Title of thesis

The fabric of algorithms: design and impact within organizations

Summary of thesis

The role of algorithms in our choices, actions and decisions seems increasingly important. Recommendation algorithms, for example, guide our choices in the consumption of goods, services and information. Algorithmic management helps to organize, organize, manage and rationalize work in order to increase productivity. There is a growing tension here between, on the one hand, a discourse aimed at praising the effectiveness or even objectivity of algorithms and, on the other hand, a more critical vision focused on the opacity of these devices, both in terms of their principles and their effects. This concerns, among other things, potential discriminatory drifts, the informational confinement of recommendation algorithms and the role of managerial algorithms in automating bureaucracy and extending the scientific organization of work.
While the issue of algorithm transparency often focuses on the difficulty of accessing source code and opening "black boxes", it would appear that the study of the intentions of designers, the manufacture of algorithms, their managerial use and their impact corresponds to a literature that is still limited. In other words, an empirical study of how organizations make algorithms and, conversely, how algorithms integrate into organizations and help to shape their daily functioning. Thus, it seems necessary to us to meet those who manufacture these algorithms on the one hand and those who work with or under the orders of algorithms on the other hand. In this context, we propose to choose as field several organizations developing recommendation algorithms (for goods and services) and/or relying on algorithmic management. We will ensure that we meet all stakeholders involved in the actions of these algorithms in organizations, including executives, managers, designers and employees. This study will question the intentions behind algorithms, new managerial and organizational work practices and, more broadly, the transparency and ethics of algorithms.

Institution of thesis

EHESS

Supervisor

Francis Chateauraynaud & Camille Roth