Purpose Online gig labor platforms bring together a global and fast-growing workforce to complete highly granular, remote and decontextualized tasks. While these environments might be empowering to some workers, many others feel disenfranchised and removed from the final product of their labor. To better understand the antecedents of continued participation in forms of crowdsourced digital labor, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between worker’s ability to create a narrative of their work mattering regardless, and their continued work engagement (WE) in these work setups. Design/methodology/approach The authors approach the relationship between individual mattering and digital WE through a longitudinal study among workers on the crowdworking platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. The authors further provide qualitative insight into individual perceptions of mattering based on essay data. Findings The authors develop a measure of mattering in crowdworking with four dimensions: reliance, social recognition, importance and interaction. Reliance is the most pronounced dimension, followed by interaction, importance and social recognition. In the final longitudinal model, only importance affects WE positively, while the other three mattering dimensions do not have a significant effect. Originality/value The findings indicate that individuals who feel that they themselves and their work “count” and “make a difference” will be more engaged in their digital labor. By clarifying the dimensionality of mattering in crowdwork and studying its differentiated effect on WE, the paper makes a contribution to research on crowdwork and the future of work. Beyond the theoretical contributions, the finding that perceived importance fosters WE has important implications for task and platform design.

中文翻译：

---

数字劳工事务

目的在线演出劳动力平台汇聚了一支全球且快速增长的员工队伍，以完成高度细化，远程和去上下文化的任务。尽管这些环境可能使某些工人有能力，但许多其他人却感到被剥夺了权利，并从他们的劳动最终产品中脱身。为了更好地理解持续参与众包数字化劳动形式的前提，本文的目的是探讨工人无论如何创建有关其工作的叙事的能力与他们在这些工作环境中的持续工作投入（WE）之间的关系。 。设计/方法/方法作者通过在众筹平台Amazon Mechanical Turk上的工人之间的纵向研究来研究个人问题和数字WE之间的关系。作者进一步根据论文数据对个人对事物的看法提供了定性见解。结论作者从四个方面发展了一种衡量人群工作中重要事项的方法：依赖度，社会认可度，重要性和互动性。信赖是最明显的方面，其次是互动，重要性和社会认可度。在最终的纵向模型中，只有重要性会对WE产生积极影响，而其他三个重要维度则没有显着影响。独创性/价值研究结果表明，个人认为自己和自己的工作“很有价值”并“有所作为”，他们会更多地从事数字工作。通过阐明物质在人群工作中的维度并研究其对WE的不同影响，该论文为研究人群工作和未来工作做出了贡献。除了理论上的贡献外，认为重要性促进WE的发现对任务和平台设计也具有重要意义。