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New Ways of Working pp 77–107Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Institutionalizing Crowdwork as a Mode of Employment: The Case of Crowdworkers in Nigeria

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Part of the book series: Technology, Work and Globalization ((TWG))

Abstract

Crowdwork is one type of crowdsourcing of work enabled by digital platforms and the global widespread of Internet connectivity. While employers find it a model of sourcing temporary labor to perform specific tasks with light employment obligations, recent statistics show that workers increasingly adopt it as a model of full-time long-term employment. This study examines workers’ lived experience to uncover how workers adopt crowdwork as a model of full-time employment. It does so in the context of a developing country in Africa—in particular, Nigeria—where international organizations and governments particularly find it holding potential to reduce the serious unemployment problems in these countries. Through an inductive research process, the theoretical lens of institutional work emerges as a plausible explanation of the research findings. It shows that crowdworkers in the context of Nigeria create full-time long-term employment of crowdwork through five interlinked strategies that mediate between the constraints of their existing institutions and their need to sustain crowdwork employment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sussex Business School, Brighton, UK

    Ayomikun Idowu

  2. Royal Holloway, University of London, London, UK

    Amany Elbanna

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  1. Ayomikun Idowu
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Correspondence to Ayomikun Idowu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Muenster University, Muenster, Germany

    Nathalie Mitev

  2. Paris Dauphine University, Paris, France

    Nathalie Mitev

  3. Durham University, Durham, UK

    Jeremy Aroles

  4. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Kathleen A. Stephenson

  5. ESSEC Business School, Cergy, France

    Julien Malaurent

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Idowu, A., Elbanna, A. (2021). Institutionalizing Crowdwork as a Mode of Employment: The Case of Crowdworkers in Nigeria. In: Mitev, N., Aroles, J., Stephenson, K.A., Malaurent, J. (eds) New Ways of Working. Technology, Work and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61687-8_4

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