Abstract:This paper extends research on algorithmic management by examining mechanisms of compliance. Algorithmic management has predominantly been analysed in terms of the exercise of disciplinary power over workers and rational control of labour. Facing algorithms, platform workers would be in a situation of fear, passivity and frustration. In this paper, we utilise the Foucauldian framework of ‘dispositive’ in order to reconceptualise platforms as exerting both rational and normative control. Based on a qualitative … Show more
“…This chapter adds to a growing body of literature focusing on the precarious working conditions of food couriers in the gig economy (Briziarelli 2018, Lemozy 2019, Veen et al 2019, Cant 2020, Galière 2020, Gregory 2020, Gregory and Maldonado 2020, Richardson 2020, Woodcock 2020.…”
In less than a decade, with the emergence of food delivery platforms, cycling has gained increased visibility on city roads across the world. For the first time since the advent of the automobile age, the bicycle is re-emerging globally as a dependable tool to earn a living. Food delivery start-ups such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats or Glovo enroll an increasingly precarious population as self-employed contractors to whom they grant little social protection. Having access to a bicycle and knowing how to use it is a very low entrance requirement for these jobs. Cycle food couriers hold a precarious entitlement to the road space, which makes them constantly vulnerable to bodily harm, and is compounded by a broader ontological precarity. The insecurity resulting from being engaged in an unregulated gig economy where job and income instability is amplified by issues of gender, ethnicity and migration status, further adds to road unsafety. In this chapter, we draw on case studies from the UK, Spain and South America to account for how the precarity of cycling is amplified by the political landscape of neoliberalism of the last three decades, which promotes flexible work, and the legislative setting failing to account for cycle couriers as employees.
“…This chapter adds to a growing body of literature focusing on the precarious working conditions of food couriers in the gig economy (Briziarelli 2018, Lemozy 2019, Veen et al 2019, Cant 2020, Galière 2020, Gregory 2020, Gregory and Maldonado 2020, Richardson 2020, Woodcock 2020.…”
In less than a decade, with the emergence of food delivery platforms, cycling has gained increased visibility on city roads across the world. For the first time since the advent of the automobile age, the bicycle is re-emerging globally as a dependable tool to earn a living. Food delivery start-ups such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats or Glovo enroll an increasingly precarious population as self-employed contractors to whom they grant little social protection. Having access to a bicycle and knowing how to use it is a very low entrance requirement for these jobs. Cycle food couriers hold a precarious entitlement to the road space, which makes them constantly vulnerable to bodily harm, and is compounded by a broader ontological precarity. The insecurity resulting from being engaged in an unregulated gig economy where job and income instability is amplified by issues of gender, ethnicity and migration status, further adds to road unsafety. In this chapter, we draw on case studies from the UK, Spain and South America to account for how the precarity of cycling is amplified by the political landscape of neoliberalism of the last three decades, which promotes flexible work, and the legislative setting failing to account for cycle couriers as employees.
“…The concept of algorithmic governance is arguably the broadest way to conceptualize the power of algorithms. Compared with more focused terms such as algorithmic regulation (Ulbricht and Yeung, 2022), algorithmic governmentality (Harkens, 2018;Rouvroy, 2011), or the business-related algocracy (Aneesh, 2009) and algorithmic management (Galiere, 2020), algorithmic governance has been used to describe a variety of sociotechnical practices aimed at assessing, directing, regulating, and managing the behavior of both human and non-human agents (Danaher, 2016;Katzenbach and Ulbricht, 2019). In these practices, computational calculations, automated recommendation or decisionmaking, and machine learning stand central.…”
Section: Putting the Context Into Algorithmic Governancementioning
This introduction to the special issue on algorithmic governance in context offers an outline of the field and summarizes each contribution to the issue.
“…The neglect of the importance of electronic monitoring research in these areas is worrisome. More and more employees are affected by electronic monitoring and trends like algorithmic management cannot exist without invasive employee monitoring (Galière, 2020;Möhlmann & Zalmanson, 2017). Beyond that, some scholars argue that monitoring is already the default in nowadays technological systems (Johnson et al, 2014) and thus is not a temporal phenomenon but will accompany employees and organizations for a long time.…”
Section: Limitations and Research Implicationsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For example, in algorithmic management an algorithm distributes tasks, regulates work processes, and controls performance. This management style is more and more widespread in technology corporations and cannot work without collecting data on employees' behavior (Galière, 2020;Möhlmann & Zalmanson, 2017). This way, monitoring is present in a greater intensity and extent than previously seen.…”
Electronic monitoring is more and more widespread and affects many employees around the globe. The current meta analysis collected data of 59 independent samples (with 223 effect sizes) to estimate the effect of electronic monitoring on job satisfaction, stress, and performance. A random-effects model indicated a small negative effect of monitoring on job satisfaction, r=-.09, and a small positive effect on stress, r=.12. There was no relationship with performance, r=-.01. Even if the effects of monitoring on job satisfaction and stress are small, taking the large number of employees who are monitored for several hours a day into account, these effects may have a severe and negative impact on employees’ well-being. Performance maintenance is the main justification for the use of electronic monitoring, but the non-existing relationship of monitoring with performance questions the validity of this justification.
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