1,720,975 research outputs found
Standardization and Heterogenization: The Automation of Management and the Multiplication of Labour
Full text linkAlgorithmic management is increasingly used to (semi-)automatically organise, measure and control labour in many sectors and industries. Based on empirical research in the (online and location-bound) gig economy, the paper argues that this digital automation of management allows for the quick and flexible inclusion of a broad range of workers in very diverse situations into production. This is shown, firstly, by the example of crowdwork platforms and their ability to integrate diverse and spatially distributed workers into labour processes. Secondly, the paper analyses the role of migrant labour for the urban gig economy and argues, that here, too, digital technologies and algorithmic management are to be understood as being part and parcel of a multifaceted process of the heterogenization of workforces. This particular effect and quality of algorithmic management and digital stand-ardization is conceptually analysed in the framework of a multiplication of labour
The digital factory: the human labor of automation/ Moritz Altenried.
No full textIncludes bibliographical references and index."In recent years, tech companies such as Google and Facebook have rocked the world as they have seemingly revolutionized the culture of work. We've all heard stories of lounges outfitted with ping pong tables, kitchens with kombucha on tap, and other amenities that supposedly foster creative thinking. Nothing could seem further from earlier workplaces associated with a different revolution in capitalism: factories, in which employees are required to perform highly circumscribed tasks as quickly as possible to meet quotas--for next to no pay. However, as Moritz Altenried shows in The Digital Factory, these types of workplaces are not so far from the Googleplex as we might think. While recent accounts of the transformation of labor after the demise of the factory highlight the creative, communicative, immaterial, or artistic features of contemporary labor, Altenried uncovers the factory-like conditions in which many new digital workers perform their jobs. These workers, such as video game testers, social media content moderators, and Amazon fulfillment center workers, perform highly repetitive, unskilled tasks for low and often contingent wages. Based on more than five years of research in different sites using ethnography and interviews combined with an analysis of infrastructural technologies, Altenried's book gives us a first-hand account of many new forms of digital labor that drive contemporary capitalism. He shows that though today's factories might look and feel different than they did 150 years ago, they still follow the same logics and produce the same unequal outcomes"--Workers leaving the factory : introduction -- The global factory : logistics -- The factory of play : gaming -- The distributed factory : crowdwork -- The hidden factory : social media -- The platform as factory : conclusion -- The contagious factory : epilogue.1 online resource (217 pages
Mobile workers, contingent labour: Migration, the gig economy and the multiplication of labour
Full text linkThe article takes the surprising exit of the food delivery platform Deliveroo from Berlin as a starting point to analyse the relationship between migration and the gig economy. In Berlin and many cities across the globe, migrant workers are indispensable to the operations of digital platforms such as Uber, Helpling, or Deliveroo. The article uses in-depth ethnographic and qualitative research to show how the latter's exit from Berlin provides an almost exemplary picture of why urban gig economy platforms are strongholds of migrant labour, while at the same time, demonstrating the very contingency of this form of work. The article analyses the specific reasons why digital platforms are particularly open to migrants and argues that the very combination of new forms of algorithmic management and hyper-flexible forms of employment that is characteristic of gig economy platforms is also the reason why these platforms are geared perfectly toward the exploitation of migrant labour. This allows the analysis of digital platforms in the context of stratified labour markets and situates them within a long history of contingent labour that is closely intertwined with the mobility of labour.Peer Reviewe
The Automation of Management and the Multiplication of Labor: On the Role of Algorithmic Management in the Recomposition of Labor
Full text linkDigital technologies are increasingly used to automatically organize, measure, and control labor in many sectors and industries. This article offers an analysis of how digital technologies, particularly algorithmic management, not only reshape the ways in which work is done and controlled but also drive profound transformations in the division and composition of labor. Drawing on qualitative and ethnographic studies of the gig economy, this research article demonstrates how the digital automation of management serves as a prerequisite for efficiently and flexibly incorporating highly heterogeneous workforces into production processes. This is first demonstrated by an analysis of the online gig economy and its capacity to integrate a wide range of geographically dispersed workers into digital production processes. Then, the paper examines the role of migrant labor in the urban gig economy, contending that in this context too, digital technologies and algorithmic management play a crucial role in the flexible and efficient inclusion of highly diverse workforces. This ultimately illustrates how digital technologies for automated management are integral to a multifaceted process of workforce heterogenization, a phenomenon that can be conceptualized within the framework of the multiplication of labor.This publication has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 – “Deutsches Internet-Institut”)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The Platform as Factory: Crowdwork, Digital Taylorism and the Multiplication of Labour.
No full textThe article analyses digital labour on crowdwork platforms as paradigmatic example of an emerging digital Taylorism. The characteristics of this tendency comprise elements of classical Taylorist forms of rationalisation now enabled and reconfigured by digital technology. The algorithmic architecture of digital platforms can include distributed and diverse workers in front of their computers and smartphones into highly standardised labour processes. This allows tapping into new labour resources, both in temporal and spatial dimensions. In this respect crowdwork is finally situated in the context of the multiplication of labour, understood as a heterogenization of the division and composition of labour of which digital labour such as crowdwork is part and parcelThe article analyses digital labour on crowdwork platforms as paradigmatic example of an emerging digital Taylorism. The characteristics of this tendency comprise elements of classical Taylorist forms of rationalisation now enabled and reconfigured by digital technology. The algorithmic architecture of digital platforms can include distributed and diverse workers in front of their computers and smartphones into highly standardised labour processes. This allows tapping into new labour resources, both in temporal and spatial dimensions. In this respect crowdwork is finally situated in the context of the multiplication of labour, understood as a heterogenization of the division and composition of labour of which digital labour such as crowdwork is part and parce
The Digital Factory
No full textThis thesis researches the transformation of labour in digital capitalism. Specifically, it is interested in sites where digital technology brings forth labour relations characterised by rationalisation, standardisation, and decomposition, as well as the precise surveillance and measurement of labour. The notion of the digital factory is put forward to conceptualise this tendency of labour and to argue that digital capitalism is not characterised by the end of the factory, but by its explosion, multiplication, and spatial reconfiguration.
The empirical investigation is based on four case studies on the transformation of labour under digital conditions: labour in logistics, in video games, on digital crowdwork platforms, and in social media. By analysing the changing labour process, the changing forms of social division and cooperation, as well as the infrastructural and spatial reconfiguration induced by the increasing pervasion of digital technology, the thesis strives to analyse and theorise a specific tendency of labour in the contemporary.
By focusing on this tendency of labour, the thesis contributes to the broad field of critical analysis and theorisation of the transformation of labour under digital conditions. While many approaches tend to foreground the creative, communicative, or artistic features of (dig¬ital) labour in the contemporary moment, the notion of the digital factory highlights diver¬gent effects and sectors in order to contribute to a multifaceted empirical and theoretical understanding of labour in digital capitalism
Light and Shadow of the Digital Factory: Response to the Comments
No full textThis response to the comments on The Digital Factory discusses why and how the concepts of the digital factory and digital Taylorism have been applied in the book, as well as the question of the relationship between digital control and workers' resistance to algorithmic management technologies. While agreeing with the comments that point to the limitations of the concepts used, this response argues that these can be productive precisely by drawing our attention to aspects that are otherwise difficult to bring to light. In terms of the potential for workers' resistance, many collective and individual forms of such resistance remain possible in labour regimes under algorithmic management, as well as in other coexisting labour regimes.Peer Reviewe
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