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Multiple jobholding (MJH) is assumed to be a growing phenomenon due to working life changes. This study presents new knowledge on the MJH career paths, from the perspectives of both employers and employees.

The qualitative interview study was focused on retail trade and restaurant and food service industries in Finland, where MJH is a quite common work arrangement compared to other European countries. The data were analyzed with the concepts of the chaos theory of careers and with an abductive thematic content analysis.

According to the results, several events and intertwined factors may lead individual careers gradually to MJH. Changing personal and family situations and leisure time needs attracted the careers towards MJH. MJH was not only a financial necessity to employees, but it also served their flexibility interests. The interviewed employers applied flexible non-standard employment arrangements mainly due to rapidly varying labor needs established in the industries. It was important for them to strengthen the non-standard core employees' sense of belonging to the work community. However, employees with work ability challenges were in risk to end up in peripheral positions at the labor market.

Previous research on multiple jobholding has not combined employers’ perspectives of MJH to employees’ experiences of career paths.

With the increasing global popularity of the gig economy encompassing freelancers, online platform workers, self-employed, on-call workers and other temporary contractual workers, this study aims to review research focusing on the gig economy to explore the nuances of working in various alternative work arrangements. We aim to enhance the understanding of existing literature and highlight underexplored areas for future research.

A systematic literature review of 258 studies based on gig economy and gig work was conducted. It follows systematic search criteria and SPAR-4-SLR protocols. The analysis uses different gig worker profiles given by Watson et al. (2021) to categorize studies, followed by thematic analysis to identify patterns in the literature.

Our analysis of studies on gig economy shows that the majority of existing literature is based on gig service providers. Within this literature subset, major areas of study are work conditions, financial conditions, emergence and role of collectives, the impact of algorithmic management and the impact of rise of the gig economy on entrepreneurship. There is little research focusing on gig goods providers, gig data providers, agency gig workers and traditional gig worker profiles. More focus is also needed on emerging markets and markets transitioning to the gig economy.

Differing from reviews that have attempted to define gig work and workers, we focus on literature on the lived experiences of gig workers. By reviewing studies on different gig worker profiles, we are able to highlight future research directions for pointed sample sets and comparative underexplored areas.

Drawing on organismic integration theory, we aim to examine whether the reasons independent contractors choose contract work are related to their on-the-job motivation and job satisfaction and whether their perceived support enhances positive (or buffers negative) effects.

We collected data at three separate time points from 241 adjunct instructors to test a moderated mediation model using bootstrapping analyses.

The positive relationship between pull factors (e.g. autonomy) and job satisfaction is fully mediated by the autonomous motivation contractors experienced at work. The inverse relationship between push factors (e.g. inability to secure desired work role) and job satisfaction is not mediated by autonomous nor controlled motivation experienced at work. Contractors' perceived organizational support does not moderate the relationship between either push or pull factors and autonomous motivation. Post hoc analysis shows a moderating effect of perceived supervisor support on the nonlinear relationship between push factors and autonomous motivation.

Recruiting individuals drawn to the benefits of contract work may have important implications for worker motivation, job satisfaction and potentially beyond. Moreover, organizations may consider whether existing support resources and infrastructure are appropriate for contractors.

Despite the abundance of evidence demonstrating the benefits of organizational and supervisor support among traditional employee populations, such support may be of limited value to those drawn to contract work.

Scholars highlight the lack of research that explains the mechanisms leading to knowledge sharing, which appears complex and involves many variables. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the direct effect of organizational support for innovation on job crafting behaviors and knowledge sharing. The second objective is to assess the mediating role of job crafting in the relationship between organizational support for innovation and knowledge sharing. The third aim is to compare the direct effects of organizational support for innovation on job crafting behaviors and knowledge sharing between teleworkers and office workers.

Based on an empirical study involving 193 teleworkers and 191 office workers, the structural equation modeling method was employed to examine the direct and indirect effects of organizational support for innovation on knowledge sharing via job crafting behaviors. The comparison between teleworkers and office workers was investigated using a multigroup approach in AMOS software. This research is grounded in the conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory to elucidate these relationships.

The results indicate that organizational support for innovation has a positive influence on job crafting activities, manifested by the increase in structural and social resources, as well as the amplification of work-related challenges. The results also indicate that organizational support for innovation directly promotes knowledge sharing behavior and indirectly through job crafting. Furthermore, the findings reveal that these effects on job crafting and knowledge sharing are stronger among teleworkers compared to office workers.

The study has limitations. Its cross-sectional design does not establish causality, potentially leading to common method variance. However, after implementing many procedural and performing statistical tests, common method variance was not significant in this research. Replicating the study longitudinally would be valuable. Additionally, considering personality traits and technology characteristics in job crafting behaviors would be beneficial. Lastly, the study focuses only on accountants and predates COVID-19, which may impact its findings and generalizability.

The study’s findings underscore the practical significance of supporting innovation and fostering job crafting to enhance knowledge sharing, particularly for remote workers. It highlights that the extent of employees’ engagement in job crafting depends on the level of innovation support provided in their workplace. To mitigate potential negative outcomes such as increased absenteeism, reduced productivity and retention challenges, organizations could benefit from training supervisors to prioritize and encourage job crafting and knowledge sharing behaviors among employees, especially in telework settings. Ensuring alignment between organizational messaging and managerial attitudes is crucial. Without autonomy or flexibility for job crafting, the positive effects of organizational innovation support may be limited.

