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FRANCESCA BELLESIA

Assegnista di ricerca
Dipartimento di Scienze e Metodi dell'Ingegneria

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Pubblicazioni

2024 - Many teams, one better career? A study on the impact of MTM on individual career success [Working paper]
Incerti, V.; Bellesia, F.; Bertolotti, F.; Mattarelli, E.
abstract

This study investigates individuals who experience Multiple Team Membership (MTM) with the aim to understand the interplay between MTM and careers. We gathered 6-years longitudinal data of employees working in multiple teams in a mid-sized IT consultancy company, and we investigate how the number of MTMs and its change over time affect employees’ career progression in particular. We highlight a complex relationship between the number of concurrent team memberships and career progression, a relationship that is also contingent on employees’ seniority. Our results suggest that, to increase their probability of career success, individuals need to experience low variability in the number of concurrent team memberships, especially when they are junior members of the organization. However, experiencing an increase in the number of concurrent teams over time is also beneficial for career progression. More broadly, our study contributes to the understanding of how complex organizational arrangements, such as those driven by MTM, affect individual career trajectories. Moreover, it contributes to the growing conversation on MTM, by introducing and investigating different dimensions of concurrent team memberships and their effects on individuals.

2023 - Algorithmic work-life balance: How algorithms influence gig-workers perceptions of work-life boundaries on platforms [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Bellesia, F.; Mattarelli, E.; Bertolotti, F.
abstract

With the rising trend of individuals embracing freelance work on online labor markets, it becomes crucial to comprehend how platforms and algorithms influence their experiences of well-being. This study employs a mixed methods approach to explore the effects of platforms and various algorithms, including matching, control, and rating algorithms, on freelancers' work-life balance. Drawing on preliminary data collected through surveys and interviews with freelancers on a major online labor market platform, our findings reveal that control and rating algorithms negatively impact work-life balance by amplifying feelings of insecurity among freelancers. However, we also discovered that freelancers who perceive the platform they work on as useful exhibit greater proficiency in navigating the boundaries between their work and family life. Our study sheds light on the intricate dynamics between platforms, algorithms, well-being, and work-life balance for freelancers and emphasizes the need for further exploration of algorithmic interventions that promote work-life balance in the online freelance context.

2023 - Algorithms and their Affordances: How Crowdworkers Manage Algorithmic Scores in Online Labour Markets [Articolo su rivista]
Bellesia, Francesca; Mattarelli, Elisa; Bertolotti, Fabiola
abstract

2021 - Crowds, Gigs and Platforms. An Integrative Review and Research Agenda on the Future of Online Work [Abstract in Atti di Convegno]
Bellesia, F.; Mattarelli, E.; Bertolotti, F.; Sobrero, M.
abstract

As organizations outsource jobs traditionally performed by employees to the ‘crowd’ – i.e. to an external, undefined workforce with very different backgrounds, skills, expertise, and cultures – through online platforms, we still lack a detailed understanding of the experiences of workers on these platforms and how platforms change individual work. We conducted an integrative literature review on the changing nature of work on online platforms, based on 64 papers dated 2006-2020. We identified three main research areas, related to (I) work characteristics, i.e. motivation to engage in online work, workers’ behaviors and performance, meaning of work; (II) the relation between workers and platforms, i.e. workers interactions with algorithms and control issues, such as algorithmic scores management; and (III) workers relations with peers, especially in online communities. For each of these areas we propose and detail future research directions.

2021 - Gig workers on platforms. An integrative literature review and research agenda [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Bellesia, F.; Mattarelli, E.; Bertolotti, F.; Sobrero, M.
abstract

2021 - Reputation in the Workplatforms: How Crowdworkers Manage Algorithmic Scores in Online Labor Markets [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Bellesia, F.; Mattarelli, E.; Bertolotti, F.
abstract

2021 - Working in the era of multiple virtual team membership. A study on the effects of variety of communication rules on individual management of knowledge resources [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Incerti, V.; Bellesia, F.; Bertolotti, F.; Chudoba, K.; Fadel, K.; Mattarelli, E.; Ungureanu, P.
abstract

In contemporary workplaces, individuals are concurrently members of more than one virtual team. As they experience multiple virtual team membership, they may be subjected to different rules related to communication with collaborative technology. We propose that this context variety (i.e. different communication rule systems) and switching between teams negatively affect individual capability to acquire and provide resources in a team, due in part to an increased perception of role overload. In our experimental studies, we confirm that context variety directly and negatively affected individuals' ability to acquire resources, and, through role overload, negatively influenced the ability to provide resources. Contrary to our hypotheses, switching frequently between teams reduced role overload, which, in turn, increased ability to provide resources. Our results have theoretical implications for understanding the changing nature of work in increasingly virtual and complex team contexts, as well as practical implications for managing teams and designing collaborative technology.

