%0 Journal Article %1 evans_smart_2017 %A Evans, Leighton %A Kitchin, Rob %D 2017 %J SocArXiv %K big_data %R 10.17605/OSF.IO/Z9DGC %T A smart place to work? : big data systems, labour, control, and modern retail stores %U https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/z9dgc/ %X The modern retail store is a complex coded assemblage and data-intensive environment, its operations and management mediated by a number of interlinked big data systems. This paper draws on an ethnography of a superstore in Ireland to examine how these systems modulate the functioning of the store and working practices of employees. It was found that retail work involves a continual movement between a governance regime of control reliant on big data systems which seek to regulate and harnesses formal labour and automation into enterprise planning, and a disciplinary regime that deals with the symbolic, interactive labour that workers perform and acts as a reserve mode of governmentality if control fails. This continual movement is caused by new systems of control being open to vertical and horizontal fissures. While retail functions as a coded assemblage of control, systems are too brittle to sustain the code/space and governmentality desired.

@article{evans_smart_2017, abstract = {The modern retail store is a complex coded assemblage and data-intensive environment, its operations and management mediated by a number of interlinked big data systems. This paper draws on an ethnography of a superstore in Ireland to examine how these systems modulate the functioning of the store and working practices of employees. It was found that retail work involves a continual movement between a governance regime of control reliant on big data systems which seek to regulate and harnesses formal labour and automation into enterprise planning, and a disciplinary regime that deals with the symbolic, interactive labour that workers perform and acts as a reserve mode of governmentality if control fails. This continual movement is caused by new systems of control being open to vertical and horizontal fissures. While retail functions as a coded assemblage of control, systems are too brittle to sustain the code/space and governmentality desired.}, added-at = {2018-11-04T17:00:37.000+0100}, author = {Evans, Leighton and Kitchin, Rob}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2bcd0470691a05eb291f3924172a8b863/lepsky}, doi = {10.17605/OSF.IO/Z9DGC}, interhash = {68cb011ddecb1d03240796a51b36937f}, intrahash = {bcd0470691a05eb291f3924172a8b863}, journal = {SocArXiv}, keywords = {big_data}, month = oct, shorttitle = {A smart place to work?}, timestamp = {2018-11-06T18:03:41.000+0100}, title = {A smart place to work? : big data systems, labour, control, and modern retail stores}, url = {https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/z9dgc/}, urldate = {2017-11-05}, year = 2017 }