
Dr. Gretta Corporaal is a Sociologist of Work and Organizations, previously based at the Oxford Internet Institute, specializing in online labor platforms and the future of work and organizations in the digital economy.
Dr Greetje (Gretta) Corporaal
Research Associate
Profile
Dr. Greetje “Gretta” Corporaal was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute where she also taught the course Digital Technology and Economic Organization. Corporaal is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Social Contract, a Teaching Affiliate at Said Business School, and co-host of the Talking About Organizations Podcast. She holds a PhD in Organization Sciences, an MSc (cum laude) in Social Research and PMC (cum laude) in Culture, Organization and Management from VU Amsterdam, and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Groningen, where she also studied Classical Violin and Modern Japan Studies. In 2014-2015 Corporaal was a visiting scholar at New York University, Stern School of Business.
A Sociologist of Work and Organizations, Corporaal’s research is positioned at the intersection of Management and Organization Studies, Information Systems Research, and Economic Sociology. She is interested in the development of AI, digital platform technologies and services, and how their usage shapes the future of work and organizing in society.
Corporaal was part of the ERC-funded project ‘iLabour: The construction of Labour Markets, Institutions and Movements on the Internet‘. This project examines online freelance work and online labour platforms. Her research focuses on the technology firms that develop these platforms and how these new private regulators create and manage their marketplaces. To this aim, Corporaal conducted a one-year ethnographic study inside one of the largest online labour platforms for knowledge work. She also studies firm adoption of platforms and how they are changing their organizational processes and practices internally to engage online freelancers as part of their external workforce.
Corporaal’s other research focuses on how globalization, digitization, and hyper-specialization are transforming work in the areas of technology, innovation, and strategy. To this aim, she conducted a 4-year multi-sited field study of cross-boundary collaboration among research scientists, engineers, and divisional managers within a Japanese multinational and its collaboration with an American engineering contractor.
Corporaal is an active member of the Academy of Management and the European Group of Organization Studies. She received various awards for her work, among which Best Reviewer Awards from the Academy of Management (2017), a Young Talent Award from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (2014) and the Wilhelmina Drucker Early Career Award from VU Amsterdam (2015). Her research has been covered in The Financial Times, Fortune Magazine, and Forbes Magazine (Personal website, Researchgate, LinkedIn)
Research interests
Online freelancing and outsourcing of knowledge work in the digital platform economy; the development of AI, machine learning models, and algorithmic management processes; the emergence and transformation of fields, boundaries and practices; institutional processes; micro-processes of strategy-making; sociology of work and organizing; technology and management innovations and new value creation
Positions held at the OII
- Research Associate, March 2020-
- Postdoctoral Researcher, April 2016 – January 2020
- Member of the Departmental Steering Board, February 2017 – January 2020
Research
Current projects
-
iLabour: The Construction of Labour Markets, Institutions and Movements on the Internet
Participants: Professor Vili Lehdonvirta, Dr Otto Kässi, Greetje (Gretta) Corporaal, Dr Alex J. Wood
The iLabour project is premised on the idea that a fundamental change is taking place in labour markets. It seeks to understand the social and policy implications of this momentous shift.
Featured
- (2018) Motivations for platform sourcing: Why do firms adopt online labor markets for knowledge work?. Reshaping Work Conference, Amsterdam October 25-26.
- (2018) Boundary Work: Addressing the Challenges of Cross-boundary Collaboration at Mirai Corporation.
- (2017) Platform Sourcing: How Fortune 500 Firms Are Adopting Online Freelancing Platforms. Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute.
Books
- (2018) Boundary Work: Addressing the Challenges of Cross-boundary Collaboration at Mirai Corporation.
Conference papers
- (2018) Motivations for platform sourcing: Why do firms adopt online labor markets for knowledge work?. Reshaping Work Conference, Amsterdam October 25-26.
- (2014) "10,000 miles across the room?", Proceedings of the 5th ACM international conference on Collaboration across boundaries: culture, distance & technology - CABS '14. the 5th ACM international conference, 20 – 22 August 2014. ACM Press. 29-30.
Reports
- (2017) Platform Sourcing: How Fortune 500 Firms Are Adopting Online Freelancing Platforms. Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute.
Working papers
- Explaining variation in firm adoption of digital platforms: How different platform adoption paths impact the networked capabilities of online labor platforms..
- How the flexible firm expands with online labor platforms: Theorizing online labor platforms as a new model for sourcing high-skilled knowledge work.
Teaching
-
Digital Technology and Economic Organization
This course will teach students how to apply basic social science theory towards analysing the impact of digital technologies on economic organization.
Videos
-
Digital Technology and Economic Organization: OII MSc Option Course
Recorded: 13 October 2016
Duration: 00:04:28
This option course for the OII MSc in "Social Science of the Internet" will teach students how to apply basic social science theory towards analysing the impact of digital technologies on economic organization.
News
-
Oxford academics join distinguished World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Future Councils
20 November 2019
Three academics from the Oxford Internet Institute, have been invited to join the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils, providing thought leadership on key global challenges and the impact and governance of emerging technologies.
Events
-
OxDeg: Mixed methods and hyper-triangulation
23 November 2016
This seminar series, created by the Oxford Digital Ethnography Group, gathers leading scholars and practitioners to reflect on how ethnography is adapting to the study of heavily-mediated worlds.
Blog
-
6 dimensions of value: Comparing platform versus agency-based sourcing
26 September 2017
Author: Gretta Corporaal
Firms have been using temporary staffing agencies to find and hire temporary workers for short-term assignments since the 1940s. Temporary workers were initially used ...
Read More 6 dimensions of value: Comparing platform versus agency-based sourcing -
How the Fortune 500 experiment with platform adoption
14 June 2017
Author: Gretta Corporaal
Organizing for successful platform adoption: Part 2 Large corporations are starting to realize the benefits of leveraging online platforms to access freelancers on an ...
Read More How the Fortune 500 experiment with platform adoption -
Organizing for successful platform adoption: Part One
17 May 2017
Author: Gretta Corporaal
What does innovation literature predict about the organizational challenges of adopting online freelancing platforms – and how to address them? Digital technologies have fueled ...
Read More Organizing for successful platform adoption: Part One -
Organizing with on-demand freelancers in the platform economy: Part Two
25 April 2017
Author: Gretta Corporaal
What challenges do organizations face when adopting online freelancing platforms as part of their business models? Digital technologies have enabled the rise of online labour ...
Read More Organizing with on-demand freelancers in the platform economy: Part Two -
Organizing with on-demand freelancers in the platform economy: Part One
19 April 2017
Author: Gretta Corporaal
To understand the future of work we need to explore the diversity of platforms and how they are used in the modern economy. In ...
Read More Organizing with on-demand freelancers in the platform economy: Part One -
Gaming addiction: it may not be as much of a crisis as some expect
3 March 2017
Author: Andrew Przybylski
Few activities stir the imagination or popular concern more than video gaming. Nearly all young people in the UK now regularly play games – ...
Read More Gaming addiction: it may not be as much of a crisis as some expect
Press
-
How Slack took over the office
26 January 2018 Financial Times
Slack, the workplace messaging system, has wheedled its way into working lives. Greetje Corporaal comments.
-
The Gig Economy Isn’t Just For Startups Anymore
29 August 2017 Fortune
Coverage of a new report by Gretta Corporaal and Vili Lehdonvirta on how Fortune 500 companies are turning to online freelancing platforms like Upwork and PeoplePerHour to find designers, marketing staff, IT specialists and other knowledge workers.