This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that job crafting behaviors serves as mechanisms between organizational support for innovation and knowledge sharing. The findings further advance the literature by revealing three psychological and motivational processes that may explain this relationship, particularly when comparing teleworkers to office workers. Our results reveal that the effect of organizational support for innovation on job crafting and knowledge sharing is stronger among workers who telework compared to office workers. This advances the theory of conservation of resources, especially the significance of resource gains, particularly in contexts where employees need resources, such as in telework.

The authors analyzed the evolution of working from home (WFH) within industries in 12 European countries in the period 2008–2017 and studied its relationship with information and communication technologies (ICT).

The authors used data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) to document the trends and levels of WFH within industries in 12 European countries. The authors further used the EU-KLEMS database and a difference-in-difference approach to study whether the fall in prices of ICT is associated with a higher share of employees who work from home in industries that depend more on ICT relative to industries that depend less.

The authors show that WFH has increased almost everywhere and that there is significant heterogeneity across industries. The authors provide evidence that the fall in prices of ICT is associated with a higher share of employees who work from home in industries that depend more on ICT relative to industries that depend less. This result also holds within age, gender and occupation groups. While the authors find no significant differences among gender and occupation groups, the positive association between the fall in ICT prices and WFH increases with age.

This paper has two main contributions: First, it reports that WFH has increased in European countries in the period 2008–2017. Second, it provides new explorations about the relationship between ICT and WFH by using the price variation of ICT.

This paper aims to explore the realm of gig work and the gig economy in Romania in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms of this type of work and the reasons and benefits of engaging in gig-related activities.Considering the low conceptual consensus on gig work, the authors aim to explore how participants in this study define and refer to gig work, thus helping to contribute to the current conceptualization and characterizations of gig work and the gig economy. Among the wide range of services encountered within the gig economy, this research focuses on three categories of tasks, as defined within COLLEEM 2018 questionnaire (see Pesole et al., 2018), namely, online creative and multimedia work, online sales and marketing support and online software development and technology work.

Based on semistructured interviews with people working in the gig economy in Romania, the authors look to understand the meaning given to gig work and its features. The authors tackle how participants in this study perceive themselves and their work. The authors also look into perceived similarities and differences with other types of independent work.

In this paper, findings are organized into two main sections. The first section showcases perceptions about working in the gig economy, including how people involved with this type of work are describing them and their activity and exploring financial insecurities in connection with the independent/gig work. The second section highlights the mechanisms of gig work on digital labor platforms, developing means and ways of reputation-building and their impact on financial earnings.

This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the environment and needs of gig workers. Although gig economy and online work are widely covered by field literature, knowledge about the experiences and perceptions of gig workers in emerging markets has more to gain by exploring European Union developing markets.

The prevalence of independent contractors in the US workforce is growing. This research examines the social environment and career outcomes of labor and employment arbitrators, a unique profession of high-skilled and high-status independent contractors who play a significant role in facilitating organizational justice. Previous research has focused on the employment relationships that independent contractors have with hiring organizations and the characteristics of individuals who become independent contractors; however, little attention has been given to how relational factors influence the career outcomes of high-skilled independent contractors or how such influences differ by gender. Building upon theories of social networks and unequal network returns (UNR), our study investigates the informal social relationships among arbitrators, the association between interpersonal relationship patterns and arbitrators’ career success, and how these associations vary based on gender.

A social network survey is used to collect the social networks, attitudes and fee information of 407 labor and employment arbitrators working in North America. A multi-level regression analysis was used to examine the proposed relationships among social networks, gender and career outcomes of the arbitrators.

We discovered that occupying a central position within advice networks is positively associated with occupational satisfaction. On the other hand, having strong ties is associated with achieving high employment arbitration fees. Notably, we found that the advantages of strong ties for arbitration fees are comparatively weak for female arbitrators relative to their male counterparts.

This research examines the relationship between social networks and career outcomes for independent contractors in the unique context of arbitrators. It further highlights inequalities experienced by female arbitrators in a male-dominated profession where their social networks offer fewer rewards relative to their male counterparts.

The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of job characteristics on gig worker performance in India. In addition, this study examines the role of work–life balance as a mediator in exploring the impact of job characteristics, namely, flexibility and job autonomy and person–job fit on gig workers performance among location-based gig workers.

A total of 266 responses were collected by gig workers using a questionnaire-based survey. The responses were analyzed using the partial least square structural equation modeling technique.

The study results indicate that factors of job characteristics and person–job fit significantly enhance the gig worker performance and also finds work–life balance as significant mediator. These results provide evidence for the hypotheses, which emphasizes that these aspects will have a beneficial effect on the performance of gig workers.

This research contributes to the field of the gig economy by empirically examining the study factors to understand the work dynamics in flexible work arrangements. Based on the findings, the gig platforms and policymakers can formulate strategies for establishing job design for enhancing work–life balance, which subsequently enhances gig workers performance.

This paper aims to build upon the accountability pyramid model by presenting two studies that examine the dimensionality of individual accountability among Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) gig workers.

For the first study, aimed at investigating the dimensionality of individual accountability of gig workers, the authors collected data from MTurkers by administering two surveys in the English and Mandarin Chinese languages with 185 respondents. The authors implemented principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to analyse the data. For the second study, aimed at establishing validation of the dimensionality found in the first study, the authors collected data from an additional 148 respondents.

The results indicated that the intensity and salience dimensions merged into one factor that the authors labelled Accountability Significance, while the process and outcome dimensions merged into one factor labelled Accountability Focus. Additionally, the authors found that individual accountability is a second-order construct encompassing Accountability Significance and Accountability Focus as first-order factors. The authors validated the findings in the second study.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first quantitative study investigating the individual accountability of gig workers. The validation of individual accountability in MTurkers offers valuable insights into MTurkers’s Hybrid Accountability Focus and Accountability Significance.