News
Information Systems guest speaker series with Prof. Dr. Martin Wiener from Bentley University (Boston, USA) on July 2nd, 2019
25.06.2019
In the context of our “Information Systems Guest Speaker Series”, Prof. Dr. Martin Wiener from the Bentley University (Boston, USA) will give a talk entitled “Perceptions of Control Legitimacy in the Gig Economy: The Case of Uber Drivers” at the University of Bayreuth. The guest speech will take place on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019, 10:15 – 11:45 in room H10 in building NW I of the University of Bayreuth. No prior registration is required.
Abstract
The rise of the gig economy has become a global phenomenon that encompasses various industries. Instead of hiring full-time employees, gig economy companies ‘outsource’ work via online platforms to freelance workers who are paid for completing a given task (‘gig’). While gig workers are often portrayed as independent contractors, several gig firms such as Uber leverage advanced digital technologies and smart algorithms to exercise tight control over their freelance workforce. This independence-control paradox raises interesting questions regarding gig workers’ perceptions of control legitimacy. Therefore, in this study, we build on the IS control and related literatures to derive a three-dimensional conceptualization of control legitimacy perceptions attuned to the gig economy (perceived autonomy, perceived justice, and perceived privacy invasion). On this basis, we present a research model with supporting hypotheses, focusing on the antecedents and effects of different control legitimacy dimensions. Our model is tested using a dataset of 621 Uber (and Lyft) drivers from the United States.
Biography
Martin Wiener is an Associate Professor in the Information and Process Management Department at Bentley University (Waltham/Boston, MA, USA), as well as an Affiliated Researcher at the Stockholm School of Economics Institute for Research (Sweden) and the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany). His research concerns the control of IS projects, technology-mediated control, and data-driven business models, and has been published or is forthcoming in outlets including Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, and MIS Quarterly. He currently serves as Associate Editor for Information Systems Journal, as well as on the Editorial Review Board of Journal of the Association for Information Systems and Information & Management.