The Digital Work Group focuses on the intersection of changes in work, information technologies, and new ways of organizing.
Our group’s research focuses on the roles and functions of information and communication technologies and the institutional contexts in which these systems are embedded. Our interest is to the ways in which the way work is organized is evolving as jobs become more project-based, as the roles of digital technologies expand from supporting workers to structuring work, and the ways in which working lives are increasingly informated.
Our multidisciplinary approach draws a range of methods and theories from organizational studies, sociology, science and technology studies (STS), labor economics, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), and others.
The Digital Work group involves undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty from both Syracuse University’s iSchool and Skidmore College.
Check out our Medium blog, at: https://medium.com/digitalwork.
Research Areas
Featured Projects
CSCW 2022 – Deconstructed identity
This video explains how online workers’ identities are being reshaped, diminished and controlled by digital labor platforms.
Find more information about this work by reading our position paper titled “Platform-mediated Markets, Online Freelance Workers and Deconstructed Identities“ at the ACM Digital Library.
CHIWORK 2022 – New futures of work or continued marginalization
Find more information about this work by reading our position paper titled “New futures of work or continued marginalization? The rise of online freelance work and digital platforms” at the ACM Digital Library.
Microsoft New Future of Work 2020
Freelancing online during the COVID-19 pandemic
Highlighted Publications
Munoz, I., Kim, P., O’Neill, C., Dunn, M., & Sawyer, S. B. (2024). Platformization of Inequality: Gender and Race in Digital Labor Platforms. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW2), 7.
Dunn, M., O’Neill, C., Salman, H., Munoz, I., Kim, P., & Sawyer, S. B. (2024). The Emergence of Transactional Careers: The Evolution of Professional Work in the Platform Economy. Academy of Management, Careers Division Community Conference 2024.
Dunn, M., Munoz, I., O’Neill, C., & Sawyer, S. B. (2024). The Great Realization: Online Freelancers and the Meaning of Flexibility. Research in the Sociology of Work: Ethnographies of Work, 35, 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320230000035006
Munoz, I., Dunn, M., Sawyer, S., and Michaels, E. (2022). “Platform-mediated Markets, Online Freelance Workers and Deconstructed Identities.” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact, 6, CSCW2, Article 367 (November 2022), https://doi.org/10.1145/3555092
Munoz I., Dunn M., Sawyer S. (2022). “Flexibility, Occupation and Gender: Insights from a Panel Study of Online Freelancers.” In: Smits M. (eds) Information for a Better World: Shaping the Global Future. iConference 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13192. Springer, Cham. https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1007/978-3-030-96957-8_27
Sawyer, S., Carmel, E. (2022). “The multi-dimensional space of the futures of work.” Information Technology & People.
Dunn, M., Munoz, I., & Sawyer, S. (2021). Gender Differences and Lost Flexibility in Online Freelancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Sociology, 166.
Sawyer, S., Dunn, M., Munoz, I., Stephany, F., Raheja, R., Vaccaro, G., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2020). Freelancing online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft New Future of Work Symposium 2020.
Stephany, F., Dunn, M., Sawyer, S., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2020). Distancing Bonus Or Downscaling Loss? The Changing Livelihood of Us Online Workers in Times of COVID‐19. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 111(3), 561-573.
Dunn, M. (2020). Making gigs work: digital platforms, job quality and worker motivations. New Technology, Work and Employment, 35(2), 232-249.
Dunn, M., Stephany, F., Sawyer, S., Munoz, I., Raheja, R., Vaccaro, G., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2020). When Motivation Becomes Desperation: Online Freelancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Jarrahi, M. H., Sutherland, W., Nelson, S. B., & Sawyer, S. (2020). Platformic management, boundary resources for gig work, and worker autonomy. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), 29(1), 153-189.
Jarrahi, M. H., & Sawyer, S. (2019). Networks of innovation: the sociotechnical assemblage of tabletop computing. Research Policy: X, 1, 100001.
