From Awareness to Action: Compassionate Consumers as Agents of Change in the Gig Economy An Experimental Design Study on the Influence of Compassion on Prosocial Behavior in the Gig Economy.

Abstract

The growing gig economy is changing the modern workforce landscape where the new digital convenient services often overshadow its workers' needs. Gig work, a modern form of precarious working with pay-by-the-task rather than time, often neglects employment benefits and job security. The workers have primarily steered the efforts to improve the working conditions, which has led to unsatisfactory results. This study focuses on another crucial actor, the consumer, and their emotions, which have had minimal attention in research so far. The paper explores if knowledge about gig working conditions induces compassion, which sequentially leads to prosocial behavior, the consumers wanting to act for better working entitlements. The study tests this through a survey experiment where the treatment group participants get exposed to a knowledge treatment. All participants then answer questions on prosocial behavior divided into ethical attitudes, political willingness, and ethical consumption. The thesis findings show that knowledge of gig working conditions leads to compassion, which increases the perception of the importance of ethical matters and the willingness to take political action for the cause. The paper contributes to understanding how to encourage engagement for gig workers while also broadening the use of compassion as a mechanism of change.