Algorithmic Management in Italy: Four Perspectives

This chapter explores the research on algorithmic management in Italy, emphasizing its consequences on work, organizational processes, and inequalities. Four approaches are presented: neo-institutional, post-operaismo, sociomaterial, and media and consumption oriented. The chapter illustrates these four approaches stressing not just their theoretical premises and research results, but also the questions that emerge from them and the way they relate to issues of diversity and inequality. Each approach offers distinct insights into the effects of algorithmic management, but altogether they identify key concerns about the unequal distribution of power, control, and agency within algorithmically managed environments, highlighting emerging inequalities related to labor rights, professional competence, and access to digital infrastructures.