Skip to main content

The Rise of a Freelance Economy

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Reputation Economy

Abstract

This chapter gives evidence of how freelancing has come to be the new standard in the entrepreneurialised labour market of the knowledge economy. With the help of secondary data, the chapter details the rise of freelancing and illustrates why this goes hand in hand with the integration of the digital infrastructure in the production and organisation of labour. As the managerial and strategic work around social relations and social capitall, that historically connotes this labour market, meets with digital and social media, it is argued that a cultural understanding of reputation as value is decisive for independent professionals in the digital and freelance knowledge economy to the aim of job to the aim of job procurement. This now comes to the forefront as a shared notion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The Economist, “Workers on tap. The rise of the on-demand economy poses difficult questions for workers, companies and politicians,” January 2015, accessed October 28, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21637393-rise-demand-economy-poses-difficult-questions-workers-companies-and.

  2. 2.

    Thomas Malone and Robert J. Laubacher, “The Dawn of an E-lance Economy,” Harvard Business Review 76.5 (1998): 144–152.

  3. 3.

    Daniel H. Pink, Free Agent Nation: How Americans New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live (Hachette Digital, 2001).

  4. 4.

    Shirley Dex et al., “Freelance workers and contract uncertainty: the effects of contractual changes in the television industry,” Work, Employment & Society 14.2 (2000): 283–305.

  5. 5.

    Helen Blair, “ ‘You’re only as good as your last job’: the labour process and labour market in the British film industry,” Work, Employment & Society, 15–1 (2001): 149–169; Helen Blair, “Winning and losing in flexible labour markets: the formation and operation of networks of interdependence in the UK film industry,” Sociology 37.4 (2003), 677–694.

  6. 6.

    Gillian Ursell, “Television production: issues of exploitation, commodification and subjectivity in UK television labour markets,” Media, Culture & Society 22.6 (2000): 805–825.

  7. 7.

    Valerie Antcliff, Richard Saundry and Mark Stuart, “Networks and social capital in the UK television industry: The weakness of weak ties,” Human Relations 60.2 (2007): 371–393.

  8. 8.

    Keith Randle and Nigel Culkin, “Getting In and Getting On in Hollywood: Freelance Careers in an Uncertain Industry,” in Creative Labour. Working in the Creative Industries, ed. Alan McKinlay and Chris Smith (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 93–115, Keith Randle, Cynthia Forson and Moira Calveley, “Towards a Bourdieusian Analysis of the Social Composition of the UK Film and Television Workforce,” Work, Employment & Society 29.4 (2015): 590–606.

  9. 9.

    Susan Christopherson, “Project work in context: regulatory change and the new geography of media,” Environment and Planning A 34.11 (2002): 2003–2015.

  10. 10.

    Arne Baumann, “Informal labour market governance: the case of the British and German media production industries.” Work, Employment & Society 16.1 (2002): 27–46.

  11. 11.

    Chris Benner, Work in the new economy: Flexible labor markets in Silicon Valley (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).

  12. 12.

    Rory Donnelly, “Career behavior in the knowledge economy: Experiences and perceptions of career mobility among management and IT consultants in the UK and the USA,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 75.3 (2009): 319–328.

  13. 13.

    Barbara Fersch, “ ‘German Angst’ vs ‘Danish Easy-going’? On the Role and Relevance of Insecurity and Uncertainty in the Lives of Freelancers in Denmark and Germany,” Sociology 46.6 (2012): 1125–1139.

  14. 14.

    Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity and Branding in Social Media Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).

  15. 15.

    Susan Christopherson, “Project work in context: regulatory change and the new geography of media,” Environment and Planning A 34.11 (2002): 2003–2015; Susan Christopherson, “Beyond the self-expressive creative worker: an industry perspective on entertainment media,” Theory, Culture & Society 25.7–8 (2008): 73–95.

  16. 16.

    On nonstandard employment arrangements, see Arne Kalleberg, “Flexible Firms and Labor Market Segmentation: Effects of Workplace Restructuring on Jobs and Workers,” Work and Occupations, 30 (2003): 154–175.

  17. 17.

    Kerry Platman, “‘Portfolio careers’ and the search for flexibility in later life,” Work, Employment & Society 18.3 (2004): 573–599.

  18. 18.

    Kathleen Barker and Kathleen E. Christensen (eds.), Contingent work: American employment relations in transition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).

  19. 19.

    Debra Osnowitz, Freelancing Expertise (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).

  20. 20.

    Peter Cappelli, and J.R. Keller, “Classifying Work in the New Economy,” Academy of Management Review 38.4 (2013): 1–22.

  21. 21.

    Richard Arum and Walter Müller (eds.), The reemergence of self-employment: a comparative study of self-employment dynamics and social inequality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

  22. 22.

    Nigel Meager and Peter Bates, “Self-Employment in the United Kingdom during the 1980s and 1990s,” in The reemergence of self-employment: a comparative study of self-employment dynamics and social inequality, ed. Richard Arum and Walter Müller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 135–169.

