Trust in Digital Work Platforms

TRUST IN DIGITAL WORK PLATFORMS Digital platforms are powerful techno-economic online structures enabling efficient and scalable economic activities from brick-and-mortar stores (Amazon and eBay), transportation and... [ view full abstract ]

TRUST IN DIGITAL WORK PLATFORMS
Digital platforms are powerful techno-economic online structures enabling efficient and scalable economic activities from brick-and-mortar stores (Amazon and eBay), transportation and hospitability industries (Ûber and Airbnb) to finance industry (Kickstarter and Indiegogo) and work (Amazon Mechanical Turk, Upwork, TaskRabbit, Transfluent and Solved). They are disrupting incumbent organizations’ businesses and providing innovation opportunities for new entrants. They are changing the way we work, yet how fundamental are the changes? How do digital work platforms and related new forms of organizing work change the way we think, theorize and study trust?
Digital work platforms connect tasks and workers across time and distance. They work independently in autonomous tasks (e.g. coding, writing, legal or business expertise) or increasingly also in interdependent temporary teams solving complex problems. They participate as independent contractors having the freedom to choose the projects, tasks, place and time they work, but without permanent employment relationship, supervisor, work group, and a steady monthly wage. Communication is technology-mediated and often workers and clients are unfamiliar with each other.
Trust is one of the fundamental issues in social interaction and organizing of work and economic activities efficiently. It is so also in digital platforms where the novelty, ambiguity and change make trust incredibly precious. But who should trust in what, for digital platforms to work? What are the roles of social trust vs. impersonal and system trust? Do reputation mechanisms substitute interpersonal relationships? How much trust is warranted, and when should one be cautious?
Digital platforms Research on trust in digital platforms is still scarce and we invite FINT scholars to discuss, debate and explore interesting research questions together.
We intend for a highly interactive dialogue with inputs and comments (45 minutes) followed with a research incubator (45 minutes) with all participants:
Trust in digital platforms: Insights from information systems research
Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin
Comments by Bill McEvily, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

The emergence of trust in a digital co-creation platform, Case Solved
Kirsimarja Blomqvist, School of Busines and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology
Comments by Don Ferrin, Singapore Management University

A look into the future - Automated crowdwork on digital platforms
Melissa Valentine (virtual presentation), Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Comments by Karen Cook, Department of Sociology, Stanford University

Research incubator round tables with participants:
What kind of research questions, theories and methods could be helpful in understanding trust in digital work platforms?


REFERENCES:
Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Majchrzak, A. (2010). Research commentary-Vigilant interaction in knowledge collaboration: Challenges of online user participation under ambivalence. Information Systems Research, 21(4), 773-784.
Kenney, M., & Zysman, J. (2016). The Rise of the Platform Economy. Issues in Science and Technology, 32(3), 61-69.
Moody, G. D., Lowry, P. B., & Galletta, D. F. (2015). It's Complicated: Explaining the Relationship between Trust, Distrust, and Ambivalence in Online Transaction Relationships Using Polynomial Regression Analysis and Response Surface Analysis. European Journal of Information Systems (forthcoming).
Powell, W. W. (2016). A sociologist looks at crowds: Innovation or invention? Strategic Organization, 1476127016644642.
Retelny, D., Robaszkiewicz, S., To, A., Lasecki, W. S., Patel, J., Rahmati, N., Doshi, T. Valentine, M. & Bernstein, M. S. (2014, October). Expert crowdsourcing with flash teams. In Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (pp. 75-85). ACM.