Multiple identities and multiple relationships: An exploratory study of freelancers’ knowledge-seeking behavior

Organizations are increasingly boundaryless and relying on external workers—such as freelancers who are temporarily employed in an organization on a project basis. Because freelancers are multiple jobholders and navigate the work environment as independent workers, their opportunities to build work-related relationships are typically different from conventional, full-time employees. Yet, little is known about how freelancers forge the social relationships giving them access to the knowledge needed to perform their daily tasks. We advance knowledge on this topic by suggesting that freelancers are the catalysts of knowledge-seeking relationships involving colleagues at the (temporary) employer, contacts in work-like environments (i.e., coworking spaces) and personal work-related ties accumulated over time. We discuss how freelancers’ identity—schematic knowledge about who they are at the workplace—influences their engagement in different relationships. We investigate these issues using cross-sectional data that we have collected in a sample of 38 freelancers employed in the media industry. We combine text data consisting of freelancers’ description of their professional identity with ego-network data capturing the freelancers’ professional and personal knowledge-seeking relationships. We derive and discuss the practical implications of our study for both freelancers and organizations.