IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/k3hy4.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, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:k3hy4
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/k3hy4
    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?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. Kässi, Otto & Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2018. "Online labour index: Measuring the online gig economy for policy and research," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 241-248.
    2. 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.
    3. Jahoda,Marie, 1982. "Employment and Unemployment," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521285865, September.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Rajagopal, 2014. "The Human Factors," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 9, pages 225-249, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Supreet Kaur & Michael Kremer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2022. "Erratum: Self-Control at Work," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(8), pages 2223-2224.
    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. repec:osf:socarx:k3hy4_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Heiland, Heiner, 2020. "Workers' Voice in platform labour: An Overview," WSI Studies 21, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    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. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    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. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    9. Anett John, 2020. "When Commitment Fails: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 503-529, February.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Victor Gonzalez-Jimenez & Patricio S. Dalton & Charles N. Noussair, 2019. "The Dark Side of Monetary Bonuses: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Vienna Economics Papers vie1909, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    13. Larbi Alaoui & Christian Fons-Rosen, 2016. "Know when to fold 'em: The grit factor," Economics Working Papers 1521, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Apr 2021.
    14. Jiao, Yawen, 2024. "Managing decision fatigue: Evidence from analysts’ earnings forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1).
    15. Víctor González-Jiménez, 2021. "Incentive contracts when agents distort probabilities," Vienna Economics Papers vie2101, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    16. Koch, Alexander K. & Nafziger, Julia, 2020. "Motivational goal bracketing: An experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    17. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Dahmann, Sarah C. & Kamhöfer, Daniel A. & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2022. "The Determinants of Population Self-Control," IZA Discussion Papers 15175, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Wood, Alex & Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2021. "Antagonism beyond employment: how the ‘subordinated agency’ of labour platforms generates conflict in the remote gig economy," SocArXiv y943w, Center for Open Science.
    19. Stephen L. Cheung & Lachlan Johnstone, 2025. "True overconfidence, revealed through actions: An experiment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 171-199, April.
    20. Yves Le Yaouanq & Peter Schwardmann, 2022. "Learning About One’s Self," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(5), pages 1791-1828.
    21. Fan, C. Simon & Wei, Xiangdong & Wu, Jia & Zhang, Junsen, 2022. "Observability and peer effects: Theory and evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 847-867.

    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. 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.