IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nea/journl/y2023i61p128-144.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Platforms, online labor markets, and crowdsourcing. Part 2. Crowdsourcing

Author

Listed:
  • Kazakova, E.

    (HSE University, Moscow, Russia)

  • Sandomirskaia, M.

    (HSE University, Moscow, Russia)

  • Suvorov, A.

    (HSE University, Moscow, Russia)

  • Khazhgerieva, A.

    (HSE University, Moscow, Russia)

  • Shavshin, R.

    (HSE University, Moscow, Russia)

Abstract

This survey complements the general discussion of online labor platforms and focuses on crowdsourcing. When a business task is outsourced via a crowdsourcing platform, it is split into smaller so-called microtasks that are further distributed to 'crowd' of platform's workers. The majority of crowdsourced microtasks are standardized and not time-consuming. Therefore, any interested worker can supply his labor force in a crowdsourcing platform facing almost zero entry barriers and special requirements. This specific feature of crowdsourcing platforms and the workers involved distinguishes this market from other online labor platforms. In this survey, we compare a crowdsourcing market to online and offline labor markets. In particular, we provide arguments in favor of considering crowdsourcing as a complement to the traditional labor marker rather than its direct alternative. We give a special emphasis to crowdsourcing workers, their motivation to enter a platform, and their labor supply. Moreover, comparing different online labor markets' structures, we conclude that crowdsourcing is the closest one to standard two-sided platforms and, therefore, features large-magnitude indirect network effects. Deeping into the structure of crowdsourcing platforms, we consider peculiar approaches to matching and pricing in this market, as well as discuss problems in accessing labor force quality. Overall, crowdsourcing platforms expand the traditional labor market, whereas one should note that crowdsourcing regulation is heavily linked to policies developed to regulate analogous two-sided platforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Kazakova, E. & Sandomirskaia, M. & Suvorov, A. & Khazhgerieva, A. & Shavshin, R., 2023. "Platforms, online labor markets, and crowdsourcing. Part 2. Crowdsourcing," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 128-144.
  • Handle: RePEc:nea:journl:y:2023:i:61:p:128-144
    DOI: 10.31737/22212264_2023_4_128-144
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econorus.org/repec/journl/2023-61-128-144r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31737/22212264_2023_4_128-144?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
    ---><---

