Papers by Lindsey Cameron
The present research tested whether mindfulness, a state characterized by focused, nonjudgmental ... more The present research tested whether mindfulness, a state characterized by focused, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, increases prosocial behavior in the workplace or work-related contexts. Study 1a was a longitudinal field experiment at a US insurance company. Compared to workers under waitlist control, employees who were assigned to a daily mindfulness training reported more helping behaviors over a five day period both in quantitative surveys and qualitative daily diaries. Study 1b, conducted in a large consulting company in India, extends these findings with a field experiment in which co-workers rated the prosocial behavior of teammates in a round robin design. Moving from devoting time to devoting money, in Study 2a and 2b we find that individuals randomly assigned to engage in a focused breathing meditation were more financially generous. To understand the mechanisms of mindfulness' effects on prosocial behavior, Study 3 found support for empathy and moderate support for perspective taking as mediators. This study also examined the effects of induced state mindfulness via two different mindfulness inductions, focused breathing and loving kindness meditation. Our results indicate secular state mindfulness can make people more other-oriented and helpful. This benefit holds even in workplace contexts, where being helpful toward others might face constraints but is nevertheless of great importance.
Today's transportation systems and technologies have the potential to transform the ways individu... more Today's transportation systems and technologies have the potential to transform the ways individuals acquire resources from their social networks and environments. However, it is unclear what types of resources can be acquired and how technology could support these efforts. We address this gap by investigating these questions in the domain of real-time ridesharing systems. We present insights from two qualitative studies: (1) a set of semi-structured interviews with 13 Uber drivers and (2) a set of semi-structured interviews with 13 Uber riders. Our results show that both drivers and riders acquired and benefited from informational, emotional and instrumental resources, as well as cultural exchanges via interactions with each other and with online platforms. We argue that these interactions could support the development of social and cultural capital. We discuss our findings in the context of labor and contribute design implications for in-car social and cultural experiences and for the ways technologies such as GPS and location-based services can support the additional emotional, social, and cultural labor that drivers provide to their riders.
Alternative work arrangements continue to increase in number and variety. We review the literatur... more Alternative work arrangements continue to increase in number and variety. We review the literature on alternative work arrangements published since the most recent major review of nonstandard work by Ashford et al. (2007). We look across the research findings to identify three dimensions of flexibility that undergird alternative work arrangements: (a) flexibility in the employment relationship, (b) flexibility in the scheduling of work, and (c) flexibility in where work is accomplished. We identify two images of the new world of work-one for high-skill workers who choose alternative work arrangements and the other for low-skill workers who struggle to make a living and are beholden to the needs of the organization. We close with future directions for research and practice for tending to the first image and moving away from the second image of the new world of work.
How do individuals react to the sudden public moralization of their work and with what consequenc... more How do individuals react to the sudden public moralization of their work and with what consequences? Extant research has documented how public narratives can gradually moralize societal perceptions of select occupations. Yet, the implications of how workers individually respond and form self-narratives in light of-or in spite of-a sudden moralizing event remain less understood. Such an understanding is even more critical when workers are weakly socialized by their organization, a situation increasingly common today. During the COVID-19 pandemic, radically shifting public narratives suddenly transformed grocery delivery work, previously uncelebrated, into highly moralized "heroic" pursuits. Drawing on interviews (n = 75), participant artifacts (n = 85), and archival data (e.g., newspaper articles), we find that these workers (here, shoppers on the platform organization Instacart), left mainly to themselves, exhibited varying responses to this moralizing and that their perceived relations to the organization, customers, and tasks shaped these responses. Surprisingly, those who facilely adopted the hero label felt morally credentialled, and they were thus likely to minimize their extra-role helping of customers and show low commitment to the organization; in contrast, those who wrestled with the hero narrative sought to earn those moral credentials, and they were more likely to embrace extra-role helping and remain committed to moralized aspects of the work. Our study contributes to literatures on the moralization of work and narratives by explaining why some workers accept a moralized narrative and others reject or wrestle with it, documenting consequences of workers' reactions to such narratives, and suggesting how a moralized public narrative can backfire.
Please scroll down for article-it is on subsequent pages With 12,500 members from nearly 90 count... more Please scroll down for article-it is on subsequent pages With 12,500 members from nearly 90 countries, INFORMS is the largest international association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individual professionals, and organizations of all types and sizes, to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to transform strategic visions and achieve better outcomes. For more information on INFORMS, its publications, membership, or meetings visit http://www.informs.org History: This paper has been accepted for the Special Issue on Emerging Technologies and Organizing. Funding: The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by Stanford University and University of Michigan to collect data.
