The cyborg manager: enforcing speed through the administration of fear

Tom Vickers, Ricky Gee, Dominic Holland and David Dahill

Chapter 7 in Unpacking Global Amazon, 2026, pp 182-200 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Amazon and Uber are pioneers of digitally enhanced work, setting an example that many other companies seek to follow. However, their business models have come under scrutiny because of their cost to workers. This conceptual chapter approaches the cost to workers by examining the interaction between subjective human management and digital and algorithmic technologies. We present two vignettes, of an Amazon warehouse ‘associate’ and of an Uber driver, to distil recurring features of these roles, which were identified through a literature review supplemented by empirical data from two UK research projects. Unpacking these vignettes, we explore how these rationalised and digitally enabled working practices interact with the people who engage in them, assessing the labour process according to its frequency, duration, and extension before considering results for workers’ wellbeing. We conclude that these work practices enact managerial control over workers via the systematic administration of fear and precarity.

Keywords: Precarious Work; Digitised Work; United Kingdom; Algorithmic Management; Uber; Amazon; Corporation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035380442
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