Flexibility in the gig economy: managing time on three online piecework platforms
通过访谈和数据分析，比较三个在线计件平台，发现结构性约束（工作可得性和依赖度）与文化认知约束（拖延和出勤主义）限制了工人对时间安排的控制，且约束程度因平台而异。
Gig economy platforms seem to provide extreme temporal flexibility to workers, giving them full control over how to spend each hour and minute of the day. What constraints do workers face when attempting to exercise this flexibility? We use 30 worker interviews and other data to compare three online piecework platforms with different histories and worker demographics: Mechanical Turk, MobileWorks, and CloudFactory. We find that structural constraints (availability of work and degree of worker dependence on the work) as well as cultural‐cognitive constraints (procrastination and presenteeism) limit worker control over scheduling in practice. The severity of these constraints varies significantly between platforms, the formally freest platform presenting the greatest structural and cultural‐cognitive constraints. We also find that workers have developed informal practices, tools, and communities to address these constraints. We conclude that focusing on outcomes rather than on worker control is a more fruitful way to assess flexible working arrangements.