Policy Implications of Virtual Work

"Wide-ranging, carefully researched, and scrupulously objective." (Vincent Mosco, Queen's University, Canada and Fudan University, China) "Exploring the opportunities and challenges that digitalization brings for working life, this book raises some of the key questions and provides some pragmatic guidance to key social actors, as they need to rethink their own roles and the rules under which they operate." (Juan Menendez-Valdes, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) "This book contributes to an understanding of the processes leading to policy challenges and identifies new ways in which progress in policy formulation and regulation can be made." (Jan Drahokoupil, European Trade Union Institute)

This collection presents an array of policy debates and implications emerging from virtual work.

This collection presents an array of policy debates and implications emerging from virtual work. The authors cover a range of areas, including: conceptual debates, measuring virtual work; discourses and levels of policy intervention; the role of the sharing and collaborative economy; and resultant challenges for organized labour, law and regulation.

The authors of the chapters analyse the ways in which processes of digitalization leading to virtual work impact so many aspects of our lives: the way we buy, sell, network, communicate, participate, create, consume, and, of course, the way we work. In turn they focus on the subsequent implications for the future of work as well as the viability of existing social protection systems.

The developments examined here are salient for both policy stakeholders and for the academic community in areas such as labour sociology, industrial relations, gender studies, political economy, and economic geography.