The Dynamic Relationships Between Algorithmic Management and Workers' Occupational Well-being: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Algorithmic management (AM) as key enabler for managing workforce in food delivery services has recently raised growing concerns about workers’ occupational well-being (OWB). Existing studies mainly emphasize negative impacts of AM on workers’ OWB, e.g., stress due to constant tracking. Contrastingly, a few studies show positive aspects of AM, e.g., receiving personalized real-time feedback. Getting to the root of these opposing findings, we use the job demands-resources (JD-R) model as primary theoretical lens to abductively analyze AM-specific job demands (AM-JD) and AM-specific job resources (AM-JR). Based on semi-structured interviews with 16 food delivery riders in Germany, this study paints a nuanced picture of AM, e.g., by identifying AM-JRs, that help to mitigate AM-JDs. We further find that job crafting, i.e., proactively changing work-related boundaries, increases AM-JRs and workers’ OWB. Drawing on our results, we present the integrated DYNAMO Model, which shows novel dynamic relationships between AM, OWB, and job crafting.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 31st European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS)
Place of PublicationKristiansand
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Peer-reviewedYes