Positives outweighing negatives: the experiences of Indian crowdsourced workers

Premilla D'Cruz, null; Ernesto Noronha, null

doi:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.10.1.0044

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Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Volume 10, Issue 1

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Positives outweighing negatives: the experiences of Indian crowdsourced workers

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Author(s): Premilla D'Cruz , Ernesto Noronha

Publication date (Print): Spring 2016

Journal: Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

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Abstract

This article reports on an empirical study of Indian freelancers working via Elance-oDesk (now renamed Upwork). In a qualitative approach, data were gathered from 24 freelancers across India through in-depth telephone interviews and analysed thematically. The core finding that ‘the positives outweigh the negatives’ highlighted the fact that the challenges were eclipsed by what these freelancers gained, in terms of employment opportunities, income, skill utilisation and enhancement, career progression, emphasis on merit, international exposure, flexibility and platform-based protection of worker interests. Participants' favourable experiences are explained by the nature of the Indian labour market. The study extends insights into crowdsourcing for paid work which has so far been largely researched in the West and has focused disproportionally on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): workorgalaboglob

Title: Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 1745641X

ISSN (Electronic): 17456428

Publication date (Print): Spring 2016

Volume: 10

Issue: 1

Pages: 44-63

Article

Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.10.1.0044

DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.10.1.0044

SO-VID: bd9d8a8d-59e3-48d8-86dc-e07701f9470b

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics

References

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Budhwar, P.S. (2000) ‘Indian and British personnel specialist – Understanding of the dynamics of their function: An empirical study’, International Business Review , 9 (6):727–53.
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Aloisi, A. (2015) ‘The rising of on-demand work: A case study research on a set of online platforms and apps’, Paper presented at the 4th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work , Geneva, July, 8–10, 2015.

[2] Bergvall-Kåreborn, B. & D. Howcroft (2014) ‘Amazon Mechanical Turk and the commodification of labour’, New Technology, Work and Employment , 29 (3):213–23.

[3] Brophy, E. & G. de Peuter (2007) ‘Immaterial labour, precarity, and recomposition’ in C. McKercher & V. Mosco (eds) Knowledge Workers in the Information Society , Lanham, MD: Lexington Books:177–91.

[4] Bryman, A. & R.G. Burgess (1999) ‘Qualitative research methodology: A review’ in A. Bryman & R.G. Burgess (eds) Qualitative Research , Vol. 1, London: Sage:ix–xlvi.

[5] Budhwar, P.S. (2000) ‘Indian and British personnel specialist – Understanding of the dynamics of their function: An empirical study’, International Business Review , 9 (6):727–53.

[6] Caraway, B. (2010) ‘Online labour markets: An inquiry into oDesk providers’, Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation , 4 (2):111–25.

[7] Chen, M.A. (2007) ‘Rethinking the informal economy: Linkages with the formal economy and the formal regulatory environment’. Accessed January, 23, 2015 from http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2007/wp46_2007.pdf.

[8] Cohen, N.S. (2015) ‘Entrepreneurial journalism and the precarious state of media work’, South Atlantic Quarterly , 114 (3):513–33.

[9] Crabtree, B. & W. Miller (1992) Doing Qualitative Research , Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

[10] Creswell, J.W. (1998) Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Traditions , Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[11] D'Cruz, P. & E. Noronha (2012) ‘High commitment management practices re-examined: The case of Indian call centres’, Economic and Industrial Democracy , 33 (2):185–205.

[12] De Stefano, V.M. (2015) ‘The rise of the “just-in-time” workforce’, Paper presented at the 4th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work , Geneva, July, 8–10, 2015.

[13] Elance. (2013) ‘Global online employment report, 2013’. Accessed August, 20, 2015 from https://www.elance.com/q/online-employment-report.

[14] Empson, R. (2013) ‘Everything you wanted to know about the giant Elance, oDesk Merger and ensuing backlash (but were afraid to ask)’. Accessed May, 13, 2015 from http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/22/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-giant-elance-odesk-merger-ensuing-backlash-but-were-afraid-to-ask/.

[15] Felstiner, A. (2011) ‘Working the crowd: Employment and labour law in the crowdsourcing industry’, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labour Law , 32 (1):143–203.

[16] Fernandes, L. (2004) ‘The politics of forgetting: Class politics, state power and the restructuring of urban space in India’, Urban Studies , 41 (12):2415–30.

