Management Research Seminar

Theme group: Centre for research of digital organisation and society

Speaker: Dr Greetje Corporaal, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University

Venue: Large Boardroom, Founders.

Abstract

This paper addresses the motivations, practices, and implications when firms adopt online labor market platforms to source knowledge work outside the boundaries of the firm. A growing number of firms are experimenting with such a platform-based ‘talent’ sourcing model in which online labor platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer, or Toptal become an important intermediary in the employment relationship. They enable firms to individually contract workers with required skills on an on-demand basis, typically for temporary contracts ranging from a few hours to several months or years. We argue that firm adoption of online labor platforms is profoundly changing the nature of knowledge work, the people doing the work, the organizations that employ them, and their employment relationships. It raises interesting questions about the implications of this change for organizing and managing work. It has led scholars to speculate about the vanishing of the American corporation, with its hierarchical model for organizing work, and firms shifting towards more market-based models of organizing. However, detailed empirical studies and theorizing on the motivations and implications of this shift for management and organizations is still missing. In this paper we therefore ask: “Why do firms adopt online labor platforms and what implications does this hold for the organization of work?” To shed light on this matter we conducted a comparative case study of 24 enterprise firms with over 10,000 employees that explored adopting a leading online labor platform for knowledge work. We examined why part of the firms decided to adopt the platform while others decide not to, shedding light on how platform adoption is partly a function of the organizational structures and processes of enterprise firms. 

Speaker Bio

Dr Corporaal is an organization scientist and a fellow of the World Economic Forum on the Future of Work.  She studies the platform economy and the transformation of work and organizations and is part of the ERC-funded iLabour project at OII.