Workshop on the Prospects and Limits of Platform Control
Another workshop held at the Institute in May of this year was “Prospects and Limits of Platform Control: Relating Algorithmic Management to Worker Agency.” The international event was attended by fifteen researchers and explored the wide range of algorithmic control mechanisms used in work today and the organizational motivation behind them. Taking an integrative approach, the workshop illuminated and contextualized the experiences of workers being controlled as well as the perspectives of those using the strategies and technologies to control them. A better understanding of the dialectical relationship between the two sides should bring new insights into what algorithmic control means for the future of work. The workshop was organized by Kathleen Griesbach and Georg Rilinger, both postdocs at the MPIfG.