OMS 405 Fall 2019

OMS 405
Senior Capstone on the Gig Economy
Reading List version 3.0
(version 2.0 here; 1.0 here)

Dr. Brawley Newlin, Gettysburg College, Fall 2019
(see syllabus here)

1. What is gig work? (Aug 30)

2. This ain’t a new problem, folks!

2a. Some historical and big picture perspective (the changing nature of work) (Sept 4)

  • The legal context of the management of human resources (Murphy, 2018), pp. 2-5 (“Historical Context”) and pp. 16-17 (“Who is an Employee…?”)
  • Labour is not a technology: Reasserting the Declaration of Philadelphia in times of platform-work and gig-economy (de Stefano, 2017), pp. 4-6 (Section 2. “Uber: Digital service…?”) and pp. 8-14 (Sections 4 and 5)

2b. A primer on employee classification, taxes, and tax forms (Sept 11)

2c. Employee classification in light of the gig economy (Sept 13)

2d. Recent rulings, etc. (Sept 13)

Readings #1-2:

Reading #3 (choose any one from the following list, and prepare a summary to share in class):

3. Exploring platforms and the implications of “going public”

3a. Student mini-presentations on selected various platforms (in class Sept 18-20), to possibly include….

99Designs
Airbnb
Airgarage
Airpnp
Airport Sherpa
Alto (rideshare)
Animal Robo
Antlos
Band of Hands
Bento
Bloomthat
Boatbound
Breather
Bud and Breakfast
CAD Crowd
Caliva
Challenge.gov
Chaordix
ClickWorker
Clowder
Clutter
Craigslist
CrowdSpring
DesignCrowd
Doctor on Demand
Dogvacay
Doordash
Doorman
Droners
Eatwith
Eaze

Etsy
Eventup
Eyeka
Farm Hill
Figure Eight (formerly CrowdFlower)
Fiverr
Freelancer
Guerra-Creativa
Guru
Heal
Hipcamp
Homejoy
Idea Connection
IdeaScale
InnoCentive
Instacart
Juno
Kaggle
Kinkbnb
Laundromatch
Lugg
Luxe
Lyft
Mealpal
Microworkers
Minibar
Monkey Parking
Munchery
NineSigma
Ohlala
Ola Cabs

People PerHour
Podshare
Postmates
Push for Pizza
Roost
Shuddle
Shyp
Silk Road
Songfinch
Spare Chair
Spot Park
Swiggy
Taskrabbit
Thumbtack
Topcoder
Toptal
Twitch
Uber
UberEATS
Upwork
Wag!
Washio
Yoshi
YourMechanic
Youtube
Zeel
Zesty
Zirx
ZOOPPA

… (any platform but MTurk)

3b. Limits of Uberization? (Sept 25)

3c. Organizing what we know so far about gig work platforms (Sept 25)

  • The Sharing Economy (Sundararajan, 2016), Ch. 3 “Platforms: Under the Hood”

4. Being a gig worker

4a. Who gig works? (Oct 2)

4b. Firsthand experience (Oct 4)

  • “Being an MTurk Worker” participation assignment

4c. Secondhand experiences (Oct 2-4)

5. Measuring the gig economy

5a. Variations in findings (Oct 9)

For analysis and discussion in class (randomly assigned one during class):

5b. Limitations of measurement methods (in class Oct 9)

6. Worker issues

6a. Benefits (Oct 11)

6b. Occupational health (Oct 23)

6c. Collaborative efforts (Oct 25)

6d. Collective action: Unions? Manifestos? Protests? (Oct 25)

7. Fairness

7a. Defining fairness (in class Oct 30 – Nov 1)

7b. Ratings (Oct 30)

7c. Pay (Nov 1)

7d. Discrimination in access (Nov 1)

8. “Bigger picture” impacts of the gig economy

8a. Housing (Nov 6)

8b. Artificial intelligence (Nov 6)

8c. Intersections of “traditional” business and the gig economy (Nov 13)

9. Is the gig economy good?

9a. “Good”? (Nov 15)

9b. “Bad”? (Nov 20)

Reading #1 (in class):

  • Everyone reads/explores: C-SATS – explore this site enough to determine how this surgery rating process works http://www.csats.com/

Reading #2 (randomly assigned one to read/summarize in class discussion):

10. What gig work means for us

10a. As managers and management scholars (Nov 22 – Dec 4)

  • In-class work: You and your presentation partner will select one OMS concept (see list below for suggestions) and one gig for the following work. Prepare a short presentation that will cover three main points: (1) a brief introduction of your selected OMS concept (e.g., how is it defined? What are its key dimensions?), (2) whether and how it “applies” to the gig you selected, and (3) what changes (if any; or if none – why not?) we may need to our concept in order to better suit that particular gig. Total expected presentation length is about 3-5 minutes. You may make presentation materials (e.g., a few slides) but this is not required.
    • Make sure to explore your chosen concept and its application to gigs in adequate depth to earn credit. For example, stating that you choose job satisfaction (without defining it) and then merely noting that gig workers likely experience some level of satisfaction with their jobs would be insufficient.
    • Instead, an appropriate depth of exploration would be to
      • (1) explain job satisfaction and specific factors – such as the physical demands of the work, the person’s personal interest in the work, and how mentally challenging the work is – that affect job satisfaction, and
      • (2) suggest ways that those factors may or may not be different for a specific gig (e.g., the workers may feel more personal interest in the gig), and how those differences could affect the worker’s job satisfaction (e.g., it could increase their job satisfaction).
      • (3) Last, be sure to include recommendations for any changes (or explain why no changes are necessary) to our current conceptualization of the topic you chose, such as needing to emphasize personal interest more, and physical demands of the work less, or add in some new factor affecting job satisfaction, such as rating systems.

10b. As people with “traditional” jobs (Dec 4)

10c. Personally (Dec 4)

10d. As people who want the future of work to be good (Dec 4)

  • Your role in creating a fairer world of work (Graham, 2017, pp. 28-31)