Profile work: Conceptualizing reputation building and gaming on online labor platforms

This paper explores the notion of profile work in platform organizations, which
denotes the effort invested by workers on online labor platforms to build their
reputation. On online labor platforms, reputation often appears in a quantified
metrical form that is both the product and an important component in algorithmic management systems. Thus, efforts of reputation building take into account not only the expectations and satisfaction of clients but also the way in which algorithmic management systems register and process users’ conduct on the platform. Drawing on data sourced from a research project on the online labor platform Upwork for empirical examples, I show how the concept of profile work contributes to current discussions on workers reactivity to algorithmic management, relational work and anticipatory practices often understood as ‘gaming the system’. To lay out a conceptual groundwork for the notion of profile work I introduce two central distinctions: A distinction between the metrical and the authorial profile, and the distinction between social subjection and machinic subjugation introduced by Deleuze and Guattari. Drawing these central distinctions allows us to analyze how practices of profile work can play out on two registers simultaneously: On the register of user-interaction, representation and expectation and on the register of algorithmic
data-capture and analysis. The paper thus explores how practices of reputation
building, and self-branding are reconfigured under conditions of algorithmic
management.