When food‐delivery platform workers consent to algorithmic management: a Foucauldian perspective

This paper extends research on algorithmic management by examining mechanisms of compliance. Algorithmic management has predominantly been analysed in terms of the exercise of disciplinary power over workers and rational control of labour. Facing algorithms, platform workers would be in a situation of fear, passivity and frustration. In this paper, we utilise the Foucauldian framework of ‘dispositive’ in order to reconceptualise platforms as exerting both rational and normative control. Based on a qualitative case study of the food‐delivery platform Deliveroo, we underscore that algorithmic rational control, although fallible, is being reinforced by techniques of subjectification. Several dispositives on the platform, such as the pay‐per‐delivery and shift picker systems, generate an active mobilisation of workers. Our discussion highlights the governmentality power of algorithmic management, which builds consent by promoting a hyper‐meritocratic ideal of justice.