CERIC Seminar with Michael Maffie: “Catching the Uber Flu: How Gig Work Shapes Worker Behaviour in Traditional Jobs”.

Michael is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University, his research focuses on how technical and organisational change shapes and effects people and work.

Abstract

This paper examines how participation in the gig economy shapes workers’ behaviour in their traditional jobs. Drawing on mixed-methods evidence from three studies, we show that the intersection of the open gig employment model and the closed traditional employment model gives rise to a novel behavioural response we term catching the Uber flu. In Study 1, qualitative interviews with 39 workers reveal that employees strategically call out sick from their traditional jobs to take advantage of temporarily higher-paying gig opportunities. Studies 2 and 3 establish the boundary conditions of this phenomenon by demonstrating that high-paying gig work increases the likelihood of calling out, while high-commitment human resource practices in employees’ traditional jobs can mitigate this tendency. Together, these findings highlight how the coexistence of open and closed employment systems shapes employee behaviour and offer insight into how organisations can respond to workforce challenges posed by the expanding gig economy.

Michael Maffie – Assistant Professor of Management and Organisations at Cornell University.

His research looks at the relationship between technical and organisational change, with a focus on how digital infrastructure is changing the nature of work and employment. Primarily, he studies platform workers, such as Uber drivers, but also conducts research on conflict management, arbitration, and worker voice.