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A Little Too Personal: Effects of Standardization versus Personalization on Job Acquisition, Work Completion, and Revenue for Online Freelancers

Published: 29 April 2022 Publication History

Abstract

As more individuals consider permanently working from home, the online labor market continues to grow as an alternative working environment. While the flexibility and autonomy of these online gigs attracts many workers, success depends critically upon self-management and workers’ efficient allocation of scarce resources. To achieve this, freelancers may develop alternative work strategies, employing highly standardized schedules and communication patterns while taking on large work volumes, or engaging in smaller numbers of jobs whilst tailoring their activities to build relationships with individual employers. In this study, we consider this contrast in relation to worker communication patterns. We demonstrate the heterogeneous effects of standardization versus personalization across different stages of a project and examine the relative impact on job acquisition, project completion, and earnings. Our findings can inform the design of platforms and various worker support tools for the gig economy.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)"At the end of the day, I am accountable": Gig Workers' Self-Tracking for Multi-Dimensional Accountability ManagementProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642151(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)Designing Individualized Policy and Technology Interventions to Improve Gig Work ConditionsProceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3596671.3598576(1-9)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Online Freelancing on Digital Labor Platforms: A Scoping ReviewCompanion Publication of the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3584931.3607011(259-266)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2023
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  1. A Little Too Personal: Effects of Standardization versus Personalization on Job Acquisition, Work Completion, and Revenue for Online Freelancers

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2022
    10459 pages
    ISBN:9781450391573
    DOI:10.1145/3491102
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 29 April 2022

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    Author Tags

    1. Online freelancing
    2. digitally-mediated communication
    3. online labor markets
    4. personalization
    5. standardization

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    CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 29 - May 5, 2022
    LA, New Orleans, USA

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    View all
    • (2024)"At the end of the day, I am accountable": Gig Workers' Self-Tracking for Multi-Dimensional Accountability ManagementProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642151(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)Designing Individualized Policy and Technology Interventions to Improve Gig Work ConditionsProceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3596671.3598576(1-9)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
    • (2023)Online Freelancing on Digital Labor Platforms: A Scoping ReviewCompanion Publication of the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3584931.3607011(259-266)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2023
    • (2023)Co-Designing Alternatives for the Future of Gig Worker Well-BeingProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3595982(664-687)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
    • (2022)Empirical Study for Improving Project Allocation on Freelancing Platform2022 International Conference on Innovation and Intelligence for Informatics, Computing, and Technologies (3ICT)10.1109/3ICT56508.2022.9990740(325-332)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2022

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