TY - GEN
T1 - Role of communication in online platforms
AU - Hong, Yili
AU - Peng, Jing
AU - Burtch, Gord
AU - Huang, Ni
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Association for Information Systems. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Online labor markets facilitate matching of workers and employers in a borderless virtual environment. Much of the attraction of these markets for employers derives from access to a large, geographically dispersed pool of workers. However, recent literature highlights that these markets are subject to issues such as employer biases against hiring distant workers and against new workers who lack reputation information. We examine the often-ignored role of pre-contract communication between workers and employers (via the platform-hosted private messaging system), which holds the potential to enhance workers' probability of being hired while mitigating these biases. Based on private messaging activities between workers and employers from nearly half a million job applications on Freelancer.com, we quantify the causal impact on hiring outcomes from workers' outreach to employers via private messaging. We find that initiating private messaging with a potential employer lifts a worker's probability of being hired by roughly 29% over baseline. Moreover, these beneficial effects are amplified when workers reside at a distance, lack reputation, or bear negative reputation, demonstrating that private messaging can in fact attenuate the aforementioned hiring biases. The effects are also magnified when employers lack platform hiring experience, likely because such employers bear higher uncertainty and are more risk-averse.
AB - Online labor markets facilitate matching of workers and employers in a borderless virtual environment. Much of the attraction of these markets for employers derives from access to a large, geographically dispersed pool of workers. However, recent literature highlights that these markets are subject to issues such as employer biases against hiring distant workers and against new workers who lack reputation information. We examine the often-ignored role of pre-contract communication between workers and employers (via the platform-hosted private messaging system), which holds the potential to enhance workers' probability of being hired while mitigating these biases. Based on private messaging activities between workers and employers from nearly half a million job applications on Freelancer.com, we quantify the causal impact on hiring outcomes from workers' outreach to employers via private messaging. We find that initiating private messaging with a potential employer lifts a worker's probability of being hired by roughly 29% over baseline. Moreover, these beneficial effects are amplified when workers reside at a distance, lack reputation, or bear negative reputation, demonstrating that private messaging can in fact attenuate the aforementioned hiring biases. The effects are also magnified when employers lack platform hiring experience, likely because such employers bear higher uncertainty and are more risk-averse.
KW - Communication
KW - Online labor markets
KW - Online platforms
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054234174&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85054234174&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85054234174
SN - 9780996683166
T3 - Americas Conference on Information Systems 2018: Digital Disruption, AMCIS 2018
BT - Americas Conference on Information Systems 2018
PB - Association for Information Systems
T2 - 24th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2018: Digital Disruption, AMCIS 2018
Y2 - 16 August 2018 through 18 August 2018
ER -