Relationship-Based Business Process Crowdsourcing?

Abstract

Abstract. New technologies do not always benefit the worker, especially when harnessed by organisations seeking ever cheaper labour. Crowdsourcing is a technology-enabled way of working which offers the potential to bring work to far flung communities. However, it is something of a double-edged sword and there are many socio-technical and ethical challenges. In the micro-task market crowdsourcing platforms tend to be designed largely for the advantage of the organisation requesting work, rather than the worker. This paper contributes to research calling to redress this balance [2,6]. It describes the findings of an ethnographic study of an outsourced business process -healthcare form digitization -as performed by workers in-office (India) and @Home (USA). It reveals the complexities of the relationships between worker and organisation and argues that designing some aspects of these relationships into crowdsourcing platforms and applications is as beneficial for the organisation as it is for the worker.

Understanding the Crowd: Ethical and Practical Matters in the Academic Use of Crowdsourcing

“…A deep understanding of the work that crowdworkers do is important ethically and socio-organisationally, since questions have been raised about the ethics and efficacy of current crowdsourcing practices [2,11,28,38,41,45]. Felsteiner [11] provides a comprehensive summary of research on workers and their legal situation, highlighting the legal ambiguities surrounding AMT, and workers' difficulties in ensuring fair pay, and recompense for bad treatment.…”

TurkBench

“…There have been several studies that point to the imbalances in available information, power, and systems of redress [10,11,1,13]. Researchers have also created a workers bill of rights 2 and posed the question, "Can we foresee a future crowd workplace in which we would want our children to participate?"…”

“…[8]. Others have simply asked that tools frame their workers as more than just faceless computation [11,12].…”

Effective? Ethical? Behavior Control & Algorithmic Management in Virtual Environments

“…Better performance, work quality, and loyalty are the benefits mainly gained from a worker with experience [20]. Experienced workers are clearly valuable, but behavior control mechanisms often influence workers to leave, some platforms see high turnover rates [21].…”

“…Experienced workers are clearly valuable, but behavior control mechanisms often influence workers to leave, some platforms see high turnover rates [21]. The issue being that virtual platform models can be to biased towards the work providers requirements [20]. On the other side, awareness systems help team members gain context of their situation, allowing them to gain experience not just through their own mistakes but their team members as well [2].…”