How Instacart uses algorithmic management to structure flexible labor

• In Event: 2451 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 25. Technology and Work

Abstract

Algorithms are being increasingly used to organize work, but we lack detailed accounts of how workers experience algorithmic management. Using ethnographic data from three months of working for an on-demand grocery service called Instacart, I show how gig economy workers smooth over algorithmic inefficiencies with their bodies. Further, I argue that Instacart elicits effort from its workers by refracting its labor process through a game-like mobile application that shares digital space with other, more personal and mundane processes like email and text messaging.

Author

• Chelsea Wahl, University of Pennsylvania