The art of gamifying digital gig workers: a theoretical assessment of evaluating engagement and motivation

The COVID-19 global pandemic has transformed work and employment patterns within organizations. Two key emerging trends visible at the organization level are as follows. First, employees being asked to leave (which has mostly been seen within the aviation, hospitality, and travel industries) and second, employees asking to work part-time or on a contractual basis (e.g. within the education and healthcare sectors). This so-called ‘new normal’ has also given rise to an unprecedented increase and diffusion of digital workforces being engaged either full or part time within organizations. Thus, through our study, we aimed to contribute from a theoretical standpoint by exploring this phenomenon through the lenses of swift trust theory (STT) and psychological contract theory (PCT). Our goal was to understand how firms use gamification to engage their digital gig workforce. We collected our data from organizations that used some form of gamification in the process of engaging their employees and extended our inquiry to understand whether they did the same in engaging their gig workforces. We restricted our data to only those firms that had engaged white-collar gig workers. Overall, our study contributes to the literature by extending the theoretical debate pertaining to the use of STT and PCT theory to understand the phenomenon of digital gig workforce engagement and productivity.