Karolina Mikołajewska-Zając, PhD, studies digital organizations, particularly online platforms. Her theoretical interests are located on the intersection of organizational theory, media theory, and new technologies. In empirical research, she especially platform economy explores, social consequences of platforms’ functioning, digital economy legitimization, labor transformation, and regulation conflicts in the field of short-term rental. She conducted research projects concerning such platforms as Couchsurfing and Airbnb, based on many years of qualitative research; her projects were financed from the programs Mobilność Plus (Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2016–2018) and Preludium (National Science Centre, 2014–2016) and implemented at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2019, she received the scholarship of the Minister of Science for outstanding young scientists. Currently, Mikołajewska-Zając is Visiting Researcher at the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. Since 2018, she has been a member of the ephemera: theory & politics in organization journal editorial board; currently, she is a member of the executive committee Thematic Group 10 – Digital Sociology in the International Sociological Association.

Selected publications:

K. Mikołajewska-Zając, “The Rhetoric of Sharing: Managerial Literature on the Sharing Economy,” in: R. Belk, G. Eckhardt and F. Bahrdi (eds.) Handbook of the Sharing Economy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019), pp. 362–374.

K. Mikołajewska-Zając, “Terms of Reference. The Moral Economy of Reputation in a Sharing Economy Platform,” in: European Journal of Social Theory, 21 (2), pp. 148–168, DOI: 10.1177/1368431017716287.

At Kozminski University, Karolina Mikołajewska-Zając teaches subjects related to the digital economy and the methodology of qualitative research such as Open Collaboration Communities, Understanding Platform Economy, Virtual Anthropology and Netnography, Information Skills in Virtual Environment, and Business Plans.