scholarly journals EXPRESS: Communication in the Gig Economy: Buying and Selling in Online Freelance Marketplaces

2021 ◽  
pp. 002224292110308
Author(s):  
Stephan Ludwig ◽  
Dennis Herhausen ◽  
Dhruv Grewal ◽  
Liliana Bove ◽  
Sabine Benoit ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Personal Information ◽  
Uncertainty Reduction ◽  
Uncertainty Management ◽  
Price Premiums ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Online Marketplaces ◽  
Affective Intensity ◽  
Dyadic Analyses ◽  
Management Theories

The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively anonymous interactions by text-based messages. Informational asymmetries thus arise that can lead to exchange uncertainties between buyers and freelancers. Conventional marketing thought recommends reducing such uncertainty. However, uncertainty reduction and uncertainty management theories indicate that buyers and freelancers might benefit more from balancing, rather than reducing, uncertainty, such as by strategically adhering to or deviating from common communication principles. With dyadic analyses of calls for bids and bids from a leading online freelance marketplace, this study reveals that buyers attract more bids from freelancers when they provide moderate degrees of task information and concreteness, avoid sharing personal information, and limit the affective intensity of their communication. Freelancers’ bid success and price premiums increase when they mimic the degree of task information and affective intensity exhibited by buyers. However, mimicking a lack of personal information and concreteness reduces freelancers’ success, so freelancers should always be more concrete and offer more personal information than buyers do. These contingent perspectives offer insights into buyer–seller communication in two-sided online marketplaces; they clarify that despite, or sometimes due to, communication uncertainty, both sides can achieve success in the online gig economy.

Anxiety, Uncertainty, and Intercultural Communication

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Neuliep
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Uncertainty Reduction ◽  
Uncertainty Management ◽  
Anxiety Reduction ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Reduction Theory ◽  
Intercultural Relationships ◽  
Uncertainty Reduction Theory ◽  
Uncertainty Management Theory

The effects of uncertainty and anxiety are profiled in association with intercultural communication and the initiation and development of intercultural relationships. Uncertainty is cognitive and refers to what one knows about another and one’s level of predictability about another. Anxiety is the affective equivalent of uncertainty and refers to the level of discomfort associated with interacting with a stranger. Two major theories are associated with this process, including uncertainty reduction theory and anxiety/uncertainty management theory. Other communicative factors also affect uncertainty and anxiety reduction and management during intercultural communication.

Workers on tap but income drying up? The potential implications for incomes and social protection of the ‘gig economy’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Employment Practices ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
On Demand ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Online Marketplaces ◽  
Drying Up ◽  
Benefit System

This chapter explores the issues on labour market and the tax and benefit system, focusing in particular on the rise of the so-called ‘on-demand economy’ or ‘gig economy’. Encompassing the image of the ‘gig’ — a sought after opportunity to perform and earn an income — the term seeks to capture a whole series of employment practices. From well-publicised activities such as those of Uber, the on-demand taxi app, to online marketplaces such as Etsy and accommodation platforms like Airbnb, there has been an increase in small-scale entrepreneurship. Ultimately, the rise in on-demand employment offers a number of challenges for the design and implementation of both social protection for the relief of poverty and efforts to prevent poverty. The chapter then studies similarities between the language of the ‘on-demand’ economy and the re-emergence of moralistic and pathological accounts of poverty.

Uncertainty Management Theories

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Hogg ◽  
Sucharita Belavadi
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Uncertainty Reduction ◽  
Uncertainty Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Reduction Theory ◽  
Uncertainty Reduction Theory ◽  
Personality Attribute ◽  
And Control ◽  
Group Memberships ◽  
Uncertainty Management Theory

The subjective state of uncertainty can be understood as deriving from reduced predictability of and control over events and the world around us. There are different ways to conceptualize the nature of uncertainty, its antecedents and predictors, and the strategies that individuals use to manage & reduce uncertainty within communication science and social psychology. Prominent theories of uncertainty within communication—uncertainty reduction theory, anxiety/uncertainty management theory, and approaches to uncertainty management—focus on states of uncertainty and lowered predictability within the context of interactive communication with others. In these theories, communication with others plays a central role in the production, maintenance, and management of uncertainty. These three communication-based approaches also differ in the ways in which they conceptualize uncertainty and its management in communicative contexts. Uncertainty reduction theory treats uncertainty as an aversive state that individuals always aim to reduce. In contrast, although anxiety/uncertainty management theory and approaches to uncertainty management discuss uncertainty as an aversive state, they also provide for conditions under which uncertainty might be a desired state. Within social psychology, the construct of uncertainty has received different treatments. Some approaches have conceptualized the extent of uncertainty experienced and tolerated by individuals as an enduring individual difference or a personality attribute. Social psychologists have also conceptualized uncertainty as an aspect of a person’s identity and self-concept. For instance, uncertainty-identity theory explains uncertainty as a context-invoked aversive state associated with lowered perceived predictability of self and others—uncertainty about who one is, how one should behave, and how one will be treated by others. The theory argues that individuals are motivated to reduce such uncertainty by seeking group memberships, as groups provide a framework for self-definition that helps manage self-conceptual uncertainty.

Integrating perspectives: How the development of second-personal competence lays the foundation for a second-personal morality

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Corbit ◽  
Chris Moore
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Developmental Process ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Personal Competence ◽  
Triadic Interactions ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
Integrative Process

Abstract The integration of first-, second-, and third-personal information within joint intentional collaboration provides the foundation for broad-based second-personal morality. We offer two additions to this framework: a description of the developmental process through which second-personal competence emerges from early triadic interactions, and empirical evidence that collaboration with a concrete goal may provide an essential focal point for this integrative process.

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