Documents New Technology, Work and Employment 295 results

"Workers who experience structural barriers in the labour market are overrepresented in the gig economy. There is limited research on how the broader context of labour markets and welfare systems shapes workers' motivations for, and subjective understandings of, ride-share work. Using established concepts of ‘constrained agency', ‘labour market objectives' and ‘life stories' from labour geography, this study develops a conceptual framework to advance subjective understandings of job quality. Drawing upon 59 interviews with workers from three distinct but overlapping disadvantaged groups (workers with disability, caring responsibilities and/or aged 45 and over), we focus on the experiences of and motivations for the work on a market-leading platform in Australia. Our findings highlight that subjective job quality perceptions are a complex mesh of individual circumstances and multi-layered social structures. Our framework helps to better understand why the work organisation and technology of the platform are valued by some yet loathed by others."

This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license and permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

"The rise of algorithmic management (AM) is helping to transform work and employment relationships, creating new challenges and opportunities alike. AM leverages machine-learning algorithms to help automate managerial functions. This raises key questions about its impact on work, organisations, and the broader society. This paper synthesises existing research on AM and categorizes scholarly insights into five theoretical perspectives: AM as a surveillance and control system, as a neutral tool, as an agentic boss, as a socio-technical process, and AM as a contradictory unity. While AM enhances coordination and efficiency, it also raises concerns such as pervasive surveillance, bias, dehumanization and worker alienation. We highlight the tensions between control and autonomy, transparency and opacity, and efficiency and fairness, illustrating the paradoxical nature of AM. This paper proposes a future research agenda, calling for ethical governance and responsible design of algorithmic systems to reap the benefits of AM while managing potential risks and mitigating harms."

This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license and permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

"In construction and engineering, workers from different organisations work together, often on a project-by-project basis. Drawing on the theoretical framework of inequality regimes as presented by Acker (2006a), and the externalisation of employment relations presented by Kalleberg et al. (2003), this article investigates the gendered implications of the externalisation of technological work in the construction industry. The empirical material is based upon interviews and a questionnaire answered by regular employees, contracted staff and independent contractors working in the construction industry. The data reveal how non-standard employments are parts of the organising processes that produce gendered inequalities between core and peripheral workers. This finding does not suggest that peripheral work indicates poor working conditions, to be more precise, peripheral workers can be in the most privileged positions."

"The importance of the Internet to trade unionism has not gone unnoticed by academics, and while many have perceived the need for unions to engage in social media, there has not been any study of how unions use social media. This paper provides a systematic examination of union social media use in terms of method, scope and content. The University and College Union (UCU) Twitter account was used as a case study. Tweets (n?=?1,615) were collected over a four-month period (January 1–April 30, 2014) from the official UCU account with followers (n?=?12,301) also categorised to determine who is listening. Findings are discussed with reference to earlier debates on union use of the Internet. We find that while UCU has moved with technological developments by using Twitter, the content of the union's messages remain in line with traditional union communication, and the engagement opportunities of social media are underutilised."