Impacts of Perceived Behavior Control and Emotional Labor on Gig Workers
Abstract
Gig economy workers enjoy flexibility in choosing certain aspects of their work. Nonetheless, platform companies still need to control workers’ behaviors to scale their business and ensure customers quality service. Mechanisms of control have been widely studied in traditional organizations; however, work in the gig economy differs from traditional organizations in that the role of a human supervisor is replaced with digital systems. Thus, there is reason to suspect that our traditional theories of control may not hold for new forms of work in the gig economy. To address these concerns, this study examines how gig economy workers, specifically Uber drivers, perceive behavior control and its effect on their job satisfaction. Our results suggest that emotional labor mediates the relationship between perceived behavior control and job satisfaction.
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Uber and Lyft workers often find their work emotionally taxing because they have to engage in emotional labor to gain favorable customer ratings.
“Research has shown that Uber and Lyft workers often find their work emotionally taxing (Malin & Chandler, 2017) because they have to engage in emotional labor to gain favorable customer ratings (Grandey & Gabriel, 2015;Marquis et al., 2018).”
From Gig work and gig workers: An integrative review and agenda for future research (2024) · cites this paper as Marquis et al., 2018
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- Authors
- Marquis, E. B., Kim, S., Alahmad, R., Pierce, C. S., & Robert Jr., L. P.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- University of Michigan (US)
- Venue
- Companion of the 2018 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2018-10-30
- Pages
- 241-244
- OpenAlex
- W2889819295
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 7.62
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) (publishedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (acceptedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Economy and Work Transformation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Industrial relations › Legal and Labor Studies
- Keywords
- gig economy, perceived behavioral control, emotional labor, job satisfaction, Uber drivers, platform work, gig workers
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