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Agents at work

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TitleInfo
Title
Agents at work
SubTitle
decision making capacity and creative labor in network society
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Lipkin
NamePart (type = given)
Nadav D.
NamePart (type = date)
1987-
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Nadav D. Lipkin
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
author
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Pavlik
NamePart (type = given)
John V.
DisplayForm
John V. Pavlik
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
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chair
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Chayko
NamePart (type = given)
Mary
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Mary Chayko
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Bratich
NamePart (type = given)
Jack
DisplayForm
Jack Bratich
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Juul
NamePart (type = given)
Jesper
DisplayForm
Jesper Juul
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
outside member
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
school
TypeOfResource
Text
Genre (authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2016
DateOther (qualifier = exact); (type = degree)
2016-10
CopyrightDate (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact)
2016
Place
PlaceTerm (type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm (authority = ISO639-2b); (type = code)
eng
Abstract
This study explores workers' abilities to make decisions in and about their work within the creative industries in network society. It expands upon existing studies of workers in creative industries using a case study of the professional independent game making community in New York City to explore relationships between decision making capacity and various aspects of labor. These aspects include the ways in which workers relate to each other and to firms, technologies, and ideologies, and how they are situated within the broader context of labor in geography and the economy. This research serves to address key tensions in prior analyses of creative labor that describe that work as sometimes agentic and other times deprived of agency in network society. The study finds that decision making capacity is a multifaceted resource at a worker's disposal. Like financial or social capital, it can be acquired and depleted, but it can only be effectively analyzed in regards to the worker as an agent within a networked context. This research suggests that “creative industries” as a term is too broad for a discussion of decision making capacity in most situations. Particularly, worker decision making capacity is greatly affected by the desirability of a given job within the economy, which contributes to considerable differences in experiences of decision making capacity between cultural labor and non-cultural creative labor. Decision making capacity is also affected by the extent of a worker's independence within the labor assemblage. Workers who are more independent may have greater or lesser decision making capacity, depending considerably on the costs associated with performing a particular job and initial costs of becoming independent. This research also suggests that while workers in creative industries may be working longer and less predictable hours inside and outside of traditional working spaces, workers' decisions to work precariously can sometimes be deliberately and rationally chosen to serve specific objectives, such as meeting deadlines or collaborating with distant partners. This is particularly the case with workers who are independent and hold responsibility for choosing when and where to work. The experience of decision making capacity for such workers contrasts with experiences of more traditionally employed workers in creative professions who may be working precariously under some degree of influence from their employers. The study additionally finds that while workers in many creative industries are largely un-unionized, decision making capacity is often positively affected by a number of communities and institutions that often replicate the benefits of unions. This is particularly the case with independent workers who, by virtue of independence and the legal properties of unions in the United States, may not be able to unionize like traditional workers have in the past. Workers gain decision making capacity through emerging professional associations that may fill gaps left in the absence of traditional labor unions as well as formal and informal collaborations online through websites and social media. This research encourages a nuanced approach to discussions of agency for workers in creative professions. It encourages future studies to view decision making in economic and ideological terms together, considering how a worker's context encourages certain work strategies. This study also suggests a turn away from attempts to study creative labor in such broad terms and advocates for policy measures that address specific factors that deprive workers of decision making capacity. This also means recognizing situations in which causes of worker distress derive from aspects of work that policy is not positioned to adequately address, such as high job desirability, accessibility to skills, and ease of product creation.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Communication, Information and Library Studies
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Decision making
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Labor
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_7589
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (xi, 393 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Nadav D. Lipkin
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
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NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3P271FW
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights

RightsDeclaration (ID = rulibRdec0006)
The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Lipkin
GivenName
Nadav
MiddleName
D.
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2016-09-19 11:07:05
AssociatedEntity
Name
Nadav Lipkin
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Technical

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ETD
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2016-09-28T12:21:09
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