Alex J Wood
Biographic Data
| ID | 260422 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex J Wood |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex J |
| FAMILY NAME | Wood |
| SIGNATURE | WOOD A J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0569-7145 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 629 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Marxism with micro-foundations? The contradictory politics of Michael Burawoy
This article traces the political evolution of Michael Burawoy’s self-declared Marxism; doing so leads to the discovery of two distinctive Michael Burawoys. The first advocated for a Marxism with microfoundations in which the workplace acts as the source of micro-institutions and lived experiences that shape class identities and actions and thus mediates the relationship between relations of production and class formation. This Michael Burawoy de…
Michael Burawoy, 1947–2025
Contesting Algorithmic Workplace Regimes in an Era of Flexible Despotism
This article investigates recent claims that the growing use of algorithms is giving rise to a novel workplace regime. The article makes two conceptual contributions: first, it identifies the generic characteristics of this supposed algorithmic workplace regime. Second, it puts into question the exceptionalism of algorithmic workplace regimes. This is achieved by bringing the centrality of non-algorithmic management techniques in co-constituting …
Beyond the ‘Gig Economy
The ‘gig economy’ encompasses a wide range of jobs, platforms and workers. In this article, we provide the first quantitative evidence in support of the model of job quality developed by Wood et al. that predicts divergence across local and remote platform work. Specifically, we find that remote platform work entails significantly better pay, more flexibility, greater influence over how to do the job, a greater sense of doing useful work, better …
Consent, Control, and Contradictions in the Post-Fordist Work Organisation
Dynamics of contention in the gig economy
Protest in the gig economy has taken many forms and targets (platforms, customers and state officials). However, researchers are yet to adequately account for this diversity. We use a European survey of Upwork and PeoplePerHour platform workers to investigate worker orientation towards different forms of protest. Results reveal that worker anger, dependence and digital communication shape contention in the remote gig economy. Support for collecti…
Platforms Disrupting Reputation
Digitalisation and the use of algorithms have raised concerns over the future of work, the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. In this article, we draw on 70 interviews in addition to participant observations to highlight the role of gig economy platforms in producing a novel form of reputational insecurity. This insecurity is generated by platforms disrupting the traditional operation of industry reputation in freela…
Chapter 10 Data (In)justice, Protest and the (Re)making of Space Among Fragmented Platform Workers
Alienation Is Not 'Bullshit
David Graeber's 'bullshit jobs theory' has generated a great deal of academic and public interest. This theory holds that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognise as being useless and of no social value. Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypothese…
Workplace regimes
This article defends and extends the concept of workplace regimes, understood as the existence of identifiable systematic patterns of managerial control. In doing so a conceptual framework is developed for explaining both patterns in control and the dynamics of workplace politics. Specifically, this article elaborates on the approach of Michael Burawoy and extends it through an engagement with Science and Technology Studies (also known as Science…
Antagonism beyond employment
This article investigates why gig economy workers who see themselves as self-employed freelancers also engage in collective action traditionally associated with regular employment. Using ethnographic evidence on the remote gig economy in North America, the UK and the Philippines, we argue that labour platforms increase the agency of workers to contract with clients and thus reduce the risk of false self-employment in terms of the worker-client re…
Beyond mobilisation at McDonald's
This article uses McAlevey's mobilising/organising dichotomy to analyse the recent McDonald's mobilisation in Britain. It argues that this movement has had some impressive successes but building on these requires greater organising activities. However, conventional union organising techniques are unlikely to be successful in hospitality. Instead, the approach of another low-wage worker movement OUR Walmart demonstrates how social media can be use…
The Taylor Review
One of the headline suggestions of The Taylor Review was the need for a new approach to determining employment classification. The authors of the review (2017: 33) point out that, at present, there exists minimal legislation relating to employment classification and, as a consequence, the courts have developed a number of tests over the years to aid their interpretation of the law. These tests include whether an individual is required to do the w…
Good Gig, Bad Gig
This article evaluates the job quality of work in the remote gig economy. Such work consists of the remote provision of a wide variety of digital services mediated by online labour platforms. Focusing on workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the article draws on semi-structured interviews in six countries ( N = 107) and a cross-regional survey ( N = 679) to detail the manner in which remote gig work is shaped by platform-based algorit…
Networked but Commodified
This article investigates the (dis)embeddedness of digital labour within the remote gig economy. We use interview and survey data to highlight how platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are normatively disembedded from social protections through a process of commodification. Normative disembeddedness leaves workers exposed to the vagaries of the external labour market due to an absence of labour regulations and rights. It also …
Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries
This article presents findings regarding collective organisation among online freelancers in middle‐income countries. Drawing on research in Southeast Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa, we find that the specific nature of the online freelancing labour process gives rise to a distinctive form of organisation, in which social media groups play a central role in structuring communication and unions are absent. Previous research is limited to either conven…
Powerful Times
