The missing middle: communities of practice in a freelance labour market

Abstract

Learning at, and through, work is a key part of the skills literature. However, the idea and ideal of the ‘community of practice’ assumes that workplaces are coherent communities where the skilful are available for novices to consult and observe. This is not always the case. This research note, drawing on three months of detailed ethnographic research in a TV production company, explores the way communities of practice function in a labour market dominated by small firms and freelancers. It argues that the experienced workers who would normally be central to skills development are simply not available to consult or observe, since they are employed on freelance contracts. The novices’ community is one with a ‘missing middle’.

Autonomy at work in the gig economy: analysing work status, work content and working conditions of independent professionals

“…No time is devoted either to skills development or maintenance. As Grugulis and Stoyanova (: 349) noted in their study of a TV production company: ‘without ready access to visible, transparent expertise novices struggled to learn,or even to know what they needed to learn’. Many IPros are part of professional categories with little to no‐regulation, such as interpreters, consultants or trainers.…”

Open creative labs: Spatial settings at the intersection of communities and organizations

“…Freelancers or micro‐entrepreneurs strategically incorporate traditional community qualities into their socially dominated, but also career‐oriented “sociality networks” (Wittel, ; Grabher & Ibert, ). Due to a lack of organizational routines and organized learning mechanisms, participants in project‐based labor markets strongly rely on self‐organized interactions with other professionals (Grugulis & Stoyanova, ). Communities as “intermediaries” between individuals and organizations : Finally, communities are conceptualized as constituting a “ middleground, […] linking the informal underground culture with the formal organizations and institutions of the upperground” (Cohendet, Gradadam, Simon, & Capdevila, , p. 930). In this reading, communities are regarded as entities in which new ideas are formed through interaction and by developing and following a shared understanding for valuing creative outcomes (Cohendet et al, ; see also Csikszentmihalyi, ).…”

Creative work careers: pathways and portfolios for the creative economy

“…For those unable to secure creative employment in either specialist or embedded modes, a profile of multiple job-holding and crossing occupational boundaries is common. This could be extended 'entry tournaments' (Stoyanova and Grugulis 2012), prolonged work as an intern (Carrot Workers Collective 2011) and/or engaging in forms of peripheral participation in trying to develop a reputation and secure positions of greater responsibility (Grugulis and Stoyanova 2011), whilst securing a main income elsewhere -for example, in 'other' occupations as highlighted by Throsby and Zednik (2011). These scenarios of internship and peripheral participation are more specific to students, graduates and earlier career entrants and emphasise the need to include the potential in-between and overlap activities in any account of workforce mapping and career transitions.…”