Online labor platforms have been criticized for fueling precarious working conditions. Due to their platform-bound reputation systems, switching costs are prohibitively high and workers are locked-in to the platforms. One widely discussed approach to addressing this issue and improving workers’ position is the portability of reputational data. In this study, we conduct an online experiment with 239 participants to test the effect of introducing reputation portability and to study the demand effect of imported ratings. We find that the volume of imported ratings stimulates demand, although to a lower degree than onsite ratings. Specifically, the effect of imported ratings corresponds to about 35% of the effect of onsite ratings. The results imply the possibility of unintended cross-market demand concentration effects that especially favor workers with high rating volumes (“superstars”).

在线劳工平台因加剧不稳定的工作条件而受到批评。由于其平台绑定的声誉系统，转换成本非常高，而且工人被锁定在平台上。解决这一问题和改善工人地位的一种广泛讨论的方法是声誉数据的可移植性。在本研究中，我们对 239 名参与者进行了在线实验，以测试引入声誉可移植性的效果并研究导入评级的需求效应。我们发现，进口评级的数量刺激了需求，尽管程度低于现场评级。具体来说，进口收视效果相当于现场收视效果的35%左右。结果意味着可能会出现意想不到的跨市场需求集中效应，这种效应尤其有利于评级量高的员工（“超级明星”）。