Bernhard Schieber

Algorithmic Management: Treat the Algorithm as a Managerial Message

Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 234

The score is a management decision

When software assigns, evaluates, recommends, and disciplines work, executives must govern not only the code but what workers can understand, infer, and contest

Premise

Managerial communication no longer requires a manager to be present. Work can be assigned by a matching system, priorities signaled through an app, performance evaluated through ratings or tracked data, and future access to work altered automatically. Workers may experience these actions as decisions made by “the algorithm,” even though the system embeds policies, objectives, data definitions, and design choices created by people.

For executives, this changes the communication problem. Prompts, scores, rankings, warnings, maps, incentives, and access decisions do more than carry information; they can perform managerial functions. What the system measures, displays, rewards, or restricts may communicate organizational priorities more powerfully than formal policy language.

Algorithmic management — The score is a management decision. Executive Insight Brief 234 by Bernhard Schieber.

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Organizes dimensions, distinctions, types or questions so that a situation can be examined systematically. A framework supplies structure, a typology distinguishes forms, and a heuristic offers a usable way to orient judgment.

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