IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/k3hy4_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Flexibility in the Gig Economy: Managing Time on Three Online Piecework Platforms

Author

Listed:
  • Lehdonvirta, Vili

Abstract

Gig economy platforms seem to provide extreme temporal flexibility to workers, giving them full control over how to spend each hour and minute of the day. What constraints do workers face when attempting to exercise this flexibility? We use 30 worker interviews and other data to compare three online piecework platforms with differing histories and worker demographics: Mechanical Turk, MobileWorks, and CloudFactory. We find that structural constraints (availability of work and degree of worker dependence on the work), as well as cultural-cognitive constraints (procrastination and presenteeism), limit worker control over scheduling in practice. The severity of these constraints varies significantly between platforms, the formally freest platform presenting the greatest structural and cultural-cognitive constraints. We also find that workers have developed informal practices, tools, and communities to address these constraints. We conclude that focusing on outcomes rather than control is a more fruitful way to assess flexible working arrangements.

Suggested Citation

  • Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2018. "Flexibility in the Gig Economy: Managing Time on Three Online Piecework Platforms," SocArXiv k3hy4_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:k3hy4_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/k3hy4_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/60e8577bf80fdb014b4d8e38/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/k3hy4_v1?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. Vili Lehdonvirta & Mirko Ernkvist, 2011. "Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy," World Bank Publications - Reports 27361, The World Bank Group.
    2. Paul Edwards, 2012. "The hot house and the politics of production: Piecework Bargaining in retrospect," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 317-331, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Sundararajan, Arun, 2016. "The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262034573, December.
    5. Supreet Kaur & Michael Kremer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2015. "Self-Control at Work," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1227-1277.
    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. Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2018. "Flexibility in the Gig Economy: Managing Time on Three Online Piecework Platforms," SocArXiv k3hy4, Center for Open Science.
    2. Andrey SHEVCHUK & Denis STREBKOV, 2023. "Digital platforms and the changing freelance workforce in the Russian Federation: A ten‐year perspective," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 162(1), pages 1-22, March.
    3. Rani Uma & Furrer Marianne, 2019. "On-Demand Digital Economy: Can Experience Ensure Work and Income Security for Microtask Workers?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 239(3), pages 565-597, June.
    4. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    5. Uwe Sunde & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & Armin Falkbriq & David Huffman & Gerrit Meyerheim, 2022. "Patience and Comparative Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(5), pages 2806-2840.
    6. Pia Szichta & Ingela Tietze, 2020. "Sharing Economy in der Elektrizitätswirtschaft: Treiber und Hemmnisse [Title sharing economy in the electricity sector: drivers and barriers]," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 109-125, December.
    7. Lutz, Christoph & Newlands, Gemma, 2018. "Consumer segmentation within the sharing economy: The case of Airbnb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 187-196.
    8. Maik Hesse & Timm Teubner & Marc T. P. Adam, 2022. "In Stars We Trust – A Note on Reputation Portability Between Digital Platforms," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(3), pages 349-358, June.
    9. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    10. Vincenzo Vignieri, 2021. "Crowdsourcing as a mode of open innovation: Exploring drivers of success of a multisided platform through system dynamics modelling," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 108-124, January.
    11. Agam Gupta & Biswatosh Saha & Parthasarathi Banerjee, 2018. "Pricing decisions of car aggregation platforms in sharing economy: a developing economy perspective," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(5), pages 341-355, October.
    12. Anett John, 2020. "When Commitment Fails: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 503-529, February.
    13. Julienne Brabet & Corinne Vercher- Chaptal & Lucy Taska, 2020. "From oligopolistic digital platforms to Open/Cooperative Ones?," Post-Print hal-03201454, HAL.
    14. Geissinger, Andrea & Laurell, Christofer & Sandström, Christian, 2020. "Digital Disruption beyond Uber and Airbnb—Tracking the long tail of the sharing economy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    15. Werthschulte, Madeline, 2023. "Present focus and billing systems: Testing ‘pay-as-you-go’ vs. ‘pay-later’," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 108-121.
    16. Cristina Alaimo & Jannis Kallinikos, 2017. "Computing the everyday: social media as data platforms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 81432, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Möhlmann, Mareike, 2021. "Unjustified trust beliefs: Trust conflation on sharing economy platforms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(3).
    18. Abderzag Fouzi, 2021. "The Effect of Economic Variables on Banking Credits: An Empirical Study of Algeriancommercial Banks (1997-2017)," European Journal of Economics and Business Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 4, September.
    19. Wei Zhou & Zidong Wang, 2020. "Competing for Search Traffic in Query Markets: Entry Strategy, Platform Design, and Entrepreneurship," Working Papers 20-12, NET Institute.
    20. Abhijit Banerjee & Dean Karlan & Hannah Trachtman & Christopher R. Udry, 2020. "Does Poverty Change Labor Supply? Evidence from Multiple Income Effects and 115,579 Bags," NBER Working Papers 27314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:osf:socarx:k3hy4_v1. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.