Unlike the effect of management styles on employee attitudes, little is known about the effect of managerial assumptions on workers within the gig economy. The purpose of this paper is to utilize McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y as a framework to discuss two gig economy platforms and how their differing management assumptions affect worker perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.,The author utilized qualitative interviews and demographic surveys with 41 contract workers from TaskRabbit, a personal assistant platform, and Kitchensurfing, a “rent-a-chef” service, to examine the impact of differing management assumptions on independent contractor perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.,The Theory X management assumptions and correlated behaviors directly contradict the entrepreneurial ethos marketed by the platforms, resulting in a psychological contract violation for workers and negative responses to the platform. In comparison, Theory Y managerial assumptions and correlated behaviors can be utilized to encourage worker innovation, creativity and sense of self as an entrepreneur.,As the gig economy continues to grow, algorithms are likely to take on increased importance as a management tool. Although some have suggested that such algorithms may reduce the impact of a capricious manager, the fact remains that algorithms are created by management. If the gig economy intends to encourage entrepreneurship, additional attention must be paid to how differing management assumptions, and their resulting behaviors and algorithms, affect worker attitudes and experience.,This study represents one of the initial academic investigations into how the Theory X and Theory Y management assumptions and correlated perspectives may be applied to independent contractors within the gig economy. Additionally, this study is among the first to examine how gig worker attitudes toward platform firms, and views of themselves as entrepreneurs, are affected by algorithm-implemented management policies.

中文翻译：

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“我们不超级：”演出经济中的控制，自治和企业家精神

与管理风格对员工态度的影响不同，对于零工经济中管理假设对工人的影响知之甚少。本文的目的是利用McGregor的X理论和Y理论作为框架来讨论两个零工经济平台，以及它们不同的管理假设如何影响工人对自己作为企业家的看法。作者利用定性访谈和人口统计调查对41名合同工进行了调查。个人助理平台TaskRabbit和“厨师”服务Kitchensurfing共同研究了不同管理假设对独立承包商对自己作为企业家的看法的影响。X理论管理假设和相关行为与平台营销的企业家精神，导致工人的心理合同违规，并对平台产生负面反应。相比之下，Y理论的管理假设和相关行为可以用来鼓励工人创新，创造力和企业家的自我意识。随着零工经济的持续发展，算法作为管理工具的重要性可能会越来越高。尽管有人提出这样的算法可以减少反复无常的管理者的影响，但事实是算法是由管理人员创建的。如果零工经济打算鼓励创业，则必须特别注意不同的管理假设及其产生的行为和算法如何影响工人的态度和经验。这项研究代表了有关如何将理论X和理论Y的管理假设及相关观点应用于零工经济中的独立承包商的初步学术研究之一。此外，这项研究是第一个研究工作人员对平台公司的态度以及他们自己作为企业家的看法如何受到算法实施的管理政策影响的研究之一。