Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Austin Zhu

The Effects of Flexible Work on Worker Behavior and Learning

Flexible work, including gig work and jobs including highly variable times and locations, has become much more prevalent recently which motivates the study of the changes that this work creates in worker behavior. Over the past semester, I’ve studied this phenomena through shoe store retail data to draw connections between diversification of work locations and impacts of working with colleagues to the individuals’ and store performance. This summer, we will expand and hopefully generalize the conclusions of this analysis to more datasets and also formulate a model for worker learning in a flexible work environment.

Message To Sponsor

I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to continue my research into the summer. My experience through URAP has been very beneficial in honing my skills and allowing me to explore fascinating topics related to gig work. Many thanks to the donors for the continued support of this program!