Purpose Although it is transforming the meaning of employment for many people, little is known about the implications of the gig economy for human resource management (HRM) theory and practice. The purpose of this paper is to conceptually explore the notion of HRM in the gig economy, where intermediary platform firms design and implement HRM activities while simultaneously trying to avoid the establishment of employment relationships with gig workers. Design/methodology/approach To conceptualize HRM in the gig economy, the authors offer a novel ecosystem perspective to develop propositions on the role and implementation of HRM activities in the gig economy. Findings The authors show that HRM activities in the gig economy are designed to govern platform ecosystems by aligning the multilateral exchanges of three key gig economy actors: gig workers, requesters and intermediary platform firms, for ensuring value co-creation. The authors argue that the implementation of HRM activities in the gig economy is contingent on the involvement and activities of these gig economy actors. This means that they are not mere recipients of HRM but also actively engaged in, and needed for, the execution of HRM activities. Originality/value The study contributes to research by proposing a theoretical framework for studying the design of HRM activities, and their implementation, in the gig economy. From this framework, the authors derive directions for future research on HRM in the gig economy.

In this study, we examine whether the relationship between employees' perceptions of human resource management (HRM) and work engagement is mediated by job crafting. Using conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that HR practices offer job resources which employees reinvest by displaying job crafting behaviours. Since job crafting involves the pro-active redesign of job characteristics by employees, this study advances the idea that employees are pro-active in their response to HRM and translate perceived HRM practice into attitudinal outcomes through displaying pro-active behaviour. In support of this idea, our results show that the relationship between perceived HRM and work engagement is fully mediated by the job crafting type 'increasing job resources and challenging job demands'. The job crafting type 'decreasing hindering job demands' turned out to be insignificantly related to both employee perceptions of HRM and work engagement.

In this study, we understand HRM implementation as a social process that depends on the social exchange relationships between line managers and both HR professionals and employees. As such, we offer a fresh approach to understanding HRM implementation by concentrating on the social exchange among HRM actors. We do so by investigating to what extent these exchange relationships influence HRM implementation, as reflected in employees' perceptions of the presence of HRM practices and their affective commitment. We collected multilevel data from two sources (line managers and employees) and in two phases in a Dutch engineering firm, and obtained fully matched manager -employee information from 75 employees and 20 line managers. Our results show that employees perceive a larger number of HRM practices when they have a good relationship with their line managers and when their line managers are motivated to implement HRM practices. Line managers, in turn, reciprocate perceived support from the HR department with greater motivation to implement these practices. We conclude that because HRM actors engage in social interactions, HRM practices will be implemented at the organizational level because employees perceive the presence of HRM practices and then reciprocate this with affective commitment.

Recognizing the importance for companies of having high-quality employment relationships with employees, previous studies have sought to explain the variability in employees' perceptions of HRM service value. However, most of these studies view employees as inactive in employment relationships and, therefore, do not consider whether employees' own attributes affect their perceptions of HRM service value. In accepting the alternative notion that consumers create value "in use, " the current study regards employees as active consumers of HRM practices, and so examines the extent and way in which employees' HRM competences (i.e., knowledge, skills, and abilities) explain the variability in HRM service value. Based on data collected from 2,002 employees in 19 companies in the Netherlands, a positive relationship has been found between employees' HRM competences and their perception of HRM service value, albeit one that is mediated by the perceived quality and nonmonetary costs of HRM services. The main implication of our fi ndings is that employees should be seen as active agents in employment relationships who, through coproducing and consuming HRM services as well as leveraging their knowledge and skills, infl uence the value of HRM services and have the potential to increase or undermine the outcomes of the employment relationship. An exclusive focus on the characteristics of the HRM service providers is also problematic in that it implies that employees are inactive in employment relationships and, hence, have no role in creating HRM service value.

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Previous studies have shown that online labor platforms want to have their cake and eat it too by implementing human resource management (HRM) activities to control gig workers who ought to be autonomous in their work. Our empirical study shows that using HRM activities to control gig workers creates institutional complexity and explores the strategies adopted by platform firms to address this complexity. Based on case studies of two meal-delivery platforms in the Netherlands (Uber Eats and Deliveroo), we identify freelance-related HRM activities that create tensions between the market and corporation logics. We show that online labor platforms rely on response strategies that integrate/balance, rather than rule out competing logics, including creating novel forms of HRM outsourcing, HRM devolution, and covert HRM implementation to control gig workers while simultaneously upholding their freelance status. Furthermore, we show that these response strategies are enabled by information technologies and the marketplaces that online labor platforms create, allowing for more experimental and dynamic approaches to HRM than so far theorized. The main implication of these findings is that the HRM activities for gig workers are simultaneously the source of, and the solution to, the institutional complexity associated with HRM for controlling freelance gig workers.

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