Algorithmic Management and New Forms of Class Conflict

Department of Sociology Seminar

Friday, March 10th 2023, 12:30pm - 2:30pm

Sciences Po (9 rue de la Chaise) - Room C910

Algorithmic Management and New Forms of Class Conflict

David C. Stark 
Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
Director, Center on Organizational Innovation

The turn of the 20th Century saw the emergence of a new knowledge class, pioneered by mechanical engineers championing a movement known as Scientific Management. Today, in the opening decades of the 21st Century we find the emergence of a different knowledge class. At its forefront we also find engineers, but these are software engineers championing Algorithmic Management.
In this presentation, I first discuss the platform organizational form and then examine how algorithmic management addresses the peculiar managerial challenges when valuable assets and activities occur on the platform but not in the firm. After comparing and contrasting scientific and algorithmic management. I then discuss the current era of platform monopoly capitalism as one of class conflict between two middle classes. On one side is the established professional-managerial class, organized around claims of professional expertise. On the other side, the challengers, organized around new, algorithmic knowledge claims.

Registration is mandatory. Thank you.

To find out more: https://davidcstark.net/