Tech-entrepreneurs’ psychological contracts with their institutional environment: Insights from Sweden - Ratio

Tech-entrepreneurs’ psychological contracts with their institutional environment: Insights from Sweden - Ratio

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Article (with peer review)

Stressed or happy – or both? Nuancing gig workers’ experiences with platform work

Weidenstedt, L., Palmtag, E.-L., Leick, B., & Cropley, M.

Publication year

2025

Published in

Economic and Industrial Democracy

Abstract

This study refines the understanding of gig workers’ experiences by showing that stress and job satisfaction can be parallel rather than mutually exclusive outcomes of gig work. By ‘gig work’ we mean piecemeal work using digital apps and platforms as part of the job. Using international survey data (N = 2385), we examine how demographic factors, socio-economic circumstances and work intensity are associated with both stress and job satisfaction of gig workers. Our results show that gig work can be both stressful and satisfying, with high work pace and physical activity enhancing satisfaction without increasing stress. These findings challenge the assumption that by default precarity leads to dissatisfaction, and they underscore the need to measure both stress and satisfaction of gig work. The exploratory study contributes to extant research on platform work by offering a nuanced perspective on gig workers’ well-being, with implications for platform design and policy to improve working conditions in the gig economy.

Article (with peer review)

Under my umbrella? Gig workers’ perspectives on career sustainability as employees in Swedish umbrella companies

Müller, F., Weidenstedt, L., Bernhard-Oettel, C., & Eib, C.Müller, F., Weidenstedt, L., Bernhard-Oettel, C., & Eib, C.

Publication year

2025

Published in

Journal of Vocational Behavior

Abstract

The rise of non-standard work arrangements has increased the need for research on career sustainability within these contexts, yet insights remain limited. In this study, we explore how gig workers employed by so-called umbrella companies understand and navigate their seemingly contradictory work arrangement. Building on the framework of sustainable careers, we conducted a reflexive thematic analysis with gig workers employed by Swedish umbrella companies. Results challenge the common portrayal of gig work as inherently precarious, as workers found ways to create a meaningful and sustainable career sequence. Participants perceived umbrella companies as enabling hyper-flexibility and hyper-individualization, thereby enhancing their person-career fit. However, they also acknowledged the limitations and potential societal challenges of this work model. We discuss how the sustainable career framework can capture the complexity of how employed gig workers made sense of their careers.

Article (with peer review)

Betwixt and between: Triple liminality and liminal agency in the Swedish gig economy. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space.

Weidenstedt, L., Geissinger, A., Leick, B., & Nazeer, N.

Publication year

2023

Published in

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X231172984

Abstract

In this paper, we identify when and why migrant gig workers experience liminality in the socio-spatial context of food delivery in the Swedish gig economy. We analyse qualitative interviews and informal conversations with food delivery workers in Stockholm through the lens of the territory-place-scale-network (TPSN) framework as developed by Bob Jessop, Neil Brenner and Martin Jones. We find that workers are challenged to deal with triple liminality regarding their work identities, workplaces and work organisation through platforms. Focusing on liminality as a central aspect of gig work, we further find that despite having little worker agency, some of the study participants engage in what we call liminal agency, that is actively pursuing possibilities for progress in uncertain states of in-betweenness. By unpacking the liminal dynamics that especially migrant food delivery riders are confronted with in their daily working lives, this study contributes to the debate on the migrant gig economy, the spatial turn in organisation studies and efforts from human geography to understand agency in precarious gig work.