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.
Research Areas
Featured Projects
This video explains how online workers’ identities are being reshaped, diminished and controlled by digital labor platforms. Learn more about our findings in our paper titled “Platform-mediated Markets, Online Freelance Workers and Deconstructed Identities” (forthcoming).
Find more information about one of our latest publications titled “Freelancing online during the COVID-19 pandemic” at Microsoft New Future of Work Symposium 2020.
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.
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.
Highlighted Publications
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
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
Bernadette Berner
Bernadette Berner is a Sophomore at Skidmore College and is planning to major in Management and Business with a minor in Economics. Bernadette joined the Digital Work research team in September 2021. Bernadette is interested in technology’s effects on labor markets.
Lauren Coop is a Sophomore at Syracuse University. She joined the Digital Work research team in September 2022.
Mike is an Assistant Professor at Skidmore College’s Department of Management and Business. His education began with an MBA, shifting to the study of work and employment, including studies of contingent work and platform work, during his doctorate (in sociology) at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. His work is focused on issues at the confluence of technology and labor market outcomes with a specific emphasis on precarious and nonstandard work arrangements. His work is theoretically informed by the sociology of work, and organizations and labor studies. In the previous decade Dunn has worked on five NIH-funded efforts focused on precarious and underserved worker populations (i.e. tribal workers, day laborers, ex-offenders). From 2015-2017, Dunn was a visiting researcher at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. His methodological orientation is primarily qualitative and has field-based research experience with rideshare/transportation, delivery/task, crowdwork, and online freelance platforms.
Rebecca Farrell
Rebecca is a Junior at Syracuse University majoring in Applied Mathematics and Neuroscience in the College of Arts and Sciences and minoring in Data Analytics in the School of Information Studies. Rebecca joined the Digital Work Research team in September 2021. Rebecca is interested in the digitalization of workplace technologies.
Pyeonghwa is a Ph.D. student at the Syracuse University iSchool. Her main research interests lie in the areas of information systems and worker-centered design. Her current interest revolves around the experience of technologies within organizational and personal contexts in relation to career navigation and work-life balance. She holds a B.A. in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths University of London and an M.S. in Digital Contents and Information Studies from Seoul National University.
Taylor is a sophomore at Syracuse University where she is majoring in Psychology and hopes to add marketing as a double major. She is also part of the Syracuse women’s rowing team. Taylor joined the research team in September 2022 and is looking forward to learning more about the workforce and labor trends.
Isabel Munoz
Isabel is a PhD student at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies (iSchool). She received her Master’s degree in Communication from the University of Wyoming. Isabel is focused on human-computer interaction (HCI), namely information systems design and technology-supported resilience research. Her specific interests are centered on supporting underrepresented populations and women in pursuing and succeeding in digital work. Connect with Isabel on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/iisabelmunoz/
Clea O’Neil
Clea O’Neil is a Junior at Skidmore College majoring in Business-Political Science. Clea joined the Digital Work Research Team in September 2021. Her interests include worker flexibility and the recent changes in digital work.
Ellie Owen
Ellie Owen is a sophomore at Skidmore College majoring in Business. Ellie joined the Digital Work Research Team in September 2021. Currently, Ellie is focused on how Upwork ensures freelancers don’t go off-platform and how freelancers find work online.
Raghav Raheja
Raghav is a first year PhD student at Syracuse University. He has a Master’s degree in Information Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. The primary areas of research Raghav aligns with is Artificial Intelligence, Decision Making and Psychology Studies. He specifically wants to understand the effect of information (from multiple sources) on decision making.
Jean-Phillipe Rancy
Jean-Philippe is currently a PhD candidate at the Syracuse University iSchool. His research areas currently lie in Human-Computer Interaction and Human Factors & Ergonomics and is interested in studying the phenomena surrounding human immersion with technology via visualization mechanisms, such as multimodal interaction. His passions are in visualization and immersion technology, cloud computing infrastructures, and technology infrastructure design. His goals include researching and developing new methods and technologies to enhance the quality of life, values, and efficiency regarding interaction between a human operator and machinery. He currently holds his Bachelors and Masters Degree in Information Systems from Le Moyne College.
Heba Salman
Heba Salman is a Skidmore College student, class of 2025, and is planning in majoring in Psychology and minoring in Business and Management. Heba joined the Digital Work Research team in December 2021. She is interested in how digitalization of the workplace impacts the interactions that freelance workers have with employers.
Steve Sawyer
Steve is a professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. His research focuses on the changing forms of work and organizing enabled through uses of information and communication technologies. This is done through detailed field-based studies of freelance and nomadic workers, scientific collaborators, software developers, real estate agents, police officers, organizational technologists, and other information-intensive work settings. He has also been active in advancing sociotechnical approaches to studying computing collectively known as social informatics. Sawyer’s work is published in a range of venues and supported by funds from the National Science Foundation, IBM and other public and private sponsors. Prior to returning to Syracuse in 2008, Steve was a founding faculty member of the Pennsylvania State University’s College of Information Sciences and Technology. He earned his Doctorate from Boston University in 1995.
