Abstract
Despite their astounding growth in recent years, online gig platforms face key challenges to increase gig workers' working commitment. In this study, we investigate how a higher payout frequency may stimulate workers' commitment to work, improve the work quality, and engender heterogeneous impacts across different workers. Drawing on the expectancy theory and using detailed data from a multinational streaming platform, we explore a quasi-natural experiment. Leveraging an exogenous shock of a financial system upgrade, we employ the propensity score matching (PSM) technique with a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to demonstrate that a shorter payout cycle increased gig workers' efforts at work. Moreover, a shorter payout cycle increased the quality of work. The positive impact was more pronounced for workers with a shorter tenure and for those who had a higher commitment to work before the treatment. Our results help gig platforms understand how to design payout schemes to motivate gig workers.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Shiyi; Tong, Jack; and Jia, Nan, "Show Me The Money, Sooner! How Faster Payments Boost Gig Workers’ Efforts and Productivity" (2023). PACIS 2023 Proceedings. 23.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2023/23
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