INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE (IJRISS)
ISSN No. 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS | Volume IX Issue XI November 2025
LITERATURE REVIEW
Research on the gig economy has expanded rapidly, driven by intersecting debates on technological disruption,
labour flexibility, economic precarity, regulatory ambiguity and shifting cultural expectations of work. Digital
platforms remain the principal accelerator of these transformations, as advances in mobile applications and
online marketplaces allow labour to be transacted globally and instantaneously, forming what has been labelled
the “platform,” “on-demand,” or “gig” economy (Minifie and Wiltshire, 2016; OECD, 2019; Prudential, 2018).
Within this mediated infrastructure, work is no longer anchored in continuous employment but organised through
task-specific assignments, algorithmic matching and customer-driven scoring systems (US Bureau of Labour
Statistics, 2018). This shift foreshadows the motivational volatility and relational detachment explored in the
Discussion, where autonomy, competence and relatedness are no longer institutionally guaranteed but
structurally conditional.
Flexibility remains the dominant attraction for both workers and organisations. Gig workers value self-
determined scheduling, while firms benefit from reduced fixed labour commitments and rapid talent scaling. Yet,
this autonomy is regularly undercut by irregular hours, income instability and extended availability demands
that intrude on sleep patterns, family arrangements and psychological well-being (Tucker and Folkard, 2012).
As later examined through Self-Determination Theory, the tension between volitional autonomy and economic
vulnerability becomes central to explaining why intrinsic motivation weakens despite nominal freedom.
Autonomy in gig work thus diverges from traditional motivational theory: reduced managerial oversight coexists
with intensified platform dependency.
Economic pressures further shape gig participation. Many workers enter platform labour not as a lifestyle
preference but as a strategic response to financial uncertainty, underemployment or wage stagnation. While firms
leverage global skill access, workers experience emotional turbulence—oscillating between independence and
insecurity—which is highly documented across creative freelancers, rideshare drivers and independent
contractors (Malin and Chandler, 2017; Butler and Stoyanova Russell, 2018; Petriglieri et al., 2019; Grandey
and Gabriel, 2015). This emotional oscillation aligns with SDT’s claim that competence without stability and
autonomy without security fails to produce sustained engagement. The gig model therefore heightens
adaptability while diluting identity continuity.
Regulation remains one of the most destabilising domains. Employment classification—whether workers are
categorized as employees or independent contractors—determines access to social insurance, benefits, legal
safeguards and collective bargaining (Donovan, Bradley, and Shimabukuro, 2016). Labelling workers as
contractors enables cost flexibility but displaces relational belonging, structured development and welfare
entitlements, reinforcing the relational deficit highlighted in the Discussion. Calls for portable benefits, platform
accountability and taxation clarity reflect not only economic justice but the psychological need for predictable
security, conditions SDT identifies as essential for sustained motivation rather than episodic participation.
From an organisational lens, the gig model has become both a cost strategy and a governance experiment. Firms
increasingly deploy dual labour systems, combining core full-time employees with contingent digital labour
pools to achieve agility and scale. Emerging arrangements—worker cooperatives, platform unions, modular
training ecosystems—anticipate the distributed leadership, adaptive coordination and e-leadership competencies
required in hybrid workforce systems (Tug, 2023). These models confirm the structural turn discussed later:
organisational identity is no longer contained within hierarchical boundaries but diffused across platform-
mediated contributors who lack conventional organisational membership yet fulfil critical operational functions.
Boundaries between gig and full-time roles thus blur, producing new expectations of leadership presence without
physical proximity, cultural reinforcement without co-location and motivation without traditional belonging.
Taken collectively, the literature demonstrates that the gig economy is not merely a labour alternative but a
systemic realignment of work, authority and identity. While it promises autonomy, mobility and organisational
agility, it simultaneously intensifies structural inequities, motivational fragility and relational thinning. This
intersection sets the foundation for the paper’s Discussion, where SDT’s psychological conditions and
contemporary leadership frameworks become essential to explaining why gig work remains economically
efficient yet motivationally unstable and organisationally unanchored.
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