Thesis supervisor: Jean-Michel Denis
Against a backdrop of more ‘liberated’ organisations and digital innovations, new forms of contractual employment are emerging and developing, notably the use of freelance work in peripheral ‘user’ sectors of the digital economy, such as banking and insurance.
Whilst studies and research have primarily focused on the trend towards the platformisation of work and employment, this thesis will seek to fill a gap by analysing these freelance workers within the banking sector ‘from the inside’, directly within the organisations themselves: whether they are experts, highly qualified specialists working in digital banking, IT developers, web designers, programme managers on ad hoc assignments, or even transitional managers in the temporary nature of a management role tasked with the overall reorganisation of an entity. It will also involve examining organisational transformations through the unique lens of a particular activity or status, in the search for ‘situated’ expertise. Flexible regulation, job insecurity, limited human and structural resources, and the profound transformation of banks: in light of this, we will assume that these freelancers act as catalysts for a certain transformation within organisations, leading to new ways of working.
This research aims to study these freelancers—whether acting through intermediaries or entirely independently—by following three strands:
– the collective dimension: through shared experiences, particularly via exchange platforms and affinity networks, in the definition of a collective identity, or even a professional group.
– the individual actor: through the analysis of biographical contexts to understand the trajectories, commitment and identity of these actors. The aim will be to take into account the changes in these individuals’ circumstances relative to their previous activity, which may influence their ‘independent’ work.
One of the key questions of this research, adopting a sociological approach to the activity, will focus on the interplay between individual career paths and the context of constant mobility within ‘assignment-based’ work situations. Given the realities on the ground and socio-economic challenges, how can these freelancers organise the ‘hybridisation’ of their knowledge to disseminate their experiential expertise? To attempt to answer this, we will examine the dialectic between expertise shaped by career trajectories and the professional needs expressed by companies in the present moment.
– and finally, the axis stemming from the activity: this will involve examining the relationship these actors have with work, and the representations they form and maintain of it, in the development of the ‘situational’ activity,
‘Thinking about work’ as an activity has been the subject of multiple, multidisciplinary approaches, the common ground of which is to focus on real work, or indeed on activity, in the very act of working. This research will seek to understand how, and to what extent, these freelancers find fulfilment in what they do. It will also aim to understand how they construct their positioning and exist professionally without ‘pursuing a career’. Is there a certain class consciousness among these individuals in their assertion of a social position that distances them from subordinate work? By drawing on a comprehensive sociology, this thesis will seek to bring to light other, more subjective dimensions that these individuals consider when assessing a certain degree of social success at work.