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In this chapter, we theorize about online freelancers’ approaches to work flexibility. Drawing from an ongoing digital ethnography of US-based online freelancers pursuing work on digital platforms, our data question the common conceptualizations around the flexibility of online freelancing. We posit that the flexibility of where to work, not when to work, is the most important attribute of their work arrangement. Our data show (1) the online freelancers in our study prefer the stability and sustainability of full-time work over freelancing when both are offered as remote options; (2) full-time remote employment increases these workers’ freelancing control / flexibility; (3) these workers keep freelance work options open even as they transition to more permanent full-time work arrangements. We discuss how these findings relate to workplace culture shifts and what this means for contemporary working arrangements. Our insights contribute to the discourses on knowledge-based gig work and for what it means to study individuals online.

The alphabet is running out of letters to tag new generations of young people who are entering the workforce. Gen Xers are now executive managers as Gen Ys settles into corporate careers. But what happens when Gen Z moves into the workplace? It seems oddly appropriate that these true digital natives will close out the alphabet because they are poised to reinvent the very nature of what we think of as work and business. Globalization and automation are both decisive factors in the creation of goods and services, often with less and less human oversight. At the same time, technology is creating a new, decentralized and digitized workforce that work more as free agents than company employees. This article will examine how companies can manage the transition of a workforce that is automated and can work from anywhere.

This chapter critically evaluates the role of creative identity and how this shapes entrepreneurial identity. The main driver for creative practitioners is one of being ‘creative’, but this is in combination with the factors that support entrepreneurial behaviours, and it provides the narrative for their entrepreneurial identity. The quest to operate successfully as a creative practitioner in the creative industries drives entrepreneurial behaviour. The research examines the relationship between creative identity and entrepreneurial identity and how these two identities intertwine. To respond to this question, the study critically evaluates the concept of creative identity and entrepreneurial identity with fourteen creative practitioners in the UK, working as either chartered architects or freelance photographers. The research employed a qualitative approach and interpretivist ontology. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the participants. The key finding that highlights the driver for entrepreneurial identity is the quest to operate successfully as a creative practitioner in the creative industries. This quest is underpinned by the desire to be able to express their creative identity, often referred to as a creative ‘voice’. Entrepreneurial identity and entrepreneurial behaviours function as conduits in which creative practitioners channel their primary driver of creative identity. This chapter contributes to the knowledge about creative practitioners’ entrepreneurial identity and creative identity and how these two identities relate to each other.

This study aims at investigating creative labor and its production process in late capitalism. With technological convergence and digitalization, there emerged an information society and information economy. In the processes and procedures of this era, conditions and climate of working areas and labor processes directly based on innovation and creativity have undergone radical transformations. Also, it has become indispensable to scrutinize the concepts such as immaterial labor, autonomy, and subjectivity. So, this study focuses on Turkish freelance illustrators to highlight their production, autonomy, and value in transformed time and space. It aims to establish a better understanding of the Turkish freelancer illustrators’ valorization of labor and economic insecurity in the digital era of creative industries by using the techniques of open-ended questions and online semi-structured interviews with 12 freelance illustrators. Therefore, this study traces the question of how the working processes and work ethos of digital career fields in the creative industry are evaluated from the perspective of illustrators. It cannot be overlooked that this new working ethos allows them to work as self-employed, offering through non-contractual relationships, and non-standard contracts with the clients which give them more flexibility and autonomy as an artist to plan their own creative production processes. It is also clear that illustrators who adapted themselves to produce in a transformed time–space are aware of the difficulty in measuring and valorizing the value of the creative and emotional labor they put to work. In such a case, it can be said that illustrators, who see themselves as both an employer and employee at the same time, position themselves beyond the distinctions of blue collar and gray collar and blur the boundaries in organizational hierarchies.

This work examines the intersection between traditional human resource management and the novel employment arrangements of the expanding gig economy. While there is a substantial multidisciplinary literature on the digital platform labor phenomenon, it has been largely centered on the experiences of gig workers. As digital labor platforms continue to grow and specialize, more managers, executives, and human resource practitioners will need to make decisions about whether and how to utilize gig workers. Here the authors explore and interrogate the unique features of human resource management (HRM) activities in the context of digital labor platforms. The authors discuss challenges and opportunities regarding (1) HRM in organizations that outsource labor needs to external labor platforms, (2) HRM functions within digital labor platform firms, and (3) HRM policies and practices for organizations that develop their own spin-off digital labor platform. To foster a more nuanced understanding of work in the gig economy, the authors identify common themes across these contexts, highlight knowledge gaps, offer recommendations for future research, and outline pathways for collecting empirical data on HRM in the gig economy.

This chapter will introduce the concept of the gig economy. It begins with a brief discussion of technological changes and their impact on the workforce and labour market, demonstrating how the trend shifts towards the gig economy. It then examines the trends that are influencing this transformation and discusses various perspectives and the attractiveness of the gig economy for workers and businesses. This chapter will also discuss the gig economy, platform economy, digital platform, and gig worker categories. It concludes with a brief discussion of some of the opportunities, issues, and challenges associated with the gig economy.

Career management research and literature has been slow to respond to the rise of the gig economy. Perhaps in part due to the temporal, flexible and shifting nature of the gig economy, there could be an assumption that the boundaryless and protean career management models that have dominated careers thinking for nearly 30 years retain and extend their applicability. However, whilst there is clear resonance with discourses such as boundaryless, portfolio and protean careers within the gig economy, this chapter will argue these models cannot adequately address female career management experiences. Through a feminist poststructuralist and intersectional lens, the concept of the frayed career is advocated as a more useful approach for understanding the impact of gender and intersecting subject positions on career management experiences. With growing numbers of women employed in the gig economy and in addressing calls for a greater focus on gender and intersecting identities on the experiences of gig work, this chapter analyses the role of gender, ethnicity and class and career management outcomes in the gig economy amongst Human Resources professionals. The frayed career concept is used to demonstrate how gig work can be incorporated into the rhythmicity of a career and how shifting intersectional positions can reveal alternative discourses of privilege and precarity from the otherwise assumed position of multiple disadvantage. In doing so there is an opportunity to reflect on appropriate career management guidance for women in the gig economy beyond the dichotomous positions of privilege or disadvantage and career solutions based on Westernised linear career ideals.

This chapter describes the workforce trends in developed and developing countries, depicts the changes, and provides a road map for countries seeking to become a hub for professional workers. The roadmap outlined the factors that countries should consider in their strategic planning to succeed as suppliers, transforming the country into a knowledge economy and a hub for professional gig workers. As discussed in Chapter 4, professional gig workers are knowledge workers who work and deliver tasks online, and they participate in professional knowledge-based online jobs. How to organise, train, and structure this skilled workforce to maximise economic growth, income, decrease unemployment, prevent outflow, and transform the country into a professional hub is a critical question that requires special attention from the government and industry players.

With reduced income and job prospects, many young people are challenged by economic insecurity and struggling to meet their basic needs. In addition, financial stress during the pandemic disrupted many industries, leading to the closure of businesses and downsizing of the workforce. As a result, many Gen Z workers entered their careers during a time in which it was challenging to secure jobs in their desired fields. Despite the circumstances, Gen Zers have clear values related to their professional lives. These include workplace flexibility, financial security, mental well-being, and meaningful work.