Ep 194. Lindsey Cameron: The Gig Economy and the Pandemic

Ep 194. Lindsey Cameron: The Gig Economy and the Pandemic

“Considering their isolation, how do on-demand workers make meaning of their work?”

Lindsey Cameron

Lindsey Cameron is an Assistant Professor of Management at Wharton whose research focuses on how changes in the modern workplace -- as algorithms/machine learning, short-term employment contracts, and variable pay -- affect work and workers. She recently completed a four-year ethnography of the largest employer in the gig economy, exploring how algorithms are reshaping the nature of managerial control and how workers navigate this new workplace.

Previously, Lindsey spent over a decade in the U.S. intelligence and diplomatic communities as a technical and political analyst and completed several overseas assignments in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. She holds a PhD in Management from the University of Michigan, an MS in Engineering Management from the George Washington University, and an SB from Harvard University in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She also studied Arabic intensively at the American University of Cairo.

In this episode, Stew and Lindsey discuss the gig economy; how the pandemic has affected gig workers both on the job and in the other parts of their lives; the factors that influence employment choices gig workers make; what they (Stew and Lindsey) learned from their experiences as NYC taxi driver and janitor, respectively; and more.

Here then is an invitation, a challenge, for you, once you’ve listened to the conversation. What might you do differently the next time you interact with a service provider operating in the gig economy? Share your ideas and any reactions to this episode by writing to Stew at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn.

Listen below on on ApplePodcasts, GooglePlay, Spotify…