The Future of Digital Labor

Crowd Work is a phenomenon of the digital economy as well as the modern IT era. It provides a great potential for changing the way how businesses create value. As a result, organizations increasingly apply crowd work to reach out to their own employees (Internal Crowd Work) or individuals outside the company boundaries (External Crowd Work) to outsource certain tasks. However, the individual crowd workers perspective has been neglected within this new form of digital gainful employment. Therefore, this dissertation addresses the perception of internal as well as external crowd work and its effects on the individuals' well-being. As main result, the dissertation shows that perceived satisfaction with external crowd work mediates the effects of several perceived task characteristics on identification with external crowd work. These effects are stronger for external crowd workers that can realize greater financial compensation. Furthermore, the findings illustrate that the influence of the task characteristics on the identification with internal crowd work is mediated by the employees' psychological empowerment.

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