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Personality Traits and Performance in Online Labour Markets

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  • Mourelatos, Evangelos
  • Giannakopoulos, Nicholas
  • Tzagarakis, Manolis

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the impact of non-cognitive skills on the quality of task-specific outcomes by conducting a quasi-experiment on a well-known online crowdsourcing platform. We show that a worker’s performance varies with personality traits, gender, human capital, crowdsourcing experience and work effort. Regarding the effects of non-cognitive skills, we find that workers’ performance in online microtasks is positively related to extraversion and agreeableness. The positive impact of extroverts is also revealed when performance is adjusted for task completion time. These findings provide implications regarding the integration of selection mechanisms in online labour matching platforms aiming in uncovering microworkers soft skills to improve performance and consequently the allocation of resources in online microtasks.

Suggested Citation

  • Mourelatos, Evangelos & Giannakopoulos, Nicholas & Tzagarakis, Manolis, 2019. "Personality Traits and Performance in Online Labour Markets," GLO Discussion Paper Series 338, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:338
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    Cited by:

    1. Mourelatos, Evangelos & Zervas, Panagiotis & Lagios, Dimitris & Tzimas, Giannis, 2024. "Can AI Bridge the Gender Gap in Competitiveness?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1404, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. 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).
    3. Mourelatos, Evangelos, 2021. "Personality and Ethics on Online Labor Markets: How mood influences ethical perceptions," EconStor Preprints 244735, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Mourelatos, Evaggelos & Giannakopoulos, Nicholas & Tzagarakis, Manolis, 2020. "Productivity outcomes in online labor markets and within-task complexity and difficultly," GLO Discussion Paper Series 739, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crowdsourcing; online labour; quality of work; cognitive abilities; personality traits; workers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • J40 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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