Ayaj Rana

Publication(s)

• Iyer, D. K., Rana, A., & Litwin, A. S. (2026). "Technology Makers as De Facto Work Designers in American Healthcare." Work and Occupations. In Press. Link

Working Papers 

• Dissertation Paper I: Occupational Evaluability and Professional-Client Power Relations. Who holds power over terms of the professional-client exchange in work marketplaces? Two literatures disagree. Reactivity literature predicts the professional's deference to the client, since client ratings control future work. Power-dependence literature predicts the opposite where a client cannot assess the deliverable without the professional's reading. This mixed-methods paper resolves the tension through a property of the work itself—its external evaluability. In occupations, where the work admits external evaluation, the pressure to protect a high accumulated rating constrains the professional and shifts power to the client. In occupations, where it does not, the same high rating certifies expertise and strengthens the professional's power over the client. A uniform control instrument thus proves conditional.

• Dissertation Paper II: Professional Identity in Digital Work Marketplaces. Identity theory holds that when a work context threatens the sense of self, individuals engage in defensive identity work, leave the context, or abandon the identity itself. On platforms, professionals need not choose among these responses, as they can move identity-anchoring client work off the platform through disintermediation, which platforms prohibit to prevent fee avoidance. I theorize this move as identity re-siting—relocating work of identity significance off the platform while continuing other work on it. Drawing on interviews and online community observations, this paper shows that identity re-siting enables the professional to enact work-related values, earn recognition, maintain autonomy, and try out new roles—identity processes that the platform constrains. The paper reframes disintermediation as at once an economic and an identity response. 

• Dissertation Paper III: Reciprocity, Reputation, and the Locus of Exchange. A platform's most reputable performers, the very source of its competitive advantage, are more likely to disintermediate. Two theories predict the opposite of each other. Resource dependence treats reputation as a platform-specific asset, worthless elsewhere, so the best should stay. Human capital treats it as portable skill and client trust, so the best should disintermediate. This mixed-methods paper finds that neither holds alone. Instead, the deciding factor is whether the platform kept the promises—meritocratic access, fair dispute resolution, transparent governance, and career support—that drew the professional to its marketplace. The paper extends psychological contract theory to triadic, market-mediated work, recasting talent retention as sustaining balanced exchange rather than policing marketplace leakage. 

Select Pre-Ph.D. Publications

• Kamal, M., & Rana, A. (2019). "Do Internal and International Remittances Affect Households’ Expenditure and Asset Accumulation Differently? Evidence from Bangladesh." The Journal of Developing Areas, 53(2), 139–153. Link

• Rana, A., & Kamal, M. (2018). "Does Clientelism Affect Income Inequality? Evidence from Panel Data." Journal of Income Distribution, 27(1), 1–24. Link

• Kamal, M., Rana, A., & Wahid, A. (2018). "Economic Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Panel Data." Australian Economic Papers, 57(1), 92–106. Link

• Rana, A., & Wahid, A. (2017). "Fiscal Deficit and Economic Growth in Bangladesh: A Time-Series Analysis." The American Economist, 62(1), 31–42. Link