000			01952nam a22001577a 4500
999			_c515733 _d515733
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100			_aCurchod, C. Patriotta, G. Cohen, L. and Neysen, N. _924113
245			_aWorking for an algorithm: Power asymmetries and agency in online work settings
260			_aAdministrative Science Quarterly
300			_a65(3), Sep, 2020: p.644-676
520			_aDrawing on interviews with 77 high-performing eBay business sellers in France and Belgium, this article investigates the power asymmetries generated by customers’ evaluations in online work settings. Sellers revealed a high degree of sensitivity to negative reviews, which, while infrequent, triggered feelings of anxiety and vulnerability. Their accounts exposed power asymmetries at two levels: the transactional level between sellers and customers and the governance level between sellers and eBay. Our findings highlight three main mechanisms underlying power asymmetries in this context. First, online customer evaluations have created a new form of employee monitoring in which power is exercised through the construction of visibility gaps between buyers and sellers and through an implicit coalition between buyers and the platform owner, who join together in the evaluation procedures. Second, by mediating and objectifying relations, algorithms reproduce power asymmetries among the different categories of actors, thereby constraining human agency. Third, online customer evaluations prompt sellers to exploit their practical knowledge of the algorithm to increase their agency. Through the lived experience of working for an algorithm, our findings contribute new understandings of power and agency in online work settings. – Reproduced
650			_aPower asymmetries, Algorithms, Online evaluations, Sociomateriality, Agency, Practice _921508
773			_aAdministrative Science Quarterly
906			_aONLINE WORK
942			_cAR