Narrating the new world of work: gig economy, career transitions, and work–nonwork boundaries in content creation

Abstract

This thesis explores how digital platform work is theorised in scholarship, how it is experienced and narrated by individuals, and how these processes together reshape both the practice and the meaning of work. Against a backdrop of rapidly expanding platform-mediated labour, it addresses three interlinked levels of analysis: how the gig economy has been theorised in management research, how individuals transition into full-time online content creation, and how lifestyle creators manage their work–nonwork boundaries in everyday practice. Together, these studies illuminate the conceptual foundations, career pathways, and boundary dynamics of platform-based work.
The first study conducts a systematic review of management literature on the gig economy to trace how research and theorising have evolved over time. Drawing on 193 articles published in management and related journals, and using storytelling and script theory as guiding lenses, it identifies three narrative “acts” through which the field has conceptualised gig work and uncovers the theorising “scripts” embedded within each act. This review offers a more comprehensive synthesis of how gig economy research has unfolded in the management field, revealing the temporal, dynamic, and cumulative processes by which scholarly understanding has been constructed. It also provides a meta-level reflection on the craft of theorising itself, showing how storytelling and script theory can illuminate not only what is studied but how it is framed, thereby advancing both substantive knowledge of the gig economy and methodological insights into theory-building.
Building on this foundation, the second study shifts from service-based gig platforms to communication- and entertainment-based online content platforms. Using narrative inquiry and analysing 97 self-recorded YouTube videos from 45 lifestyle-based creators who moved from secure employment to full-time online content creation, the study conceptualises career transitions as layered narratives of authoring, enacting, and performing. It contributes to career and work literature by revealing how individuals narrate reverse transitions from stable to precarious work as meaningful self-reinvention, extending theory on non-linear career pathways.
The third study moves to the micro-level, exploring how lifestyle content creators negotiate the blurred boundaries between work and nonwork in performative, platform-mediated labour. Drawing on boundary theory and Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective and using a netnography approach based on 53 vlogs from 43 creators triangulated with six interviews, the study develops two interlinked concepts, namely the visibility-oriented labour filter and presented boundaries, to explain how creators actively curate, frame, and withhold aspects of their lives. It extends boundary theory into digital contexts where visibility and self-presentation are central to everyday labour.
Taken together, the three studies provide a multi-level account of how platform work is theorised, entered, and lived. Conceptually, the thesis advances understanding of theorising processes in emerging work contexts; empirically, it illuminates how individuals experience and narrate unconventional career transitions; and theoretically, it redefines boundary management as an ongoing, performative practice. By integrating storytelling as both an analytical framework and a contextual element, the thesis contributes a richer, more dynamic understanding of platform-mediated work and its implications for careers and the future of work.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Qingyang Xu: orcid.org/0009-0006-3370-4604

ORCID for Mina Beigi: orcid.org/0000-0002-4866-7205

ORCID for David Cross: orcid.org/0000-0002-7984-3718

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