Sawyer, S., Erickson, I., & Jarrahi, M. H. (2019). Infrastructural competence. digitalSTS: A Field Guide for Science & Technology Studies, 267.
Jarrahi, M. H., Philips, G., Sutherland, W., Sawyer, S., & Erickson, I. (2019). Personalization of knowledge, personal knowledge ecology, and digital nomadism. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 70(4), 313-324.
Dunn, M. (2017). Digital work: New opportunities or lost wages?. American Journal of Management, 17(4), 10-27.
Jarrahi, M. H., & Sawyer, S. (2017). More than nomadicity: The paradoxical affordances of liminality. International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI), 14(3), 29-33.
Highlighted Conference Presentations
Kim, P., & Sawyer, S. (2024, November). Occupational Diversity in Platform Work : A Comparative Study. The 2024 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW)
Dunn, M., O’Neill, C., Salman, H., Munoz, I., Kim, P., & Sawyer, S. B. (2024, April). The Emergence of Transactional Careers: The Evolution of Professional Work in the Platform Economy. Academy of Management, Careers Division Community Conference 2024.
Sawyer, S., Munoz, I., Dunn, M. and Kim, P. (2023, August) “Work Trajectories: Evidence from an Online Freelance Labor Market,” American Sociological Association Annual Meeting Pre-conference Workshop on Platform Economies, 17 August, Philadelphia, PA.
Dunn, M., Munoz, I., Sawyer, S., O’Neil, C. and Kim, P. (2023, August) “Flexibility, Identity and Career Trajectories of Online Freelance Gig Workers.” Academy of Management Annual Conference, 4-8 August, Boston, MA. ‘
Kim, P., Cheon, E., & Sawyer, S. (2023, October). Online Freelancing on Digital Labor Platforms: A Scoping Review. The 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW).
Sawyer, S., Munoz, I., and Dunn, M. (2022) “Upwork just did what? Studying digital platforms (or how to observe something that does not want to be observed),” Reimagining Platforms Symposium, 31 October, Edinburgh, Scotland, accepted.
Munoz, I., Dunn, M. and Sawyer, S. (2022) “Platform-mediated Markets, Online Freelance Workers and Deconstructed Identities,” ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 12-16 November, Tapei, Taiwan, accepted.
Munoz, I., Sawyer, S. and Dunn, M. (2022) “New futures of work or continued marginalization? The rise of online freelance work and digital platforms,” CHIWORK, 8 June – 9 June, Durham, New Hampshire.
Munoz, I., Dunn, M. and Sawyer, S. (2022) “Flexibility, Occupation and Gender: Insights from a Panel Study of Online Freelancers,” iConference, 28 February – 4 March, online.
Dunn, M., Munoz, I., Sawyer, S., Vaccaro, G., Feldman, L., Michaels, E. (2021) “Connectedness, Activism and Dignity at work in a Precarious Era,” Presented at the British Sociological Association (BSA) Work, Employment and Society Conference, 25 -27 August, online.
Research Staff
Alumni
Bernadette Berner ’24, LinkedIn
Melina Iavarone ’24, LinkedIn
Izabela Krakic ’24, LinkedIn
Ellie Owen ’24, LinkedIn
Dr. Isabel Munoz ’23, LinkedIn
Rebecca Farrell ’23, LinkedIn
Sofia Shore ’24, LinkedIn
Bethanya Philipos ’22, LinkedIn
Brooke Stephenson ’22, LinkedIn
Gabby Vaccaro ’22, LinkedIn
Emily Michaels ’22, LinkedIn
Alaina Caruso ’21, LinkedIn
Bonnie Yu ’21, LinkedIn
Lily Moffly ’21, LinkedIn
Lily Feldman, LinkedIn
Raghav Raheja, LinkedIn
Dr. Sarika Sharma, Website
Haley Weller ’20, LinkedIn
Jean-Philippe Rancy, LinkedIn
Anjelica Torcivia ’18, LinkedIn
Emma Allen ’16, LinkedIn
Dr. Matt Willis ’16, LinkedIn