Existing literature predominantly focuses on how freelancers individually complete tasks and projects. Our study examines freelancers' willingness to work collaboratively. We report results from a survey of 122 freelancers on a leading online labor market platform (Upwork) and examine freelancers' preferences for collaboration and explore several antecedents of cooperative behaviors. We then test if actual cooperative behavior matches with freelancers' stated preferences through an incentivized social dilemma experiment. We find that respondents cooperate at a higher rate (85%) than reported in previous comparable studies (between 50-75%). This high rate of cooperation may be explained by an ingroup bias. Using a sequential mediation model we demonstrate the importance of a sense of shared expectations and accountability for cooperation. We contribute to a better understanding of the potential for collaborative work on online labor market platforms by assessing if and what social factors and collective culture exist among freelancers. We discuss the implications of our results for platform designers by highlighting the importance of platform features that promote shared expectations and improve accountability. Overall, contrary to existing literature and predictions, our results suggest that freelancers in our sample display traits that are more consistent with belonging to a coherent group with a shared collective culture, rather than being anonymous actors in a transaction-based market.

翻译：现有文献主要关注自由职业者如何独立完成任务和项目。本研究考察自由职业者进行协作的意愿。我们报告了一项针对领先在线劳动力市场平台（Upwork）上122名自由职业者的调查结果，分析了自由职业者对协作的偏好，并探讨了合作行为的若干前因。随后，我们通过一项激励性社会困境实验，检验实际合作行为是否与自由职业者所表达的偏好相匹配。研究发现，受访者的合作率（85%）高于以往可比研究（50-75%）的报告值。这一高合作率或可由内群体偏差解释。通过序贯中介模型，我们证明了共同期望与责任感知对合作的重要性。通过评估自由职业者之间是否存在以及存在何种社会因素与集体文化，我们为更深入理解在线劳动力市场平台上的协作潜力做出了贡献。我们讨论了研究结果对平台设计者的启示，特别强调了促进共同期望与增强责任感的平台功能的重要性。总体而言，与现有文献及预测相反，本研究表明，样本中的自由职业者所展现的群体特征更符合具有共享集体文化的一致性群体，而非交易型市场中的匿名参与者。