WORK AND LABOR IN THE
DIGITAL AGE
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK
Series Editor: Steve P. Vallas
Recent Volumes:
Volume 1: Class Consciousness
Volume 2: Peripheral Workers
Volume 3: Unemployment
Volume 4: High Tech Work
Volume 5: The Meaning of Work
Volume 6: The Globalization of Work
Volume 7: Work and Family
Volume 8: Deviance in the Workplace
Volume 9: Marginal Employment
Volume 10: Transformation of Work
Volume 11: Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives
Volume 12: The Sociology of Job Training
Volume 13: Globalism/Localism at Work
Volume 14: Diversity in the Workforce
Volume 15: Entrepreneurship
Volume 16: Worker Participation: Current Research and Future Trends
Volume 17: Work Place Temporalities
Volume 18: Economic Sociology of Work
Volume 19: Work and Organizations in China after Thirty Years of Transition
Volume 20: Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace
Volume 21: Institutions and Entrepreneurship
Volume 22: Part 1: Comparing European Workers Part A
Part 2: Comparing European Workers Part B: Policies and Institutions
Volume 23: Religion, Work, and Inequality
Volume 24: Networks, Work, and Inequality
Volume 25: Adolescent Experiences and Adult Work Outcomes: Connections and Causes
Volume 26: Work and Family in the New Economy
Volume 27: Immigration and Work
Volume 28: A Gedenkschrift to Randy Hodson: Working with Dignity
Volume 29: Research in the Sociology of Work
Volume 30: Emerging Conceptions of Work, Management and the Labor Market
Volume 31: Precarious Work
Volume 32: Race, Identity and Work
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY
OF WORK VOLUME 33
WORK AND LABOR IN THE
DIGITAL AGE
EDITED BY
STEVE P. VALLAS
Northeastern University, USA
and
ANNE KOVALAINEN
University of Turku, Finland
United Kingdom North America Japan
India Malaysia China
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2019
Copyright 2019 Emerald Publishing Limited
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78973-586-4 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-78973-585-7 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-78973-587-1 (Epub)
ISSN: 0277-2833 (Series)
CONTENTS
Steve P. Vallas and Anne Kovalainen
Martin Kenney and John Zysman
Jerry A. Jacobs and Rachel Karen
Ifeoma Ajunwa and Daniel Greene
Steve McDonald, Amanda K. Damarin, Jenelle Lawhorne and Annika Wilcox
Christine Gerber and Martin Krzywdzinski
Patrizia Zanoni
Mariana Manriquez
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Ifeoma Ajunwa Cornell University, USA
Amanda K. Damarin Georgia State University - Perimeter College, USA
Christine Gerber Wisenschafterszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung, Germany
Daniel Greene University of Maryland, USA
Jerry A. Jacobs University of Pennsylvania, USA
Rachel Karen University of Texas, USA
Martin Kenney University of California, USA
Anne Kovalainen University of Turku, Finland
Martin Krzywdzinski Wisenschafterszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung, Germany
Jenelle Lawhorne North Carolina State University, USA
Mariana Manriquez University of Arizona, USA
Steve McDonald North Carolina State University, USA
Steve P. Vallas Northeastern University, USA
Annika Wilcox North Carolina State University, USA
Patrizia Zanoni Hasselt University, Belgium
John Zysman University of California, USA
INTRODUCTION
TAKING STOCK OF THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION
Steve P. Vallas and Anne Kovalainen
The relation between workers and employers has been undergoing far-reaching structural changes for more than a generation now, as business organizations have sought to minimize their reliance on the standard employment relation, the vaunted job for life. At the center of this trend has been the spread of atypical, contingent, or non-standard forms of employment, which now account for a rising proportion of job growth in much of the advanced capitalist world. Though firms embrace these changes under the banner of flexibility and innovation, the expansion of non-standard work has opened up important gaps in labor law, social insurance systems, and labor market institutions, exposing many workers to rising and injurious levels of risk. Pressing as these challenges already are, they seem likely to grow even more pronounced as the digital revolution makes itself felt and the platform economy gains purchase on the economy as a whole. At stake is our very understanding of what constitutes a job under contemporary capitalism.
Sensing these stakes, scholars have energetically sought to understand the digital revolution, giving rise to a burgeoning literature. Surveying this body of knowledge, one is struck by two notable characteristics. One is the proliferation of conceptual ambiguity, as analysts have generated an entirely new vocabulary with which to describe how the platform economy works. The result has been a bewildering array of terms competing for attention, often in an ad hoc way. Thus different analysts speak of the gig economy (by which they often mean very different things), while others refer instead to platform capitalism or to the sharing or on-demand economy. The result has sharply curtailed our ability to understand how the digital economy actually works. A second feature has been a tendency to invoke the most dystopian images of the digital revolution, as when writers view robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning as posing an unprecedented threat to paid employment as such. While such fears are understandable, based as they are on real structural change, they serve only to complicate the debate. Indeed, the tendency to highlight worst-case scenarios may actually make workers more susceptible to the demands of their employers, only contributing to the very trends that theorists propose (Doogan, 2009). Needed are sober assessments of how the digital revolution is likely to alter the nature of paid employment, guided by clear conceptual definitions and frameworks, the better to gain control over this transformational period. The chapters in this volume represent one step in this direction.
