Making Organizations Algorithm-Ready: Algorithmic Organizing Through Techno-Organizational Scripts

Organizations must be prepared to integrate algorithms into their workflows, and algorithms must be designed in particular ways for them to function in organizational practices. In our terminology, organizations need to be made algorithm-ready. We conceive of such work as techno-organizational rescripting, inspired by the notion of scripts in science and technology studies and Latour’s idea of organizing as a particular mode of existence. From this perspective, algorithms are multiple, context-dependent objects without predefined rationalities, and thus cannot be assumed to have particular effects in organizations. Building on an ethnographic study, we account for the rescripting processes related to the design of a predictive algorithm developed to support case work in a public sector organization. The analysis teases out a host of assumptions that became inscribed into the algorithm during the design process, and describe how organizational members scripted new roles and courses of action. Even if it is assumed that an algorithm comes with a particular type of intelligence and has the potential to make case work more efficient and simple, rescripting is fraught with tensions. Employee roles are simultaneously multiplied and restricted, and algorithmic design needs to accommodate not only standardization and discretion, but also contradicting courses of action. Our findings contribute to the literature on digitalization and organization by proposing that investigating “algorithmic organizing” differs from investigating “algorithms in organizations.” We challenge deterministic views of algorithms, advocating for a context-sensitive understanding of “the algorithmic" and more specificity around “the organizational.”