On Tuesday, Uber drivers took part in strikes organised by the App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) meanwhile the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) Union are planning for more Uber drivers to strike on the 6th October. Additionally, IWGB’s Deliveroo and UberEats members have organised numerous strikes and demonstrations over the past five years.… Read More: Why do platform workers protest? »
After three years and nine months, I’m leaving the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at the end of the month to take up a Lectureship in the Sociology Work at Birmingham University. I’ll be joining a highly regarded group of researchers in the ‘Organisation, Work and Employment Group’ at the Department of Management. I joined the… Read More: Goodbye to the OII from Alex Wood »
How digital technologies are implicated in profound changes in the nature of work has been a topic of much interest in the past years. One realm of high-skilled ‘knowledge work’, historically conducted by full-time professionals in the office, is increasingly technology-mediated and executed by remote independent contractors. Platforms operating online labor markets are the harbingers… Read More: New research project iWork: investigating the Future of Work and… »
Online labor markets for professional knowledge work is growing 30% a year. Established intermediaries, brokers and staffing agencies should be concerned about this, according to Dr. Gretta Corporaal (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford). “When the media reports about the gig economy of platform labor, they often talk about low-skilled, low-paid platform labor, such as at… Read More: Intermediaries should be worried about the platform economy »
PublicDomainPictures/Pexels (CCO) Firms have been using temporary staffing agencies to find and hire temporary workers for short-term assignments since the 1940s. Temporary workers were initially used to cover for their in-house employees when on leave. Yet, many firms today use agencies to hire temporary workers as part of their flexible workforce. Agencies provide value to… Read More: 6 dimensions of value: Comparing platform versus agency-based sourcing »
Organizing for successful platform adoption: Part 2 PublicDomainPictures/pixabai (CCO) Large corporations are starting to realize the benefits of leveraging online platforms to access freelancers on an on-demand basis. However, they are also presented with new challenges around how to organize for successful platform adoption? In part One of this blog I’ve drawn upon innovation literature to… Read More: How the Fortune 500 experiment with platform adoption »