This article uses two ethnographic retail case studies to investigate contemporary workplace control. The findings highlight how flexible scheduling has serious consequences for workers and causes insecurity. This provides managers with a powerful and unaccountable mechanism for securing control. The benefits for managers of using flexible scheduling to secure control are shown to be its ambiguity and flexibility. Moreover, flexible scheduling cr…
Flexible scheduling, degradation of job quality and barriers to collective voice
This article examines the operation of flexible scheduling in practice through a case study of a large retail firm in the United Kingdom. It includes analysis of 39 semi-structured interviews, participant observation of shop floor work and non-participant observation of union organizing as well as analysis of key documents. The findings highlight the high level of generalized temporal flexibility across employment statuses. This temporal flexibil…
Good Gig, Bad Gig
This article evaluates the job quality of work in the remote gig economy. Such work consists of the remote provision of a wide variety of digital services mediated by online labour platforms. Focusing on workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the article draws on semi-structured interviews in six countries ( N = 107) and a cross-regional survey ( N = 679) to detail the manner in which remote gig work is shaped by platform-based algorit…
Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries
This article presents findings regarding collective organisation among online freelancers in middle‐income countries. Drawing on research in Southeast Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa, we find that the specific nature of the online freelancing labour process gives rise to a distinctive form of organisation, in which social media groups play a central role in structuring communication and unions are absent. Previous research is limited to either conven…
Networked but Commodified
This article investigates the (dis)embeddedness of digital labour within the remote gig economy. We use interview and survey data to highlight how platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are normatively disembedded from social protections through a process of commodification. Normative disembeddedness leaves workers exposed to the vagaries of the external labour market due to an absence of labour regulations and rights. It also …
Antagonism beyond employment
This article investigates why gig economy workers who see themselves as self-employed freelancers also engage in collective action traditionally associated with regular employment. Using ethnographic evidence on the remote gig economy in North America, the UK and the Philippines, we argue that labour platforms increase the agency of workers to contract with clients and thus reduce the risk of false self-employment in terms of the worker-client re…
Powerful Times
This article uses two ethnographic retail case studies to investigate contemporary workplace control. The findings highlight how flexible scheduling has serious consequences for workers and causes insecurity. This provides managers with a powerful and unaccountable mechanism for securing control. The benefits for managers of using flexible scheduling to secure control are shown to be its ambiguity and flexibility. Moreover, flexible scheduling cr…
Alienation Is Not 'Bullshit
David Graeber's 'bullshit jobs theory' has generated a great deal of academic and public interest. This theory holds that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognise as being useless and of no social value. Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypothese…
Dynamics of contention in the gig economy
Protest in the gig economy has taken many forms and targets (platforms, customers and state officials). However, researchers are yet to adequately account for this diversity. We use a European survey of Upwork and PeoplePerHour platform workers to investigate worker orientation towards different forms of protest. Results reveal that worker anger, dependence and digital communication shape contention in the remote gig economy. Support for collecti…
Flexible scheduling, degradation of job quality and barriers to collective voice
This article examines the operation of flexible scheduling in practice through a case study of a large retail firm in the United Kingdom. It includes analysis of 39 semi-structured interviews, participant observation of shop floor work and non-participant observation of union organizing as well as analysis of key documents. The findings highlight the high level of generalized temporal flexibility across employment statuses. This temporal flexibil…
Platforms Disrupting Reputation
Digitalisation and the use of algorithms have raised concerns over the future of work, the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. In this article, we draw on 70 interviews in addition to participant observations to highlight the role of gig economy platforms in producing a novel form of reputational insecurity. This insecurity is generated by platforms disrupting the traditional operation of industry reputation in freela…
Beyond mobilisation at McDonald's
This article uses McAlevey's mobilising/organising dichotomy to analyse the recent McDonald's mobilisation in Britain. It argues that this movement has had some impressive successes but building on these requires greater organising activities. However, conventional union organising techniques are unlikely to be successful in hospitality. Instead, the approach of another low-wage worker movement OUR Walmart demonstrates how social media can be use…
Beyond the ‘Gig Economy
The ‘gig economy’ encompasses a wide range of jobs, platforms and workers. In this article, we provide the first quantitative evidence in support of the model of job quality developed by Wood et al. that predicts divergence across local and remote platform work. Specifically, we find that remote platform work entails significantly better pay, more flexibility, greater influence over how to do the job, a greater sense of doing useful work, better …
Flexible scheduling, degradation of job quality and barriers to collective voice
This article examines the operation of flexible scheduling in practice through a case study of a large retail firm in the United Kingdom. It includes analysis of 39 semi-structured interviews, participant observation of shop floor work and non-participant observation of union organizing as well as analysis of key documents. The findings highlight the high level of generalized temporal flexibility across employment statuses. This temporal flexibil…
Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries
