Integrating algorithmic management in hotels: Emerging challenges and opportunities for frontline managers

Abstract

The increasing adoption of Algorithmic Management in the hospitality sector presents a number of challenges and opportunities. Emergent research has considered the impacts on operational staff. However, the implications for frontline managers, who have to negotiate between the interests of multiple stakeholders and organisational pressures, are less well understood. This paper examines key factors that will affect the comprehension and enactment of managerial roles within algorithmically managed hotels, drawing on a three-stage Delphi study with hotel managers and academic experts, built on the Competing Values Framework. The findings stress that Algorithmic Management’s impact on productivity and process standardisation will intensify work demands, and risk stifling employee motivation and collaboration. Hence, managers must evolve from controllers to supportive actors, improving understanding, facilitating employee empowerment and aiding transparency in algorithmic decisions. We conceptualise these functions as communication, performance, social and creative facilitation. The findings are used to theorise how emerging socio-technological arrangements will transform line management, driving the expansion of translational work and the emergence of what we call ‘algorithmic coaching’.