Contesting Algorithmic Workplace Regimes in an Era of Flexible Despotism

Abstract

This article investigates recent claims that the growing use of algorithms is giving rise to a novel workplace regime. The article makes two conceptual contributions: first, it identifies the generic characteristics of this supposed algorithmic workplace regime. Second, it puts into question the exceptionalism of algorithmic workplace regimes. This is achieved by bringing the centrality of non-algorithmic management techniques in co-constituting algorithmic regimes into focus and by historically situating the regime’s emergence within the wider workplace regime literature. In doing so the article questions the novelty and distinctiveness of algorithmic workplace regimes, arguing that such regimes are better understood as a subtype of flexible despotism that can be traced back to the 1980s.