Collaborative Research: HCC: Small: The Market is the Interface: Online Labor Platforms and Contingent Knowledge Work

这项纵向研究考察了在线劳动力平台重塑工作的方式，重点是它们如何维持其做市商角色，以及工人和雇主如何适应这些变化。鉴于知识工作对美国经济的中心地位，以及当前大流行的教训，调查结果将为政策制定者提供信息，并有助于正在进行的关于工作、劳工和经济的辩论。这项研究将通过三种方式实现这一点：(1)更好地理解平台架构设计和市场适应，这对加强劳动力市场和支持工人和雇主都至关重要。(2)为工人和雇主更深入地了解新兴的工作安排结构和依赖数字的劳工战略，以指导对未来新兴工作形式的培训、教育、政策形成和工作场所支持。(3)具体分析在线做市平台在纠正、加剧或转变已知问题方面可以发挥的作用，区别对待女工和女工与未充分代表人口的工人。这项研究将极大地促进目前对在线劳动力市场界面复制和解决劳动力获取方面的已知差异的理解，这些差异在一定程度上是由于工人的性别、种族和民族造成的。数据收集侧重于一种或有知识工作：通过支持人机交互并支持双边劳动力市场的在线劳动力平台进行在线自由职业。自由职业者(出售他们的服务)和雇主(寻求卖家的服务)通过做市平台提供的不同界面进行互动，使这成为一个谈判空间。也就是说，对在线劳动力的研究也是对做市、平台架构以及人和基于计算机的系统交互的研究。基于目前的工作和相关文献，本研究主要探讨三个问题：(1)在线劳务平台如何维持其做市角色？(2)自由职业者如何适应平台上的变化？(3)雇主如何适应平台上的变化？调查结果将为劳动力市场创造一种新型的依赖数字的劳动力基础设施的方式提供一个变革性的视角。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This longitudinal study examines the ways in which online labor platforms are reshaping work, with a focus on how they sustain their market-making roles, and how workers and employers adapt to these changes. Given the centrality of knowledge work to the U.S. economy, and the lessons of the current pandemic, findings will inform policy makers and contribute to ongoing debates on work, labor and the economy. The research will accomplish this in three ways: (1) Better understanding of platform architecture design and market adaptation, both critical to strengthening labor markets and supporting both workers and employers. (2) Deeper insights on the emerging structures of working arrangements and digitally-reliant labor strategies, for both workers and employers, to guide training, educating, policy-formation, and worksite support for an emerging form of future work. (3) Specific analysis of each role that online market-making platforms can play in redressing, exacerbating, or transforming known issues with differential treatment of women workers and workers from under-represented populations. The research will significantly advance current understanding about the ways that online labor market interfaces both replicate and address known differences in access to labor due, in part, to the worker's gender, race, and ethnicity. Data collection focuses on one type of contingent knowledge work: online freelancing conducted through online labor platforms that support human-computer interactions and enable a two-sided labor market. Freelancers (who sell their services) and employers (who seek the services of sellers) interact through the different interfaces provided by the market-making platforms, rendering this a negotiating space. That is, a study of online labor is also a study of market making, platform architecture, and humans and computer-based systems interacting. Building from current work and the relevant literature, this study pursues three primary research questions: (1) How does an online labor platform sustain its market-making role? (2) How do freelancers adapt to changes on a platform? (3) How do employers adapt to changes on a platform? Findings will provide a transformative lens into the ways in which labor markets are creating a new form of digitally-reliant labor infrastructure.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.