This article presents findings regarding collective organisation among online freelancers in middle‐income countries. Drawing on research in Southeast Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa, we find that the specific nature of the online freelancing labour process gives rise to a distinctive form of organisation, in which social media groups play a central role in structuring communication and unions are absent. Previous research is limited to either conven…
Powerful Times
This article uses two ethnographic retail case studies to investigate contemporary workplace control. The findings highlight how flexible scheduling has serious consequences for workers and causes insecurity. This provides managers with a powerful and unaccountable mechanism for securing control. The benefits for managers of using flexible scheduling to secure control are shown to be its ambiguity and flexibility. Moreover, flexible scheduling cr…
The Taylor Review
One of the headline suggestions of The Taylor Review was the need for a new approach to determining employment classification. The authors of the review (2017: 33) point out that, at present, there exists minimal legislation relating to employment classification and, as a consequence, the courts have developed a number of tests over the years to aid their interpretation of the law. These tests include whether an individual is required to do the w…
Good Gig, Bad Gig
This article evaluates the job quality of work in the remote gig economy. Such work consists of the remote provision of a wide variety of digital services mediated by online labour platforms. Focusing on workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the article draws on semi-structured interviews in six countries ( N = 107) and a cross-regional survey ( N = 679) to detail the manner in which remote gig work is shaped by platform-based algorit…
Networked but Commodified
This article investigates the (dis)embeddedness of digital labour within the remote gig economy. We use interview and survey data to highlight how platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are normatively disembedded from social protections through a process of commodification. Normative disembeddedness leaves workers exposed to the vagaries of the external labour market due to an absence of labour regulations and rights. It also …
Beyond mobilisation at McDonald's
This article uses McAlevey's mobilising/organising dichotomy to analyse the recent McDonald's mobilisation in Britain. It argues that this movement has had some impressive successes but building on these requires greater organising activities. However, conventional union organising techniques are unlikely to be successful in hospitality. Instead, the approach of another low-wage worker movement OUR Walmart demonstrates how social media can be use…
Workplace regimes
This article defends and extends the concept of workplace regimes, understood as the existence of identifiable systematic patterns of managerial control. In doing so a conceptual framework is developed for explaining both patterns in control and the dynamics of workplace politics. Specifically, this article elaborates on the approach of Michael Burawoy and extends it through an engagement with Science and Technology Studies (also known as Science…
Antagonism beyond employment
This article investigates why gig economy workers who see themselves as self-employed freelancers also engage in collective action traditionally associated with regular employment. Using ethnographic evidence on the remote gig economy in North America, the UK and the Philippines, we argue that labour platforms increase the agency of workers to contract with clients and thus reduce the risk of false self-employment in terms of the worker-client re…
Chapter 10 Data (In)justice, Protest and the (Re)making of Space Among Fragmented Platform Workers
Alienation Is Not 'Bullshit
David Graeber's 'bullshit jobs theory' has generated a great deal of academic and public interest. This theory holds that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognise as being useless and of no social value. Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypothese…
Dynamics of contention in the gig economy
Protest in the gig economy has taken many forms and targets (platforms, customers and state officials). However, researchers are yet to adequately account for this diversity. We use a European survey of Upwork and PeoplePerHour platform workers to investigate worker orientation towards different forms of protest. Results reveal that worker anger, dependence and digital communication shape contention in the remote gig economy. Support for collecti…
Platforms Disrupting Reputation
Digitalisation and the use of algorithms have raised concerns over the future of work, the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. In this article, we draw on 70 interviews in addition to participant observations to highlight the role of gig economy platforms in producing a novel form of reputational insecurity. This insecurity is generated by platforms disrupting the traditional operation of industry reputation in freela…
Consent, Control, and Contradictions in the Post-Fordist Work Organisation
Michael Burawoy, 1947–2025
Contesting Algorithmic Workplace Regimes in an Era of Flexible Despotism
This article investigates recent claims that the growing use of algorithms is giving rise to a novel workplace regime. The article makes two conceptual contributions: first, it identifies the generic characteristics of this supposed algorithmic workplace regime. Second, it puts into question the exceptionalism of algorithmic workplace regimes. This is achieved by bringing the centrality of non-algorithmic management techniques in co-constituting …
Beyond the ‘Gig Economy
The ‘gig economy’ encompasses a wide range of jobs, platforms and workers. In this article, we provide the first quantitative evidence in support of the model of job quality developed by Wood et al. that predicts divergence across local and remote platform work. Specifically, we find that remote platform work entails significantly better pay, more flexibility, greater influence over how to do the job, a greater sense of doing useful work, better …
Marxism with micro-foundations? The contradictory politics of Michael Burawoy
This article traces the political evolution of Michael Burawoy’s self-declared Marxism; doing so leads to the discovery of two distinctive Michael Burawoys. The first advocated for a Marxism with microfoundations in which the workplace acts as the source of micro-institutions and lived experiences that shape class identities and actions and thus mediates the relationship between relations of production and class formation. This Michael Burawoy de…
Political science (13 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (11 works) · Economics (11 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Business (8 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (8 works) · Sharing Economy and Platforms (7 works)