Organizational and Algorithmic Rationalities: Decision-Making, Power and Control In Contemporary Organizations

Organizations have long been regarded as key institutions of modern rationalization. Through goals, decisions, rules, hierarchies, and formal procedures, they promise to reduce uncertainty and coordinate collective action efficiently. At the same time, organizations are also systems of power and control that structure authority, distribute responsibilities, and shape opportunities for participation, compliance, and resistance.

Digital technologies have historically been associated with similar promises and tensions. While expected to enhance efficiency, decision-making, and organizational control, they have also been shown to redistribute power, create new asymmetries of knowledge, and transform mechanisms of surveillance, evaluation, and discipline.

Recent developments in digital technologies are reshaping these dynamics. As organizations increasingly rely on algorithmic systems, including automated decision-making tools, predictive analytics, algorithmic management technologies, machine learning applications, and Generative AI, fundamental questions arise about the relationship between organizational and algorithmic rationalities. The assumptions and classifications embedded in algorithmic systems and the rationalities they embody may not align with the organizational settings in which they are deployed. Emerging from design choices, data infrastructures, and often opaque patterns within data, algorithmic rationalities may reinforce, challenge, or transform existing organizational structures and practices.

This session invites theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions that examine the interplay between algorithmic and organizational rationalities. How does the growing integration of algorithmic rationalities into organizations reshape coordination, expertise, accountability, power, and control?

We particularly welcome contributions that explore the tensions, complementarities, and conflicts between organizational and algorithmic rationalities.