a column by William Kerr and Christopher Stanton for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Online labour platforms such as Upwork facilitate interactions between employers and employees for a wide range of tasks.
This column provides some first evidence on flows and substitution across countries on these new digital platforms. In contrast to classic trade patterns in products, contract placements via Upwork are frequently cross-border and North-South in nature. The findings also suggest that employers leave the platform in response to wage bid increases rather than substituting away from their target search location.
Diaspora networks, in particular the Indian diaspora, still matter for how contracts are placed at the global level.
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Showing posts with label digital_labour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital_labour. Show all posts
Friday, 7 September 2018
Friday, 24 November 2017
The flow of digital labor
an article Eliane Bucher and Christian Fieseler (BI Norwegian Business School, Norway) published in New Media & Society Volume 19 Issue 11 (November 2017)
Abstract
Digital microwork is a type of labor that many – typically poorly paid – workers engage in. In our research, we focus on an experience-based model of digital labor and the nonmonetary benefits derived from such activities.
Based on a survey of 701 workers at Amazon Mechanical Turk, we demonstrate that experiences during digital labor sequences generate flow-like states of immersion. We show that reaching flow-like states while performing microwork depends on certain work characteristics, such as the particular worker’s degree of autonomy, the extent to which a worker’s skills are utilized, and the apparent significance of and feedback derived from the task.
The results both highlight the importance of flow-like immersion in explaining why individuals engage in digital labor projects and point to avenues that can lead to the design of better digital work experiences.
Abstract
Digital microwork is a type of labor that many – typically poorly paid – workers engage in. In our research, we focus on an experience-based model of digital labor and the nonmonetary benefits derived from such activities.
Based on a survey of 701 workers at Amazon Mechanical Turk, we demonstrate that experiences during digital labor sequences generate flow-like states of immersion. We show that reaching flow-like states while performing microwork depends on certain work characteristics, such as the particular worker’s degree of autonomy, the extent to which a worker’s skills are utilized, and the apparent significance of and feedback derived from the task.
The results both highlight the importance of flow-like immersion in explaining why individuals engage in digital labor projects and point to avenues that can lead to the design of better digital work experiences.
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