Lost in Automation? Algorithmic Management and the Evolving Role of Middle Managers - Insights From the Spanish Dark Stores Sector

Abstract

This article examines the impact of algorithmic management on workplace social relations in conventional employment settings. Fifty-one semi-structured interviews with middle managers and shop-floor workers of three different dark stores in Spain were conducted to explore how algorithmic tools reshape managerial roles and worker dynamics. Building on Labor Process Theory, the findings reveal that while algorithmic management reduces the need for traditional managerial oversight, it simultaneously transforms managers into algorithmic brokers who interpret algorithmic output, thus facilitating control mechanisms rather than eliminating them. This shift underlines the persistence of power asymmetries in capitalist employment relationships, where managers continue to play a critical role in extracting surplus value from labor. Furthermore, the article argues that technology deployment in the workplace both shapes and is shaped by power relations. This highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of how algorithmic management influences social workplace relations. As empirically illustrated, different forms of handling the human-machine complementarities emerging from the deployment of algorithmic management lead to varied outcomes. Where technology is used to surveil and coerce, workers develop grievances against management and employers. Conversely, where technology is at the service of thoughtfully crafted forms of normative control, workers immerse themselves in the labor process. Ultimately, this research contributes to ongoing debates about the future of work, arguing that concerns about full automation are exaggerated, and that algorithmic management should be seen instead as an avenue for the expansion and sophistication of workers’ exploitation through enhanced control mechanisms.