  23. 23.

    Roberto Pedersini and Diego Coletto, Self-employed workers: industrial relations and working conditions (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2010).

  24. 24.

    IPSE, The Role of Freelancers in the 21st Century British Economy, 2011, accessed October 29, 2015, https://www.ipse.co.uk/sites/default/files/documents/research/Andrew-Burke-Report-v1.pdf.

  25. 25.

    Conor d’Arcy and Laura Gardiner, Just the Job—or a Working Compromise? The Changing Nature of Self-Employment in the UK (Resolution Foundation Report, 2014).

  26. 26.

    EEOR European Employment Observatory Review, Self-employment in Europe (2010), accessed October 28, 2015, http://osha.europa.eu/en/publications/literature_reviews/self-employed.

  27. 27.

    Carl Benedict Frey and Michael Osborne M, Technology at Work. The Future of Innovation and Employment (2015) accessed June 29, 2015, http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/reports/Technology%20at%20Work.pdf.

  28. 28.

    Sarah Horowitz and Fabio Rosati, Freelancing in America: A National Survey of the New Workforce (2014), accessed July 29, 2015, http://fu-web-storage-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/content/filer_public/c2/06/c2065a8a-7f00-46db-915a-2122965df7d9/fu_freelancinginamericareport_v3-rgb.pdf; Sarah Horowitz and Fabio Rosati, Freelancing in America: 2015 (2015), accessed October 28, 2015, https://www.freelancersunion.org/blog/dispatches/2015/10/01/freelancing-america-2015/.

  29. 29.

    For data and research on self-employment in Italy, see Paolo Barbieri, “Liberi di rischiare. Vecchi e nuovi lavoratori autonomi,” Stato e mercato 19.2 (1999): 281–308; Paolo Barbieri and Ivano Bison, “Self-employment in Italy: scaling the class barriers” The Reemergence of Self-employment. A Comparative Study of Self- employment Dynamics and Social Inequality, ed. Richard Arum and Walter Muller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 121–173; Aris Accornero and Bruno Anastasia, “È in atto una fuga dal lavoro subordinato? Realtà e prospettive del lavoro autonomo: un po’ di attenzione, please,” Giornale di Diritto del lavoro e di Relazioni Industriali 112.4 (2006): 743–756; Costanzo Ranci (eds), Partite Iva. Il lavoro autonomo nella crisi italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino. 2012).

  30. 30.

    EEOR European Employment Observatory Review, Self-employment in Europe (2010), accessed October 28, 2015, http://osha.europa.eu/en/publications/literature_reviews/self-employed; Ranci, C., eds. 2012. Partite Iva. Il lavoro autonomo nella crisi italiana. Bologna: Il Mulino.

  31. 31.

    For a definition of ‘bogus’ self-employment, please refer to Your Britain, accessed October 28, 2015, http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/agenda-2015/policy-review/bogus-self-employment.

  32. 32.

    Patrick Clark, “Where The Freelance Economy Is Booming”, Businessweek. May 2013, accessed October 28, 2015, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-31/where-the-freelance-economy-is-booming.

  33. 33.

    Irina Grugulis and Dimitrinka Stoyanova, “The missing middle: communities of practice in a freelance labour market,” Work, Employment & Society 25.2 (2011): 342–351; Irina Grugulis and Dimitrinka Stoyanova, “Social capital and networks in film and TV: Jobs for the boys?” Organization Studies 33.10 (2012): 1311–1331.

  34. 34.

    Keith Randle, Cynthia Forson and Moira Calveley, “Towards a Bourdieusian Analysis of the Social Composition of the UK Film and Television Workforce,” Work, Employment & Society 29.4 (2015): 590–606.

  35. 35.

    David Lee, “Networks, cultural capital and creative labour in the British independent television industry,” Media, Culture & Society 33.4 (2011): 549–565.

  36. 36.

    On social networks, identity and the self, see Danah Boyd, “Identity production in a networked culture: Why youth (heart) MySpace,” American Association for the Advancement of Science, St Louis, MO, February 19, 2006, accessed October 28, 2015, http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html; Danah Boyd, “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics and Implications,” in Networked Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites, ed. Z. Papacharissi (New York: Routledge, 2011), 39–58; Alice E. Marwick, and Danah Boyd, “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience,” New Media & Society 13.1 (2011): 114–133.

  37. 37.

    Tom Peters, The Brand Called You (New York: Random House, 1999).

  38. 38.

    Alessandro Gandini, “Digital work: Self-branding and social capital in the freelance knowledge economy,” Marketing Theory (2015), DOI: 10.1177/1470593115607942.

  39. 39.

    Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career (Random House Digital, 2012).

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Copyright information

© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Gandini, A. (2016). The Rise of a Freelance Economy. In: The Reputation Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56107-7_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics