Gig Workers and Side Hustlers: Advancing Organizational Behavior Research for a Modernized Employee Population

Guest Editors: Jason L. Huang (Michigan State University, USA); Nathan A. Bowling (Wright State University, USA); Dongyuan Wu (Fudan University, China).

Background of the Special Issue:

Gig economy is an economic system that uses online platforms to digitally connect workers with consumers (Duggan et al., 2020). Participation in the gig economy has seen a rapid increase in recent years (SIOP, 2020), thanks in part to the availability of online platforms and flexible work schedules (Kuhn & Galloway, 2019). Platform companies, such as Uber, Lyft, UpWork, and Fiverr, use algorithms to manage gig workers, administering functions such as task assignment, performance evaluation, and compensation (Kellogg et al., 2020; Vallas & Schor, 2020). It is estimated that gig workers in the United States, European countries, and some Asian countries account for 1/6 to 1/3 of the entire workforce (e.g., Manyika et al., 2016). While some people participate in the gig economy on a full-time basis, others hold full-time primary jobs while engaging in the gig economy on the side (also known as side hustling; see Lee, 2012).

Gig economy has attracted scholarly attention from disciplines such as hospitality, sociology, geography, economics, marketing, and information system (e.g., Friedman, 2014; Vallas & Schor, 2020). Researchers in these areas have examined the gig economy with diverse interests in topics such as consumers, algorithm management, and economic development. In sharp contrast, until very recently, there has been a limited number of studies that explore how participation in this new form of employment relationship affects workers’ attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors.

Management scholars have begun to examine gig workers in recent work. Petriglieri et al. (2018), for example, assessed gig workers’ work identity using a qualitative approach; Sessions, Nahrgang, Baer, et al., (2021) demonstrated that status inconsistency between full-time jobs and side-hustles is detrimental to side-hustlers’ performance in full-time work; and Sessions, Nahrgang, Vaulont, et al. (2021) examined how a sense of empowerment through side hustling experience may lead to positive spillover to full-time work performance. These articles demonstrate how embracing the recent emergence of the gig economy can enrich management scholars’ understanding of organizational behavior.

Aims and Scope of the Special Issue:

These recent developments provide an impetus for the current Special Issue to broadly investigate how to incorporate gig work and side hustles in current theories and research in organizational behavior. On the one hand, because of its transactional nature, participation and engagement in the gig economy may limit how existing theories can apply to gig work. On the other hand, understanding full-time employees’ experience in the gig economy can provide unique opportunities for scholars to shed new light on behavior in organizations. Practically speaking, as organizations deal with the labor shortage amidst the great resignation (Dean & Hoff, 2021), they stand to gain from new approaches and ideas on managing gig workers and side hustlers.

For this special issue, we welcome both conceptual papers and empirical studies (using diverse methods such as surveys, experiments, and interviews) that advance theory in organizational behavior. Example topics and research questions that address the aims and scope of this Special Issue include the following:

• How do gig workers experience job satisfaction, given the lack of supervision, coworkers, and promotion opportunities? What is the association between job satisfaction and performance for gig workers?
• Can side hustlers’ satisfaction with their primary jobs and gigs interact to influence their work outcomes?
• How do side hustlers’ justice experiences and perceptions on their gigs affect their justice experiences and perceptions on their primary jobs?
• What factors motivate employees to engage in gig work? What factors prompt employees to leave their primary jobs and take on full-time gig work?
• How do gig workers engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) on their gigs? Do side hustlers engage in OCB during their gig work at the expense of OCB on their primary jobs?
• How do gig workers and side hustlers experience work-family conflict? Can gig work exacerbate or alleviate work-family conflict surrounding one’s primary job?
• How does social isolation in some gigs impact workers’ well-being? Can labor platforms create and leverage opportunities for leadership and teamwork?
• How does the gig work experience impact employees’ career satisfaction and career trajectory?
• How can organizations recognize employees’ interests and needs for side hustles? Can organizations create internal gigs to motivate full-time employees?
• What individual differences drive employees to take up gig work? Does person-gig fit operate in a similar fashion as person-job fit?Submission InstructionsThis call is open and competitive. Submitted papers must be based on original material not under consideration by any other journal or outlet. All submissions must comply with JOB practices regarding the ethical conduct of research and availability of datasets. For empirical papers based on datasets from which multiple papers have been generated, the authors must provide a data transparency table that identifies the variables in the dataset(s) and how they are used across studies. The authors must also provide copies of all other papers based on the same data.

