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
Kim, P., Asante-Agyei, C.,Munoz, I., Dunn, M., and Sawyer, S. (2025). “Decoding the Meaning of Success on Digital Labor Platforms”: Worker-Centered Perspectives. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW). Forthcoming.
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
Mike is an Associate 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.
Pyeonghwa Kim is a Ph.D. candidate at the Syracuse University iSchool. Her research focuses on advancing conceptual and design insights that rethink existing labor norms in platform work, which often marginalize workers based on gender, race, and work/life values. She also teaches courses in human-centered design. Kim holds a B.A. with First Class Honors in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an M.S. in 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.
Clea joined the Digital Work team in September 2021 and graduated from Skidmore College in May 2024 with a BA in Business-Political Science. Clea has sinceassumed a project manager role in the Digital Work group and works as a post-graduate research fellow. Her areas of interest include remote work processes, algorithmic bias in digital marketplaces, non-transferrable platform capital, and the deconstruction of worker identity.
Heba Salman is a senior at Skidmore College and is majoring in Psychology and minoring in Business and Management and the Honors Forum. Heba joined the Digital Work Research team in December 2021. She is interested in exploring the rise of AI and its impact on freelancers’ work strategies and perceptions of employability.
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.
Robyn Karchere-Sun is a Junior at Skidmore College majoring in Management and Business and pursuing a double minor in Chinese and Economics. She joined the Digital Work Research Team in May 2024. Robyn is interested in investigating the ways in which online labor platforms strip workers of their agency.
Lauren Coop is a senior at Syracuse University double majoring in Data Analytics and Policy Studies. Lauren joined the Digital Work Group in September 2022 and is also a member of the SU Women’s Rowing team. Lauren is interested in the complexities of work-life balance for freelancers and how freelancing impacts family dynamics as compared to more traditional careers.
Patrick is an Information Management & Technology and Finance student at Syracuse University’s iSchool.
Anastasia Sysoeva, a junior student-athlete playing D1 Women’s tennis at Syracuse University. She is pursuing a dual major in Finance and Information Management & Technology with concentration in Data Analytics. In November 2024, Anastasia joined the Digital Work Research team and is excited to explore how digital technologies are changing the way people work.
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