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Short abstract:

We contribute to the concept of ``identity alignment''. That is, researchers and system designers should prioritize the development of systems that resonate with workers' self-concept and their intrinsic motivations to engage in work.

Long abstract:

Teaching has often been characterized as a labor of love. In reality, despite their passion, teachers often find themselves underpaid and unrecognized, leading them to constantly engage in emotional labor. Emotional labor in the traditional education setting is not new; what's new is how teaching, particularly online teaching, becomes increasingly data-driven and transnational. With the burgeoning popularity of online educational industries in China, many American teachers are entering the transitional gig economy and starting to interact with students, parents, and educational standards in cross-cultural contexts. Based on 24 semi-structured interviews with U.S. teachers who worked on various Chinese gig-education platforms, this paper documents their challenges and how such platforms reconfigure their emotional labor, enabling them to reaffirm their identities as teachers and caregivers and rekindle the passion that gave their lives purpose and meaning. However, these platforms, underpinned by Chinese cultural values and data-driven technologies (e.g., datafication, algorithms, and surveillance), which we dub "transnational emotional computing," unveil emergent forms of emotional labor with which participants must contend. This work contributes to a human-centered conceptualization of identity alignment and has theoretical and design implications related to the global impact of transnational gig platforms, especially for cross-cultural digital knowledge labor.