Today's transportation systems and technologies have the potential to transform the ways individu... more Today's transportation systems and technologies have the potential to transform the ways individuals acquire resources from their social networks and environments. However, it is unclear what types of resources can be acquired and how technology could support these efforts. We address this gap by investigating these questions in the domain of real-time ridesharing systems. We present insights from two qualitative studies: (1) a set of semi-structured interviews with 13 Uber drivers and (2) a set of semi-structured interviews with 13 Uber riders. Our results show that both drivers and riders acquired and benefited from informational, emotional and instrumental resources, as well as cultural exchanges via interactions with each other and with online platforms. We argue that these interactions could support the development of social and cultural capital. We discuss our findings in the context of labor and contribute design implications for in-car social and cultural experiences and for the ways technologies such as GPS and location-based services can support the additional emotional, social, and cultural labor that drivers provide to their riders.
On-demand or “gig” workers show up to a workplace without walls, organizational routines, manager... more On-demand or “gig” workers show up to a workplace without walls, organizational routines, managers, or even coworkers. Without traditional organizational scaffolds, how do individuals make meaning of their work in a way that fosters engagement? Prior literature suggests that organizational practices, such as recruitment and socialization, foster group belonging and meaningfulness, which subsequently leads to engagement, and that without these practices alienation and attrition ensue. My four-year qualitative study of workers in the largest sector in the on-demand economy (ridehailing) suggests an alternative and more readily available mechanism of engagement—workplace games. Through interactions with touchpoints—in this context, the customer and the app—individuals turn their work into games they find meaningful, can control, and “win.” In the relational game, workers craft positive customer service encounters, offering gifts and extra services, in the pursuit of high customer ratings, which they track through the app’s rating system. In the efficiency game, workers set boundaries with customers, minimizing any “extra” behavior, in the pursuit of maximizing money per time spent driving and they create their own tracking tools outside the app. Whereas each game resulted in engagement—as workers were trying to “win”—games were associated with two divergent stances or relationships toward the work, with contrasting implications for retention. My findings embed meaning-making in what is fast-becoming the normal workplace, largely solitary and structured by emerging technologies, and holds insights for explaining why people remain engaged in a line of work typically deemed exploitative.
The literature on alternative work arrangements is broad, spanning multiple disciplines, includin... more The literature on alternative work arrangements is broad, spanning multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, information sciences, management, and organizational psychology. Alternative work arrangements are loosely defined as jobs that occur outside of a traditional employment context with the expectation of a longterm employment contract. Given the breadth of the topic this review limits its scope to alternative work arrangements in the United States, unless otherwise noted. Taken together, the literature broadly explores the social, economic, and legal trends influencing the growth of alternative workplace arrangements and the different configurations within the workplace. Growth of Alternative Work Arrangements In organizational scholarship, work has typically been portrayed in terms of a fulltime, regular employment model, "where work is performed on a fixed schedule, at the firm's place of business under the firm's control and with mutual expectation of continued employment" (Kalleberg, et al. 2000). In the United States today, a smaller percentage of the labor force works in fulltime jobs for a particular employer at the employer's place of work. Polivka 1996 claims the first comprehensive measure of contingent workers in the United States in 1995, estimating as many as six million contingent workers, or 4.9 percent of the US workforce. Using a broader definition of nonstandard employment, including oncall work, independent contractors, temp work, parttime work for a regular employer, and any selfemployment, Kalleberg, et al. 2000 estimated that 31 percent of American adults in 1995 were in some type of nonstandard employment. Focusing on remote work, Mateyka, et al. 2012 reported that the percentage of US workers who worked at least one day each week at home increased from 7 percent in 1997 to 9.5 percent in 2010, and those who work exclusively from home increased from 4.8 percent to 6.6 percent. Recent estimates of US workers in alternative work arrangements range from 10.1 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018) to 15.8 percent (Katz and Krueger 2016). Katz and Krueger 2016 concludes that almost all of the net employment growth in the US occurred in nonstandard work arrangements. In addition, Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018 suggests that increasingly individuals are employed but also doing contingent work in side hustles or gig work.
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Papers by Lindsey Cameron