Safeguards against Opportunism in Freelance Contracting on the Internet

Shevchuk, Andrey; Strebkov, Denis

doi:10.1111/bjir.12283

Cited by 42 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…While an economic relationship might be disembedded from norms and laws, it may remain embedded within interpersonal relations and specific geographies at various spatial scales. In fact, these latter forms of embeddedness may be necessary to overcome problems such as lack of trust and opportunism (Shevchuk and Strebkov, 2018) and the barriers to social reproduction created by the process of normative disembedding and commodification, and thus explain how the economy is able to function. Therefore, this article not only contributes to our empirical understanding of the gig economy, but also demonstrates the theoretical value of an integrated understanding of Polanyi's approach to embeddedness.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy

et al. 2019

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This article investigates the (dis)embeddedness of digital labour within the remote gig economy. We use interview and survey data to highlight how platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are normatively disembedded from social protections through a process of commodification. Normative disembeddedness leaves workers exposed to the vagaries of the external labour market due to an absence of labour regulations and rights. It also endangers social reproduction by limiting access to healthcare and requiring workers to engage in significant unpaid 'work-for-labour'. However, we show that these workers are also simultaneously embedded within interpersonal networks of trust, which enable the work to be completed despite the low-trust nature of the gig economy. In bringing together the concepts of normative and network embeddedness, we reconnect the two sides of Polanyi's thinking and demonstrate the value of an integrated understanding of Polanyi's approach to embeddedness for understanding contemporary economic transformations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy

et al. 2019

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“…The platform structure mitigated against the systematic operation of existing social connections in the allocation of work and selection of freelancers. Additionally, there was little evidence of the use of social media groups and other forms of labour organising offering systems of social support and networks that improved freelancers' position in the field hierarchy (Shevchuk and Strebkov, 2018;Wood et al, 2018). However, forms of online social capital could be seen to emerge and operate in the allocation of repeat business to freelancers based on past work, and more generally it was apparent that ratings and reviews operated as a symbolically valued form of social capital (Gandini et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproducing Global Inequalities in the Online Labour Market: Valuing Capital in the Design Field

Demirel

Nemkova

Taylor

2020

Work, Employment and Society

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Millions of freelancers work on digital platforms in the online labour market (OLM). The OLM’s capacity to both undermine and reproduce labour inequalities is a theme in contemporary platform economy debates. What is less well understood is how processes of social (re)production take place in practice for diverse freelancers on global platforms. Drawing on a study of freelance designers, we use Bourdieu’s notions of capital and field to explore the specific ‘rules of the game’ and the symbolic valuing of skills and identities that secure legitimacy and advantage in the OLM. We contribute to contemporary debates by illuminating the power of Global North actors to shape freelancer positions and hierarchies in the online design field. The ‘cost advantages’ of Global South workers are counterbalanced by the symbolic legitimising of specific cultural and social practices (specifically in relation to language) and the devaluing of others.

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“…An early interpretation of platforms was that they are precisely such technology-enabled markets, breaking down hierarchies into free-floating oneperson firms (Botsman & Rogers, 2011;Malone, 2004). More recent accounts have started to emphasize the influence that platforms' internal mechanisms have on outcomes to the participants (Mair & Reischauer, 2017;Shevchuk & Strebkov, 2017). According to one recent view, platforms are "hybrid" institutions combining features of markets and hierarchies (Sundararajan, 2016).…”

Section: The Global Platform Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Global Platform Economy: A New Offshoring Institution Enabling Emerging-Economy Microproviders

Lehdonvirta¹,

Kässi²,

Hjorth

et al. 2018

Preprint

120

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Global online platforms match firms with service providers around the world, in services ranging from software development to copywriting and graphic design. Unlike in traditional offshore outsourcing, service providers are predominantly one-person microproviders located in emerging-economy countries not necessarily associated with offshoring and often disadvantaged by negative country images. How do these microproviders survive and thrive? We theorize global platforms through transaction cost economics (TCE), arguing that they are a new technology-enabled offshoring institution that emerges in response to cross-border information asymmetries that hitherto prevented microproviders from participating in offshoring markets. To explain how platforms achieve this, we adapt signaling theory to a TCE-based model and test our hypotheses by analyzing 6 months of transaction records from a leading platform. To help interpret the results and generalize them beyond a single platform, we introduce supplementary data from 107 face-to-face interviews with microproviders in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals choose microprovidership when it provides a better return on their skills and labor than employment at a local (offshoring) firm. The platform acts as a signaling environment that allows microproviders to inform foreign clients of their quality, with platform-generated signals being the most informative signaling type. Platform signaling disproportionately benefits emerging-economy providers, allowing them to partly overcome the effects of negative country images and thus diminishing the importance of home country institutions. Global platforms in other factor and product markets likely promote cross-border microbusiness through similar mechanisms.

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Safeguards against Opportunism in Freelance Contracting on the Internet

Cited by 42 publications

References 65 publications

Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy

Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy

Reproducing Global Inequalities in the Online Labour Market: Valuing Capital in the Design Field

The Global Platform Economy: A New Offshoring Institution Enabling Emerging-Economy Microproviders

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