Algorithmic Management in Food Delivery Platforms: Between Digital Neo-Taylorism and Enhanced Subjectivity

What do we mean when we speak of algorithmic management? Starting from the case of digital food delivery platforms, this chapter proposes some theoretical and interpretative hypotheses regarding the introduction of algorithmic management systems. In particular, the authors argue that this management model can be described as not completely new, since it includes both elements of the industrial capitalism, based on direct and disciplinary control, and of the managerial model typical of post-Fordism, centred instead on the subsumption of subjectivity, which – by leveraging workers’ request for greater autonomy – enhances the subjects’ very passions and desires. Drawing on a co-research carried out with food delivery riders who took part in the mobilizations organized in the city of Turin (Italy), this chapter investigates the processes giving shape to the forms of algorithmic management and analyse both the various control methods put into practice through the platforms and the answers the workers find to work in these complex environments while at the same time questioning this management model.