Some years ago, during the height of the
technology stock bubble, a
book entitled Free Agent Nation made quite a splash by glorifying the phenomenon of
independent contracting. Less famously and far less optimistically, a number of economists and anthropologists pointed to this trend as a grave sign of the decay of workers’ position in American society. Stephen R. Barley and Gideon Kunda, the authors of this study, steer a careful, meticulously documented middle course. They examined the observable fact of independent contracting in the high technology industry from three viewpoints: the contractors, the headhunters and the client firms. They say that the contractor is a new, different kind of
knowledge worker with a unique set of opportunities and constraints. The book is clearly written, based on apparently sound evidence and illustrated with carefully chosen anecdotes.
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