2020 - Collaboration and identity formation in strategic interorganizational partnerships: an exploration of swift identity processes [Articolo su rivista]
Ungureanu, P; Bertolotti, F; Mattarelli, E; Bellesia, F
abstract

We investigate how collective identity formation processes interplay with collaboration practices in an inter-organizational partnership promoting regional innovation. We found that initial collaboration challenges are dealt with by setting up an early ‘swift identity’ which is associated with material artifacts to increase its strength and stability (‘swift identity reification’). However, as the partnership evolves, the reified identity becomes misaligned with partners’ underdeveloped collaboration practices. To ensure realignment, new attempts at reification are performed, as partners buy time for learning how to collaborate. Our findings contribute to extant identity research by proposing alternative (i.e., ‘swift’ and ‘reified’) mechanisms of identity formation in contexts characterized by both heterogeneity challenges and integration imperatives. They also integrate the debate about the role of identity formation in the evolution of interorganizational partnerships. For both literatures we highlight the important role of materiality.

2020 - Managing Reputation in the Workplatform: How Freelancers Interpret Algorithmic Scores in OLM [Abstract in Atti di Convegno]
Bellesia, F.; Mattarelli, E.; Bertolotti, F.
abstract

Although considered independent from the platforms they work from, freelancers in online labor markets need to develop an ‘algorithmic competence’ to become and stay competitive. To increase the likelihood of being hired, in particular, they need to deal with algorithmically calculated reputation, which is a standardized score associated to their quality as workers. By drawing on signaling theory, this research aims to explore how freelancers working on online platforms interpret algorithmic calculated reputation and with what consequence for their work. The grounded model we developed through interviews and documents collected with freelancers from a major platform reveals two phases through which freelances manage their reputation. First, freelancers interpret algorithmic scores as barriers and strive to build their initial reputation with emotional consequences in terms of feelings of hardship and loneliness. In a second phase, freelancers develop three different strategies to manage reputation, that we labelled as instrumental, relational, and indifferent. The interpretations and behaviors associated to the different strategies lead to different, although mainly negative, emotional responses, i.e. emotion regulation, anxiety, and frustration. We believe our model offers implications for theories on imposed reputation signals, gig work, and emotions in new work contexts."

2019 - Making matters worse by trying to make them better? Exploring vicious circles of decision in hybrid partnerships [Articolo su rivista]
Ungureanu, Paula; Bertolotti, Fabiola; Mattarelli, Elisa; Bellesia, Francesca
abstract

Our research is concerned with how and why vicious circles of decision occur in hybrid partnerships. The literature reports three types of decision dysfunctions that can alter the trajectory of multi-stakeholder collaborations: escalation of commitment, procrastination, and indecision. While previous studies focused on one dysfunction at a time, we inquire about cases in which dysfunctions coexist and interact in the same partnership. Employing multiple sources of qualitative data, we conducted a longitudinal field study in a cross-sector partnership that co-created and managed a science park. We offer an in-depth account of ‘vicious circles of decision’ in which partners’ attempts to solve a dysfunction paradoxically lead to the accumulation of additional dysfunctions. We explain that the process is more likely to happen when solutions are 1) conditioned by the very risk-opportunity tensions they try to solve and 2) inscribed in material artefacts for greater visibility. In addition to the literature on hybrid partnerships, we also contribute to the debate in organization studies about the evolution of collaborations within frames of concurrent risk-opportunity tensions and theorize about the role of materiality in such processes.

2019 - Platforms as Entrepreneurial Incubators? How Online Labor Markets Shape Work Identity [Articolo su rivista]
Bellesia, F.; Mattarelli, E.; Bertolotti, F.; Sobrero, M.
abstract

Purpose. This study explores how the process of work identity construction unfolds for gig workers experiencing unstable working relationships in online labor markets. In particular, it investigates how digital platforms, intended both as providers of technological features and online environments, affect this process. Design. We conducted an exploratory field study and collected data from 46 interviews with freelancers working on one of the most popular online labor markets and from online documents such as public profiles, job applications, and archival data. Findings. Our findings reveal that the online environment constrains the action of workers who are pushed to take advantage of the platform’s technological features to succeed. This interplay leads workers to add new characteristics to their work self and they end up developing an entrepreneurial orientation. Practical implications. Our study offers insights to platform providers interested in improving workers’ experiences in online labor markets, highlighting mechanisms for uncertainty reduction, and diversifying a platform’s services according to gig workers’ identities and orientations. Value. Our study expands our knowledge on work identity construction processes of gig workers, detailing the relationship between work identity and IT, and documents previously unexplored antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation in non-standard working contexts.

