DFG project on algorithmic control of workers started

The German Research Foundation (DFG) funds the research project "Algorithmic Control: A Legitimacy Perspective on Worker-level Implications" (AlgoWork) for initially two years and was initiated by the kickoff in December 2021. The project will be conducted in close collaboration between the Chair of Business Information Systems, esp. Business Engineering at TU Dresden (Prof. Martin Wiener) and the Endowed Chair of Information Systems & E-Services at TU Darmstadt (Prof. Alexander Benlian).

Summary

The overarching goal of the research project AlgoWork is to examine the conceptual nature and worker-level implications of algorithmic control (AC), broadly defined as the managerial use of sophisticated algorithms along with advanced information technology (IT) as a means to align worker behaviors with organizational objectives. While AC is increasingly employed in both platform-based and traditional organizations and across low-skill and high-skill work contexts, it remains underexplored in terms of its defining characteristics and often ambivalent implications for workers. For example, existing control research in information systems (IS) has almost exclusively focused on studying human-based control relationships in different IT contexts (e.g., IT projects), thereby largely neglecting the role of IT within managerial control processes. Consequently, there is a practically and scientifically relevant need to study how the use of AC affects individual workers and their day-to-day work behaviors.

In a first step, the focus of the project since its start in December is currently on the development of a coherent conceptual framework for AC. By combining top-down (systematic literature review) and bottom-up approaches (qualitative analysis of AC practices), the initial focus is to derive a fine-grained conceptual understanding of AC and its key dimensions, which will then be used in a further step to develop a comprehensive and coherent framework and an integrated and validated set of scales for measuring AC. In doing so, AlgoWork will make important contributions to expand the conceptual toolbox available to control researchers and practitioners, as well as to setting the stage for future empirical studies on the emerging AC phenomenon.

Subsequently, the project will empirically investigate the implications of AC for workers from a legitimacy perspective to advance the still nascent research on control effects at the individual controllee level and contribute to a more balanced view on how workers perceive AC practices, judge their legitimacy, and react to them. Based on a series of empirical studies, it will be specifically investigated which AC characteristics trigger positive or negative reactions in workers and to what extent or why different reactions occur in different work contexts (in terms of work and organizational type i.e., low-skill versus high-skill work in traditional versus platform-based organizations). On this basis, the project results are intended to offer actionable insights into the ethically responsible design and use of AC and may guide corresponding regulatory efforts by policy-makers. The project thus also fits under the broader umbrella of the future of work and is expected to add valuable insights to this body of research.