TITLE:
Automated management in work and employment
ABSTRACT:
Technology has long been a tool to support management. However, automated systems represent a fundamental shift in the scale and capability of complex management practices that once required human decision making. In this seminar, Professor Paula McDonald will discuss the trends, technological capacities and impacts of automation and artificial intelligence that are established or emergent in four dimensions of work and employment. These are: recruitment and selection; the allocation of tasks; tracking and evaluating productivity; and the effects on jobs and labour markets. Automated management is conceptualised as systems of control enabled by a broad range of interrelated technologies and methods that shape the conditions of work and workplaces. The seminar concludes with strategies suggested by scholars, regulators and labour representatives about how to ensure accountability and the protection of workers.
BIO:
Paula McDonald is Professor of Work and Organisation and Associate Dean, Research in the QUT Business School in Brisbane, Australia. Paula’s research addresses the profound social implications arising from a globalised, ‘collaborative’ economy. Her work spans topics including education to work transitions; public/private boundaries; and technology and work. She currently leads an ARC Discovery project Working the gig economy and recently conducted the first Australian prevalence study on digital platform work. Paula has published over 100 scholarly outputs and her work has actively shaped public debate through media engagement and research seminars to end-users. She is a registered psychologist, a senior fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences.
