steven Tadelis, 2016. "Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 321-340, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fabian Braesemann & Fabian Stephany & Ole Teutloff & Otto Kassi & Mark Graham & Vili Lehdonvirta, 2021. "The global polarisation of remote work," Papers 2108.13356, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    2. Evangelos Mourelatos & Manolis Tzagarakis, 2018. "An investigation of factors affecting the visits of online crowdsourcing and labor platforms," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 95-130, December.
    3. Braesemann, Fabian & Stephany, Fabian & Teutloff, Ole & Kässi, Otto & Graham, Mark & Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2021. "The polarisation of remote work," SocArXiv q8a96, Center for Open Science.
    4. Melia, Elvis, 2020. "African jobs in the digital era: Export options with a focus on online labour," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2020, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    5. DILI Ramces & BUNCAD Yve Joerella & PEREZ Yveth Jasmin, 2022. "Bpo Industry In Achieving Socio-Economic Development Inclusiveness And Local Governance In The Philippines," Management of Sustainable Development, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 14(2), pages 22-26, December.
    6. Maier, Michael F. & Viete, Steffen & Ody, Margard, 2017. "Plattformbasierte Erwerbsarbeit: Stand der empirischen Forschung," IZA Research Reports 81, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Mourelatos, Evangelos, 2021. "Personality and Ethics on Online Labor Markets: How mood influences ethical perceptions," EconStor Preprints 244735, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    8. Otto Kassi & Vili Lehdonvirta & Fabian Stephany, 2021. "How Many Online Workers are there in the World? A Data-Driven Assessment," Papers 2103.12648, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    9. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2018. "Inside the Engine Room of Digital Platforms: Reviews, Ratings, and Recommendations," Working Papers halshs-01714549, HAL.
    10. Jana M. Kleibert & Laura Mann, 2020. "Capturing Value amidst Constant Global Restructuring? Information-Technology-Enabled Services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 1057-1079, September.
    11. Lingfang (Ivy) Li & Steven Tadelis & Xiaolan Zhou, 2020. "Buying reputation as a signal of quality: Evidence from an online marketplace," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(4), pages 965-988, December.
    12. Gesche, Tobias, 2018. "Reference Price Shifts and Customer Antagonism: Evidence from Reviews for Online Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Peter Konhäusner, 2021. "Crowdsourcing in Sustainable Retail—A Theoretical Framework of Success Criteria," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-21, February.
    14. Ruohuang Jiao & Wojtek Przepiorka & Vincent Buskens, 2022. "Moderators of reputation effects in peer-to-peer online markets: a meta-analytic model selection approach," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1041-1067, May.
    15. Apostolos Filippas & John J. Horton & Joseph M. Golden, 2022. "Reputation Inflation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(4), pages 733-745, July.
    16. Nikhil Garg & Ramesh Johari, 2021. "Designing Informative Rating Systems: Evidence from an Online Labor Market," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 589-605, May.
    17. Maggie X. Chen & Min Wu, 2021. "The Value of Reputation in Trade: Evidence from Alibaba," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 857-873, December.
    18. Mann, Laura & Kleibert, Jana Maria, 2020. "Capturing value amidst constant global restructuring? Information technology enabled services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103356, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Sabia, Luca & Bell, Robin & Bozward, David, 2022. "Big fish: Leveraging the fear of missing out in equity crowdfunding in the post-COVID-19 era," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 59-67.
    20. Xuefeng Zhang & Bengang Gong & Yaqin Cao & Yi Ding & Jiafu Su, 2022. "Investigating participants’ attributes for participant estimation in knowledge-intensive crowdsourcing: a fuzzy DEMATEL based approach," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 811-842, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:infosf:v:24:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10796-020-10036-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.