scholarly journals Solo Self-Employment and Alternative Work Arrangements: A Cross-Country Perspective on the Changing Composition of Jobs

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tito Boeri ◽  
Giulia Giupponi ◽  
Alan B. Krueger ◽  
Stephen Machin
Keyword(s):  
Social Insurance ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Minimum Wage Legislation ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
Dependent Employment ◽  
The Uk

The nature of self-employment is changing in most OECD countries. Solo self-employment is increasing relative to self-employment with dependent employees, often being associated with the development of gig economy work and alternative work arrangements. We still know little about this changing composition of jobs. Drawing on ad-hoc surveys run in the UK, US, and Italy, we document that solo self-employment is substantively different from self-employment with employees, being an intermediate status between employment and unemployment, and for some, becoming a new frontier of underemployment. Its spread originates a strong demand for social insurance which rarely meets an adequate supply given the informational asymmetries of these jobs. Enforcing minimum wage legislation on these jobs and reconsidering the preferential tax treatment offered to self-employment could discourage abuse of these positions to hide de facto dependent employment jobs. Improved measures of labor slack should be developed to acknowledge that, over and above unemployment, some of the solo self-employment and alternative work arrangements present in today’s labor market are placing downward pressure on wages.

Rise in alternative work is eroding employee benefits

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Employee Benefits ◽  
Regulatory Change ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Ride Sharing ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Alternative Work

Subject Alternative work arrangements. Significance Drivers’ strikes against the ride-sharing company Uber and similar companies worldwide point to growing tensions within the ‘gig economy’. Impacts Firms offering services such as payroll and cleaning will see demand grow. Independence and extra income from online gig work are offset by the loss of predictability and employment protections. Ride-sharing drivers are uniquely disadvantaged on wages; they will create the most pressure for regulatory change.

scholarly journals The rise of self-employment in the UK: entrepreneurial transmission or declining job quality?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Henley
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Job Quality ◽  
Income Volatility ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Intrinsic Job Satisfaction ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The UK has experienced very significant growth in self-employment since the financial crisis. The self-employed are at higher risk of income volatility while facing lower levels of social insurance. Individual transitions into self-employment may be driven by a range of factors, both ‘pull’ and ‘push’. This paper proposes a re-evaluation of the evidence on whether private sector business organizations stimulate entrepreneurial transmission amongst their employees. In the UK context rising self-employment may reflect the consequences of flexibilization and falling job quality, rather than outright job loss. Previous research has focused mainly on the subjective notion of job satisfaction to identify the level of attachment the future self-employed have to their current employer. Quantitative analysis is undertaken using large scale British longitudinal survey data. The paper extends this work to show that organizational (dis)attachment is evidenced in a range of extrinsic indicators of job quality, providing explanatory information beyond intrinsic job satisfaction. Specifically, the paper shows that the impact of training on self-employment entry depends asymmetrically on the source of that training. Finally, the paper argues that reduced attachment provides an alternative explanation for any ‘entrepreneurial transmission’ effect, through which employees, particularly those in smaller organizations, are more likely to enter self-employment. However, anticipated improvement in the experience of work from choosing self-employment is seen to be somewhat illusory, speaking to growing concerns about the impact of the growth of the gig economy.

An Examination of Alternative Work Arrangements in Private Accounting Practice

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly E. Frank ◽  
D. Jordan Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Work Culture ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Job Commitment ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Accounting Practice ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Current Task ◽  
Integrate Work ◽  
Alternative Work

Employees are requesting more flexibility in their work schedules to be able to integrate work with other aspects of their family and personal lives. While alternative work arrangements are being offered at progressively more companies, it is unclear whether the work culture accepts these arrangements as a viable work alternative. Here we examine the extent to which flextime and telecommuting arrangements impact management accountants' performance evaluations, job commitment, and career progression as compared to working a traditional schedule. We also examine whether these arrangements are perceived as being less acceptable for men than for women. One-hundred sixty management accountants from 90 companies participated in our experiment. The results indicate that participation in alternative work arrangements did not impact perceptions of current task performance or job commitment. However, participation led to significantly lower perceptions of long-term career potential.

scholarly journals Distrust And Dominance In Managing Alternative Work Arrangements: A Micro-Analytic Test Of Transaction Cost Theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry R. Adler ◽  
Gabriel D. Isaacs ◽  
Robert L. Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Transaction Cost Theory ◽  
Sustainable Competitive Advantage ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Alternative Work ◽  
The Relationship

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 34.2pt 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Organizations that successfully outsource may see better value-creation in creating a sustainable competitive advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>The objectives of this study were threefold:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>a) provide a framework for studying the effects of perceived distrust that leads to dominance, b) analyze how opportunism parlays into the concept of dominance, and c) determine if the relationship between outsource partners varies by analyzing transaction characteristics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Our research shows that firms should take caution to fully understand the effects that contract size has on a firm&rsquo;s resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span></p>

scholarly journals The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015

ILR Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 382-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence F. Katz ◽  
Alan B. Krueger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Work Arrangements ◽  
Independent Contractors ◽  
Contract Workers ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Contingent Worker ◽  
The Us ◽  
Alternative Work

To monitor trends in alternative work arrangements, the authors conducted a version of the Contingent Worker Survey as part of the RAND American Life Panel in late 2015. Their findings point to a rise in the incidence of alternative work arrangements in the US economy from 1995 to 2015. The percentage of workers engaged in alternative work arrangements—defined as temporary help agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers, and independent contractors or freelancers—rose from 10.7% in February 2005 to possibly as high as 15.8% in late 2015. Workers who provide services through online intermediaries, such as Uber or TaskRabbit, accounted for 0.5% of all workers in 2015. Of the workers selling goods or services directly to customers, approximately twice as many reported finding customers through off-line intermediaries than through online intermediaries.

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