Kawalec, Sandra; Pfeiffer, Sabine
Crowdsourcing and Cloudworking and their implications for the organization of work
The digitalization dramatically transforms traditional forms of labour, while novel forms of (digital) labour emerge. Crowdworking and Clickworking are two new forms of working, which challenge not only former ways of labour relations but also change what used to be an employer-employee relationships (Howe, 2009; Felstiner 2011). The emerging research on Crowd- and Clickworking mostly focuses on the situation of Crowdsourcees and Clickworkers, or on the strategies and business models of the platforms involved (Berg 2016; Kohler 2015). The literature rarely looks into the sourcing organizations and the consequences for knowledge work and project management, and for work councils within those. Our contribution presents internal theoretical reflections and empirical results on one of the most discussed example, the “Liquid Organization” at IBM. In 2012 IBM announced to “set free” 5.000 employees into the crowd. This step was interpreted worldwide as a major shift towards crowd based forms of work organization. Now, four years later, our research describes what happened since the announcement within the company and interpret this case from a critical perspective of sociology of work.
The empirical part of our contribution is based on 30 qualitative interviews with (former and current) employees, work council representatives, crowdsources and management. The interviews were conducted between 2015 and 2016 and the results have not yet been published.
Based on the empirical results we discuss the presented case. Some major assumptions are: It will be shown how the principle of this new organization of labour is based on a result-orientated competition: various cloud- or crowdworkers are individually working on an advertised solution, but only one with the best result will get paid in the end. All the other submitted solutions remain unpaid and the cloud- or crowdworkers even lose their rights for their results they handed in. The consequences for the workers and the organization of this trend can be analyzed first hand along the experiences IBM made since 2012. This is especially interesting as IBM did not only announced to use Crowdsourcing as a strategic chance for generally reorganizing labour, but also in the long run was planning to discharge ¾ of its staff worldwide and let the work be performed henceforth by global freelancers, competing against each other for small work packages on online platforms like freelancer.com or topcoder.com (Crowdworx). Particular elements of Crowdsourcing are integrated in a worldwide strategy IBM called „Generation Open“ (Kawalec/Menz 2013), which consists of technical methods and tools that allow a standardization of working processes and therefore enables its global distribution (Kawalec 2013, 55). The rising numbers of registered croudworkers indicate that companies increasingly use this new form of labour (Twago 2013). The virulence of this development also becomes obvious by imaging its implications for the social structure of society: Crowdsourcing is not only challenging labour unions to guarantee the safety of labour and income conditions, but also results in a general change of the company organization, impacts social security systems and will have enormous consequences for the infrastructure of society as a whole (Bsirske/Stach 2012, 116).
The aim of the presented research is a systematic study of this new form of organization of labour. It is focusing on the organizational level – Crowdsourcing as an entrepreneurial strategy – as well as on the subjective perspective of crowd workers and the still employed project managers. We will describe how organizations and subjects handle uncertainties that arise when project work (inside the company) and crowdwork (from outside) are combined, and what novel contradictions are emerging. We also show how Crowdsourcing evokes the liquidation of known predictabilities as well as of former solid boundaries: those of organizations and markets on the institutional level, and those between workforce and subject on an individual level.
Our research focuses on three main topics:
- Entrepreneurial structures of power and governance: How do former relationships of power between organization and subject change when the factors that were responsible for a balance of power disappear? Does the asymmetry of power shift in favor of the organization, when Crowdsourcing means more certainty for organizations and less for the subjects?
- Working capacity and legitimation: Which strategies do organizations and subjects evolve to handle the uncertainty – on the organizational level the market and the challenge to fit the particular solutions together and on the subjective level the missing of an employment agreement, securing of a long term income, the cut-off of the social security system, no labour regulation institutions, insecure, unstable and competitive framework of labour – that evokes by using or participating in Crowdsourcing? Which subjective capabilities do cloudworkers evolve in order to handle their contingent working and living conditions? How do they legitimate the new entrepreneurial structure of power and governance – why do they participate in Crowdsourcing?
- Interest-driven policies: Which interest-driven demands do the cloudworkers articulate? How is a regulation of work beyond organizational and national boundaries possible?
Contact Details
Dipl. Soz. Sandra Kawalec Prof. Sabine Pfeiffer
sandra.kawalec@uni-hohenheim.de prof.sabine.pfeiffer@uni-hohenheim.de
References
Berg, Janine (2016): Income Security in the On-Demand Economy: Findings and Policy Lessons from a Survey of Crowdworkers. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3.
Bsirske/Stach (2012): eBay für Arbeitskräfte. Die Verlagerung qualifizierter IT-Arbeit in die Crowd. In: Bsirske, Frank/Schröder, Lothar/Werneke, Frank et al. (Hrsg.): Grenzenlos vernetzt? Gewerkschaftliche Positionen zur Netzpolitik. Hamburg: VSA Verlag, pp. 115-120.
Crowdworx: IBM planst o lay off 70% employees for Crowdsourcing.
https://www.crowdworx.com/news/ibm-plans-lay-70-employees/ (last visited 10.10.16)
Felstiner, Alek (2011): Working in the Crowd: Employment and Labor Law in the Crowdsourcing Industry. In: Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, Vol 32, Nr. 1, pp. 143-203.
Howe, Jeff (2009): Crowdsourcing: How the Power oft he Crowd is Driving the Future of Business. New York: Crown Business.
Kawalec, Sandra/Menz, Wolfgang (2013): Die Verflüssigung von Arbeit. Crowdsourcing als unternehmerische Reorganisationsstrategie – das Beispiel IBM. In: Arbeits- und Industriesoziologische Studien (AIS), Jg. 6, Heft 2, pp. 5-23.
Kawalec, Sandra (2013): Liquid Labour. Crowdsourcing und die Wirkung auf die Organisation von Arbeit. Diploma research. Unpublished manuscript.
Kohler, Thomas: Crowdsourcing-Based Business Models. How to Create and Capture Value. In: California Management Review, Vol 57, No. 4, pp. 63-84.
Twago (2013): Arbeitsmarkt: Selbstständige und Freiberufler auf dem Vormarsch – International Freelancers Day, Pressemitteilung vom 23.09.2013 http://www.twago.de/blog/presse/arbeitsmarkt-selbststandige-und-freiberufler-auf-dem-vormarsch/ (last visited 01.04.2013).