[17] Gill, R. (2011) ‘Life is a pitch: Managing the self in new media work’ in M. Deuze (ed) Managing Media Work , Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage:249–62.

[18] Green, A., M. de Hoyos, S.A. Barnes, A. Baldauf & H. Behle (2014) Exploratory Research on Internet-Enabled Work Exchanges and Employability , Seville, Spain: European Commission.

[19] Holtgrewe, U. (2014) ‘New new technologies: The future and the present of work in information and communication technology’, New Technology, Work and Employment , 29 (1):9–24.

[20] India Labour and Employment Report. (2014) Workers in the Era of Globalisation , New Delhi: IHD (Institute for Human Development) and Academic Foundation.

[21] Irani, L.C. & M. Silberman (2013) ‘Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in Amazon Mechanical Turk’ in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems :611–20, New York, NY: ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).

[22] Kapoor, R. (2014) ‘Creating “good jobs”’, Economic & Political Weekly , 59 (46):16–18.

[23] Kasturi, K. (2015) ‘Comparing census and NSS data on employment and unemployment’, Economic & Political Weekly , 50 (22):16–19.

[24] Keat, R. (1991) ‘Introduction: Starship Britain or universal enterprise’ in R. Keat & N. Abercrombie (eds) Enterprise Culture , London: Routledge:1–17.

[25] King, N. (2006) ‘Using interviews in qualitative research’ in C. Cassell & G. Symon (eds) Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organisational Research , London: Sage:11–22.

[26] Kittur, A., J.V. Nickerson, M. Bernstein, E. Gerber, A. Shaw, J. Zimmerman & J. Horton (2013) ‘The future of crowd work’ in Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work :1301–18, New York, NY: ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).

[27] Kneese, T., A. Rosenblat & d. boyd (2014) ‘Understanding fair labour practices in a networked age’, Open Society Foundations’ Future of Work Commissioned Research Papers. Accessed November, 20, 2014 from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2536619.

[28] Leimeister, J.M. & D. Durward (2015) ‘New forms of employment and IT: Crowdsourcing’, Paper presented at the 4th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work , Geneva, July, 8–10, 2015.

[29] Marshall, C. & G. Rossman (1999) Designing Qualitative Research , Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

[30] McRobbie, A. (2002) ‘Clubs to companies: Notes on the decline of political culture in speeded up creative worlds’, Cultural Studies , 16 (4):516–31.

[31] Menon, S. (2015) ‘Pick your paymasters’, Business World , January, 12. Accessed July, 26, 2015, from http://businessworld.in/article/Pick-Your-Paymasters/14-01-2015-78549/.

[32] Miles, M.S. & A.M. Huberman (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: A Sourcebook of New Methods , Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.

[33] Noronha, E. & P. D'Cruz (2009) Employee Identity in Indian Call Centres: The Notion of Professionalism , New Delhi: Sage.

[34] Risak, M. & J. Warter (2015) ‘Decent Crowdwork: Legal strategies towards fair employment conditions in the virtual sweatshop’, Paper presented at the 4th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work , Geneva, July, 8–10, 2015.

[35] Ross, A. (2000) ‘The mental labour problem’, Social Text , 18 (2):1–31.

[36] Rustagi, P. (2015) ‘Informal employment statistics’, Economic & Political Weekly , 50 (6):67–72.

[37] Sinha, J.B.P. (2015) Psychosocial Analysis of the Indian Mindset , New Delhi: Springer.

[38] Swart, G. (2013) ‘oDesk + Elance Merger FAQ’. Accessed May, 13, 2015 from https://www.upwork.com/blog/2013/12/MergerFAQ/.

[39] Upwork. (2014) ‘Upwork online work report, 2014’. Accessed August, 20, 2015 from http://elance-odesk.com/online-work-report-global.

[40] Upwork. (2015) ‘Our story’. Accessed May, 13, 2015 from https://www.upwork.com/about/.

[41] Urry, J. (2014) Offshoring , Cambridge, UK: Polity.

[42] Vanni, I. & M. Tarì (2005) ‘The life and deeds of San Precario, patron saint of precarious workers and lives’, Fibreculture Journal , 5:1–11.

[43] Vosko, L.F. (2009) Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment , Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.