Algorithmic Management in a Scandinavian Context: Negotiating a Productivity Metric in a Norwegian Service Organisation

Abstract

This thesis examines how a simple productivity metric is negotiated by managers and workers in a Norwegian service organisation. Using a phenomenon-based grounded theory design, it shows how the metric travels as a boundary object and becomes a taken-for-granted managerial truth. In practice it enables human–metric hybridity where numbers propose and people dispose, producing rating, recommending and replacing via staffing and routine adjustments. The study brings a managerial lens to algorithmic-management debates and outlines implications for guardrails, transparency and monitoring hidden work.