| dc.description.abstract | The gig economy is a new type of labour market, enabling the hiring of service providers for a one-time job through an online platform. In this research, I investigate in which circumstances companies hire this new type of worker – rather than employing workers in-house or hiring them externally through traditional channels (including temp agencies or through independent service providers). By developing a theoretical framework bridging the literature on transaction cost theory, human resources literature and literature on trust, I propose seven hypotheses on factors which potentially influence the hiring of gig workers. More concretely, I expect that the human capital value and uniqueness of workers, the level of trust and transaction cost factors significantly influence through which channel companies recruit their workforces. To test these hypotheses, I conduct multinomial logistic regression analyses, based on a dataset formed by surveys of the Dutch hotel industry (the manufacturing industry provided no data on gig worker). The findings show that benevolence is of significant influence, favouring internal staff as opposed to gig workers. Furthermore, from interactions with hotel managers/owners, there were reliable indicators that uncertainty and cost pressure also influence the probability of hiring gig workers. Participants indicated that they value the flexibility of gig workers and that they are often cheaper than a temp agency worker. | |
