On the Resilience of Gig Workers in China

I taught Chinese workers at Columbia, and was impressed.  Another example?

China's Gig Workers Are Challenging Their Algorithmic Bosses   By Wired

Huang Hui, a Ph.D. candidate at King's College in London who spent six months as a gig worker in Shanghai, is among a cohort of researchers studying how algorithms control gig workers' lives. China's platform economy has engulfed almost a quarter of the country's labor force, with an estimated 200 million people working in "flexible" employment.

Companies have leveraged algorithms to force couriers to work faster and more efficiently, squeezing them with tighter delivery times. Some gig workers are banding together to turn the data-driven approach to performance assessment against their bosses. Many more are forming unofficial unions with the help of social media platforms such as WeChat and Douyin, China's version of TikTok.

Although China bans independent unions and labor strikes, that hasn't stopped gig workers from organizing unofficially. Many food delivery riders find opportunities to band together thanks to other types of algorithms — those that help them find like-minded people on Douyin, where gig workers share experiences and advice.

Whole Article

Gig Economies in the Post Pandemic

Good piece in Knowledge@Wharton  ....  How will it change post Pandemic? 

How Workers Create Meaning in the Gig Economy

Jan 31, 2022 Research North America

Wharton management professor Lindsey Cameron was so committed to her research on gig workers that she became one, driving part-time for Uber for three years as she studied how people in the sharing economy give meaning to their work.

Her time spent as both a driver and a passenger helped Cameron forge a deeper understanding with the 63 ride-hailing drivers she interviewed over five years for her formal study. Questioning them, she drew out intimate details about their experiences and learned about the mental games they play to find satisfaction in jobs that are transactional, temporary, and downright lonely at times.

“There’s a cultural narrative that the gig economy is so terrible and so exploitive,” Cameron said. “I honestly came into the research thinking that was true, but that’s not what many of the drivers told me. They really liked it.”

Her paper, “Making Out While Driving: Relational and Efficiency Games in the Gig Economy,” which was recently published in the journal Organization Science, adds to a growing body of research into what is quickly becoming the new normal for many — workplaces without walls, bosses, co-workers, or any of the traditional structures that keep employees engaged and socially connected. As many as 55 million Americans were gig workers in 2017, a figure that has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. And policy debates continue over whether those workers should be classified as employees who deserve benefits.

“We’re going into a world where there are weaker organization and occupational mechanisms for socialization. You can get hired by a company and work there and never talk to a single person face to face,” Cameron said. “It raises the question of what keeps people in the work game? Hopefully, this paper is helping you understand what it’s like to be literally in the driver’s seat.”

“Hopefully, this paper is helping you understand what it’s like to be literally in the driver’s seat.” .....'

Future of the Firm

In O'Reilly, about the firm, its future, and who is doing the work.  Today often part-time.  A considerable piece with lots of links to related work.

Future of the firm
Mapping the complex forces that are reshaping organizations and changing the employee/employer relationship.

By Josh Bersin, Tim O'Reilly, Roger Magoulas, Mike Loukides:  March 12, 2019

Future of the Firm

We’re excited that O’Reilly Radar is partnering with Josh Bersin to cover topics like organizational learning, workforce expectations, adapting to digital transformation, and leveraging technology for human resources—all topics related to the future of the firm. Bersin has a long history of providing prescient advice on the human side of what organizations need to tackle the changing technological landscape they face. You may know him from the research reports he developed at Bersin by Deloitte.

A downloadable edition of "Future of the Firm" is also available.

The “future of the firm” is a big deal. As jobs become more automated, and people more often work in teams, with work increasingly done on a contingent and contract basis, you have to ask: “What does a firm really do?” Yes, successful businesses are increasingly digital and technologically astute. But how do they attract and manage people in a world where two billion people work part-time? How do they develop their workforce when automation is advancing at light speed? And how do they attract customers and full-time employees when competition is high and trust is at an all-time low?

When thinking about the big-picture items affecting the future of the firm, we identified several topics that we discuss in detail in this report: ... " 

McKinsey Surveys the Gig Economy

McKinsey via surveys and useful interpretation and advice for our 'industry'.

Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy

By James Manyika, Susan Lund, Jacques Bughin, Kelsey Robinson, Jan Mischke, and Deepa Mahajan 

The McKinsey Global Institute examines all the ways people are earning income, as well as the challenges independent work presents.

Working nine to five for a single employer bears little resemblance to the way a substantial share of the workforce makes a living today. Millions of people assemble various income streams and work independently, rather than in structured payroll jobs. This is hardly a new phenomenon, yet it has never been well measured in official statistics—and the resulting data gaps prevent a clear view of a large share of labor-market activity.  ... "