Getting Gig Workers to Do More by Doing Good: Field Experimental Evidence from Online Platform Labor Marketplaces

Forthcoming, Organization & Environment

47 Pages Posted: 24 Jun 2019

See all articles by Vanessa Burbano

Vanessa Burbano

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Management

Date Written: April 1, 2019

Abstract

This paper describes randomized field experiments implemented on two online labor market platforms examining the effect of employer charitable giving on a source of human capital that is becoming increasingly important to firms: the “gig” worker. It provides support that a message about charitable giving increases gig workers’ willingness to complete extra work, and that prosocially-oriented gig workers are most responsive. A process experiment reveals that sharing information about charitable giving increases how close workers feel to their gig employer, and that the effect is greater if workers previously felt distant from (as opposed to already felt close to) their employer. This paper provides insight into gig workers’ nonpecuniary motivation, explores heterogeneity in this type of workers’ responsiveness to charitable giving and illustrates how online platform labor markets can be used as a setting to implement field experiments examining effects of employer-level characteristics on gig worker behavior.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, corporate philanthropy, human capital strategy, organizations, field experiments

Suggested Citation

Burbano, Vanessa, Getting Gig Workers to Do More by Doing Good: Field Experimental Evidence from Online Platform Labor Marketplaces (April 1, 2019). Forthcoming, Organization & Environment, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3405689

Vanessa Burbano (Contact Author)

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Management ( email )

3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
United States

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