- Item type
- Study and report
- Language
- English
- Publication year
- 2025
- Note
In recent decades, non-standard working relationships have seen a significant rise, with independent contractors, commonly referred to as 'freelancers', being particularly prevalent (Katz & Krueger, 2019). Freelancers are self-employed individuals who work independently, often on a project basis, without long-term commitments to a particular employer (Burke, 2015). They market their skills and expertise to multiple clients (Kazi et al., 2014; Burke & Cowling, 2015). Freelancing has become so prevalent for several reasons. On an individual side, many people choose freelancing for the autonomy, flexibility and freedom it offers, driven by a desire for selfactualisation and to avoid hierarchical subordination (Shevchuk et al., 2019; Fleming, 2017; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2010; Norbäck & Styhre, 2019). On the organisational level, freelancers are a preferred workforce due to their specific skills and organisational aptitude, as well as their ability to provide the required technical and creative expertise (Storey et al., 2005; Barley & Kunda, 2004; Burke, 2015). In addition to these characteristics, there is a growing emphasis on matching labour input to business demand (Purcell & Purcell, 1998; Guest, 2004; Weil, 2014). Contracting freelancers can therefore be a strategic decision to achieve these goals. However, this shift towards freelancing is not without challenges on both sides (Burke, 2015). On the one hand, freelancers frequently face job insecurity, financial instability, and threats to their professional and personal identity (Rowlands & Handy, 2012; Norbäck & Styhre, 2019; Caza et al., 2022); on the other hand, these relationships can lead to tensions if organisations are not familiar with the management of freelancers (Storey et al., 2005; van den Born & van Witteloostuijn, 2013). As a result, it is not surprising that the particularities of freelance work, combined with the opportunities and challenges this type of working relationship offers, have attracted much attention. Nevertheless, important gaps remain. Firstly, previous research has mostly focussed on lower-skilled and lower-paid freelancers and has not examined freelancing in all its diversity. In addition, previous studies have mainly focused on what freelancers can do for the organisation and have paid less attention to their experiences, although this could provide a tremendous deal of insight. It is therefore important to understand the life experiences of freelancers. Such an understanding can provide valuable insights into how to navigate non-standard working relationships. This knowledge can benefit a wide range of stakeholders, such as organisations, managers, employees, freelancers and policy makers. In other words, these insights can play a pivotal role in developing strategies and policies that enable both freelancers and organisations to thrive in an increasingly dynamic landscape. This dissertation aims to answer several questions to better understand freelancers and capture their life experiences. To understand who they are, I will first examine where they belong: Are freelancers insiders (like employees) or outsiders (like entrepreneurs)? Then I will examine where they develop their sense of belonging (or 'insiderness') and what the antecedents and outcomes of such a sense of belonging are. Finally, as we will see that freelancers experience tensions between insider and outsider characteristics, I will explore how they experience and manage these tensions and what impact they have on their lives in general and their careers in particular. This dissertation comprises three studies (reported in Chapters 3 to 5) that aim to advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of freelancers' life experiences, particularly focussing on their sense of belonging. Chapter 3, through qualitative interviews, investigates whether freelancers perceive themselves as insiders within their client organisations. In this chapter, I reveal that they consistently view themselves as outsiders but can develop an insider status within their client teams, thereby managing both statuses simultaneously through sustainable strategies. Chapter 4 establishes the concept of team-based perceived insider status (perceived insider status at the team level) and explores its antecedents and outcomes through a quantitative study of a diverse pool of freelancers. It shows that freelancers who feel like insiders in their project teams experience enhanced work engagement. Team support, social cohesion, and trust are critical in fostering this team-based perception of insider status. Chapter 5 examines the tensions freelancers experience between their inherent insider and outsider characteristics. It moves the discussion forward, moving from considering them as hybrids to a more dynamic view of those who experience and need to employ approaches to manage these paradoxical tensions. By exploring the life experiences of freelancers through a paradoxical theory lens (e.g., Schad et al., 2016; Putnam et al., 2016), I establish that some approaches lead to an unsustainable freelancing experience (selection), while other approaches (paradoxical thinking and third-space), when combined, not only make the freelancing experience sustainable but also facilitate entrepreneurial experimentation, leading to a potential career as a fully-fledged entrepreneur. This dissertation thus contributes to the literature on freelancers, but also enriches the discourse on various theoretical frameworks such as perceived insider status, psychological contract, paradox theory, and the career literature.
