Creativity in the gig economy: Opportunities for creativity researchers in the new world of work

Gig work has recently become a topic of interest to organizational researchers, as the prevalence of these work arrangements continues to increase. Although creativity and “gigs” share a long history with freelance or other independent workers frequently occupying creative work, creativity researchers have not kept pace with developments in the gig economy nor focused enough attention on nonstandard workers. Thus much of our workplace creativity research and theory makes assumptions that may not be tenable in the gig economy. We suggest that this constitutes a missed opportunity for creativity researchers. To remedy this, the present chapter attempts to provide creativity researchers with the necessary background on gig work arrangements. We then build upon this background information to provide a series of future research directions to encourage more research in this area.