Algorithmic violence

Abstract

This article draws together insights from several diverse bodies of literature from fields including political economy, organisational and management studies, sociology and psychology to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the phenomenon of bullying in academia. Situated in the current context of organisational restructuring, it goes beyond the conventional notion of the ‘bully’ as an exceptional individual. Central to the article is the concept of ‘algorithmic violence’ which is used to draw a connection between neoliberal management practices, the use of digitally enabled processes and the development of organisational cultures in which standardised, target-driven rules create illusions of fairness while encouraging the intensification and precarisation of work: a situation in which bullying behaviours are simultaneously rendered invisible and normalised. The article next suggests that bullying is an endemic aspect of neoliberal management, with effects that differentially impact women, people of colour, migrants and other historically disadvantaged groups who may be regarded as interlopers in a workforce traditionally dominated by the figure of the white male professor. To test the usefulness of this concept, it is then applied to the results of a series of interviews carried out with academic workers in 2021 for research on the state of critical management studies in the UK. While this empirical material was originally designed for another project, the participants discuss experiences of bullying in academic workplaces and the results draw attention to the high human costs of academic bullying, suggesting that such an interdisciplinary framework could provide a fruitful basis for future research that is focused more specifically on bullying in the context of higher education.