All manuscripts will be reviewed by the guest editors to evaluate their fit with the Special Issue and the rigor of the research. Manuscripts will go through the standard JOB double-blind review process, and the guest editors will select the final set of papers for this Special Issue. Submissions may be considered for other issues in the Journal.

All manuscripts should be submitted via the Journal of Organizational Behavior website online submission system at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/job during the submission window: November 1-30, 2022. Please indicate that the manuscript is being submitted for this Special Issue.

The Estimated Timeline for the Special Issue is as follows:

• November 1 – 30, 2022: Submission Window
• February 28, 2023: First Decisions to Authors
• July 1, 2023: First Revisions Due Back
• September 1, 2023: Second Round Decisions to Authors
• November 1, 2023: Second Revisions Due Back
• December 31, 2023: Second Decisions on Manuscripts
• March 15, 2024: Final Decisions on Manuscripts
• Late 2024: Special Issue is Published

Please direct questions about the submission process, or any administrative matter, to Dr. Martina Wiesenberger, the Managing Editor at JOBedoffice@wiley.com. The editors of the Special Issue are very happy to discuss initial ideas for papers and can be contacted directly: Jason Huang (huangjl@msu.edu); Nathan Bowling (nathan.bowling@wright.edu); Dongyuan Wu (wdy@fudan.edu.cn).

References

Ashford, S. J., Caza, B. B., & Reid, E. M. (2018). From surviving to thriving in the gig economy: A research agenda for individuals in the new world of work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 38, 23-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2018.11.001

Dean, G., & Hoff, M. (2021). Nearly three-quarters of workers are actively thinking about quitting their job, according to a recent survey. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/great-resignation-labor-shortage-workers-thinking- about-quitting-joblist-report-2021-10.

Duggan, J., Sherman, U., Carbery, R., & McDonnell, A. (2020). Algorithmic management and app‐work in the gig economy: A research agenda for employment relations and HRM. Human Resource Management Journal, 30, 114-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748- 8583.12258

Friedman, G. (2014). Workers without employers: shadow corporations and the rise of the gig economy. Review of Keynesian Economics, 2, 171-188. https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2014.02.03

Kellogg, K. C., Valentine, M. A., & Christin, A. (2020). Algorithms at work: The new contested terrain of control. Academy of Management Annals, 14, 366-410. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2018.0174

Kuhn, K. M., & Galloway, T. L. (2019). Expanding perspectives on gig work and gig workers. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 34, 186-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-05-2019- 507

Lee, J. H. (2012). Hard at work in the jobless future. The Futurist, 46(2), 32-35.
Manyika, J., Lund, S., Bughin, J., Robinson, K., Mischke, J., & Mahajan, D. (2016). Independent

work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy. McKinsey Global Institute. October. Petriglieri, G., Petriglieri, J. L., & Wood, J. D. (2018). Fast tracks and inner journeys: Crafting

portable selves for contemporary careers. Administrative Science Quarterly, 63, 479-525. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839217720930

Sessions, H., Nahrgang, J. D., Baer, M. D., & Welsh, D. T. (2021). From zero to hero and back to zero: The consequences of status inconsistency between the work roles of multiple jobholders. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000935

Sessions, H., Nahrgang, J. D., Vaulont, M. J., Williams, R., & Bartels, A. L. (2021). Do the hustle! Empowerment from side-hustles and its effects on full-time work performance. Academy of Management Journal, 64, 235-264. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.0164

SIOP (2020). Top 10 Workplace Trends for 2020. Retrieved from https://www.siop.org/Research- Publications/Items-of-Interest/ArtMID/19366/ArticleID/3361/Top-10-Workplace-Trends- for-2020

Vallas, S., & Schor, J. B. (2020). What do platforms do? Understanding the gig economy. Annual Review of Sociology, 46, 273-294. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054857