2018 - The journey of great expectations: A study on how institutional expectations impact collaboration expectations and collaboration enactment in hybrid interorganizational partnerships [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Ungureanu, P; Bellesia, F; Bertolotti, F; Mattarelli, E.; Cochis, C.
abstract

Our research is concerned with the role played by expectations in hybrid interorganizational collaboration projects. In particular, we look at how organizations participating in public-private partnerships negotiate broad and ill-defined goals and expectations set by policymakers to carry forward heterogeneous expectations about the partnership. We empirically study a hybrid partnership in which public and private actors came together with the broad goal of supporting regional innovation and fostering knowledge exchange. We use a process-perspective derived from the sociology of expectations to analyze the generative and transformational role of expectations, that is, how expectations shape dynamics and outcomes of hybrid collaboration. In particular, we document that the tendency to create ad-hoc material objects or spaces (in our case, a regional science park) can lead to vicious self-reinforcing mechanisms that push partners away from the initial collaboration goals. Notably, too many expectations and promissory commitments associated to an already configured physical space may lock partners in rigid and repetitive interaction schemes, especially when the configuration of the space is not backed up by social centrality— willingness and ability to modify pre-existing organizational structures. We offer contributions to a better understanding of collaborative dynamics in partnership failure and a more nuanced understanding of policy goal-setting through hybrid private-public partnerships.

2017 - Interrelating Collaboration Practices and Identity Formation in Interorganizational Partnerships [Abstract in Atti di Convegno]
Ungureanu, Paula; Bellesia, Francesca; Bertolotti, Fabiola; Mattarelli, Elisa
abstract

This work studies the process by which interorganizational partnerships develop collective identities, and, in particular, how collaboration practices and identity processes interplay as partnerships evolves through time. We conducted a longitudinal study in a partnership where organizations from different sectors collaborated to realize a science park. We followed the evolution of the partnership across four stages (setup, design, implementation, and redesign), highlighting for each phase how collective identity processes and collaboration practices interplayed. We document that the enthusiasm and urgency in the initial phases led partners to immediately create a strong sense of belongingness to the partnership, which we labelled as swift collective identity. While in the beginning the swift identity mobilized collaboration practices (i.e., precocious alignment), as the partnership evolved, it became dissonant with what partners could actually accomplish together (misalignment), and, after being dismantled and reelaborated, it set the basis for a more gradual, and slow paced identity (realignment). By discussing alternation between swift identities and small collaboration wins, we contribute to a better understanding of the identity-collaboration interplay in interorganizational settings. By connecting identity fluidity with reification and embeddedness, we also contribute to the current conversation on the construction of collective identities.

2016 - Institutional Frames and Collaboration Expectations in Hybrid Interorganizational Partnerships [Abstract in Atti di Convegno]
Ungureanu, Paula; Bellesia, Francesca; Bertolotti, Fabiola; Mattarelli, Elisa
abstract

Our research is concerned with the role played by expectations in hybrid interorganizational collaboration projects. In particular, we look at how organizations participating in multi-party cross-sector partnerships negotiate broad and ill-defined metaproblems set by policymakers to carry forward heterogeneous goals about the partnership. We used a process-perspective derived from the sociology of expectations to empirically study a hybrid partnership in which public and private actors came together with the broad goal of supporting regional innovation and creating and managing a new science park. In particular, we found that the ambiguity of institutional frames gave room to the proliferation of partners’ expectations about the collaboration. Such proliferation was driven by a clash between the pile-up of goals and commitments in relation to the main project of the partnership -i.e. the design of the science park- and the materialization of the project itself -i.e. the realization and use of the science park. Instead of admitting difficulties in making the science park function properly (i.e., managing the clash) our actors continuously alimented their positive expectations about the collaboration thanks to a rolling announcements strategy that constantly pushed expectations further into the future. We offer contributions to a better understanding of collaborative dynamics in hybrid partnership failure by surfacing the negative power of expectations, the dual role of materiality as collaboration enabler and constrainer, and the interplay between broadly defined institutional frames and the proliferation of heterogeneous goals within hybrid partnerships.