Conference Paper: Thinking with and beyond Michael Burawoy: Labour and Ideology in the Age of Algorithmic Management, Alexandros Minotakis

22.06.2026. This April, Dr Alexandros Minotakis delivered on the topic of “Thinking with and beyond Michael Burawoy: Labour and Ideology in the age of Algorithmic Management” at the 44th International Labour Process Conference, in Leeds, England. The work offers a thorough review of Buroway’s labour process theories and asseses this in relation to his concept of consent and coercion via ongoing algorithmnic transformations and AI use in the contemporary workplace.

Burawoy argued that capitalist workplaces rely not only on coercion but also on the production of consent, achieved through workplace practices that encourage workers to identify with productivity goals and perceive work as meaningful. While this framework was developed in the context of the post-war Fordist–Taylorist configuration, the paper explores how it can be applied to contemporary workplaces increasingly governed by algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Today, algorithmic management intensifies surveillance and deepens the separation between conception and execution in the labour process. At the same time, it operates within a broader neoliberal context characterised by workforce individualisation and weakened collective organisation. These conditions give rise to new forms of consent, as workers are encouraged to compete individually, seek self-realisation through work, and adapt to continuous evaluation by digital systems. Furthermore, the increasing quantification of everyday life familiarises workers with algorithmic forms of assessment and decision-making, fostering a tendency to regard algorithms as legitimate and authoritative sources of knowledge in the workplace and beyond.

Dr Minotakis contends, drawing on labour process theory, media studies, and contemporary research on digital labour, that consent and coercion continue to coexist in the workplace. However, their relationship is being reconfigured through algorithmic surveillance and opaque decision-making processes. As a result, consent becomes increasingly fragile and contingent, while coercion assumes new and often less visible forms.

Read the full conference paper below.