    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. Sangin Park, 2004. "Quantitative Analysis of Network Externalities in Competing Technologies: The VCR Case," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 937-945, November.
    3. John J. Horton, 2019. "Buyer Uncertainty About Seller Capacity: Causes, Consequences, and a Partial Solution," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3518-3540, August.
    4. Gomes, Renato & Pavan, Alessandro, 2016. "Many-to-many matching and price discrimination," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    5. Chandler, Dana & Kapelner, Adam, 2013. "Breaking monotony with meaning: Motivation in crowdsourcing markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 123-133.
    6. Feng Zhu & Qihong Liu, 2018. "Competing with complementors: An empirical look at Amazon.com," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(10), pages 2618-2642, October.
    7. Arindrajit Dube & Jeff Jacobs & Suresh Naidu & Siddharth Suri, 2020. "Monopsony in Online Labor Markets," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 33-46, March.
    8. Thomas Noe & Geoffrey Parker, 2005. "Winner Take All: Competition, Strategy, and the Structure of Returns in the Internet Economy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 141-164, March.
    9. Jason Chan & Jing Wang, 2018. "Hiring Preferences in Online Labor Markets: Evidence of a Female Hiring Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 2973-2994, July.
    10. Jean-Pierre H. Dubé & Günter J. Hitsch & Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2010. "Tipping and Concentration in Markets with Indirect Network Effects," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 216-249, 03-04.
    11. Daniel L. Chen & John J. Horton, 2016. "Research Note—Are Online Labor Markets Spot Markets for Tasks? A Field Experiment on the Behavioral Response to Wage Cuts," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 403-423, June.
    12. Hanna Halaburda & Mikołaj Jan Piskorski & Pınar Yıldırım, 2018. "Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Matching Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3574-3594, August.
    13. Zoë Cullen & Chiara Farronato, 2021. "Outsourcing Tasks Online: Matching Supply and Demand on Peer-to-Peer Internet Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 3985-4003, July.
    14. Kevin J. Boudreau & Lars B. Jeppesen, 2015. "Unpaid crowd complementors: The platform network effect mirage," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(12), pages 1761-1777, December.
    15. Dmitri K. Koustas, 2019. "What Do Big Data Tell Us about Why People Take Gig Economy Jobs?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 367-371, May.
    16. Steven Tadelis, 2016. "Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 321-340, October.
    17. Logan S. Casey & Jesse Chandler & Adam Seth Levine & Andrew Proctor & Dara Z. Strolovitch, 2017. "Intertemporal Differences Among MTurk Workers: Time-Based Sample Variations and Implications for Online Data Collection," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, June.
    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. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Gómez-Herrera, Estrella, 2022. "Mobility restrictions and the substitution between on-site and remote work: Empirical evidence from a European online labour market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    3. Rangaswamy, Arvind & Moch, Nicole & Felten, Claudio & van Bruggen, Gerrit & Wieringa, Jaap E. & Wirtz, Jochen, 2020. "The Role of Marketing in Digital Business Platforms," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 72-90.
    4. T. Tony Ke & Monic Sun & Baojun Jiang, 2024. "Peer-to-Peer Markets with Bilateral Ratings," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(5), pages 1081-1101, September.
    5. Ni Huang & Gordon Burtch & Yili Hong & Paul A. Pavlou, 2020. "Unemployment and Worker Participation in the Gig Economy: Evidence from an Online Labor Market," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 431-448, June.
    6. Kazakova, E. & Sandomirskaia, M. & Suvorov, A. & Khazhgerieva, A. & Shavshin, R., 2023. "Platforms, online labor markets, and crowdsourcing. Part 1. Traditional online labor market," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 120-148.
    7. Evangelos Mourelatos & Nicholas Giannakopoulos & Manolis Tzagarakis, 2022. "Personality traits and performance in online labour markets," Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(3), pages 468-484, February.
    8. Van Dyck, Marc & Lüttgens, Dirk & Diener, Kathleen & Piller, Frank & Pollok, Patrick, 2024. "From product to platform: How incumbents' assumptions and choices shape their platform strategy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    9. Hsing Kenneth Cheng & D. Daniel Sokol & Xinyu Zang, 2024. "The rise of empirical online platform research in the new millennium," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 416-451, March.
    10. Mourelatos, Evangelos, 2023. "Does Mood affect Sexual and Gender Discrimination in Hiring Choices? Evidence from Online Experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    11. Hongchang Wang & Benjamin Williams & Karen Xie & Wei Chen, 2024. "Quality Differentiation and Matching Performance in Peer-to-Peer Markets: Evidence from Airbnb Plus," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(7), pages 4260-4282, July.
    12. Duch-Brown, Néstor & Gomez-Herrera, Estrella & Mueller-Langer, Frank & Tolan, Songül, 2022. "Market power and artificial intelligence work on online labour markets," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    13. Evangelos Mourelatos & Jaakko Simonen & Simo Hosio & Daniil Likhobaba & Dmitry Ustalov, 2024. "How has the COVID-19 pandemic shaped behavior in crowdsourcing? The role of online labor market training," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 94(9), pages 1201-1244, November.
    14. Jack Fisher, 2024. "Monopsony Power in the Gig Economy," CESifo Working Paper Series 11444, CESifo.
    15. Xuelin Chen & Dongmei Zhou & Ziying Zhan & Ruoyu Lu, 2023. "When Do You Enter? Entrepreneurial Firms’ Entry Timing and Product Performance in the Digital Platform Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-18, March.
    16. Angela Garcia Calvo & Martin Kenney & John Zysman, 2023. "Understanding work in the online platform economy: the narrow, the broad, and the systemic perspectives," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 32(4), pages 795-814.
    17. Cenamor, Javier, 2021. "Complementor competitive advantage: A framework for strategic decisions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 335-343.
    18. Zhengwei Li & Yadan Zheng & Xin Zhao, 2024. "The impacts of platform owner entry on prospective complementors’ intention to join: Discouraged by deterrent or attracted by good reputation," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 34(1), pages 1-16, December.
    19. Cantarella, Michele & Strozzi, Chiara, 2022. "Piecework and Job Search in the Platform Economy," IZA Discussion Papers 15775, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Tobias Kretschmer & Aija Leiponen & Melissa Schilling & Gurneeta Vasudeva, 2022. "Platform ecosystems as meta‐organizations: Implications for platform strategies," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 405-424, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    online platforms; crowdsourcing; labor markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J49 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Other
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L17 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Open Source Products and Markets
    • D29 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nea:journl:y:2023:i:61:p:128-144. 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: Alexey Tcharykov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nearuea.html .

    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.