skip to content

Sociology Research

 

Alex Wood is an Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology. His research focuses on the implications of digital technology for power relations, working conditions, and the transformation of capitalism. He is currently researching how digital platforms reshape power relations at work and the consequences of artificial intelligence for workplace regimes.

Alex completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge in 2016 and worked at the universities of Oxford, Birmingham and Bristol before returning to the Cambridge Department of Sociology in September 2024. In 2020 he published the book, Despotism on Demand: How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace’ and has authored over 20 journal articles or book chapters on topics such as precarious scheduling, useful jobs and alienation, the gig economy, algorithmic management, social media facilitated labour mobilisation, online worker community, labour process theory and the transformation of workplace regimes.

He led the British Academy-funded Gig Rights Project from 2020 to 2022 and is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and an affiliate of the Cambridge University Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy and the Bristol Digital Futures Institute.

His work has been influenced by neo-Marxist theories of work and class, Polanyian theories of embeddedness and the social shaping of technology approach.

Given his research and theoretical interests, Alex is available to supervise postgraduate students in neo-Marxist and Polanyian theory; platform work; workplace AI and algorithmic management; job quality worker resistance and labour movements; transformations in employment, class and capitalism.

Research Interests

Neo-Marxist and Polanyian theory; platform work, AI and digital technologies in the workplace; job quality; worker resistance and labour movements; transformations in employment, class and capitalism.

Research Projects

Teaching

SOC 9: Global Capitalism

MPhil (Political and Economic Pathway)

Publications

Books

Wood AJ (2020) Despotism on Demand: How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace. Cornell University Press.

 

Book Chapters

Wood AJ et al. (2023) ‘The Gig Economy and the Minimum Wage’. In David Arnold (ed) The Future of the Minimum Wage. Unison.

Wood AJ (2023) ‘Beyond mobilisation at McDonald’s: Towards networked organising’. In Colfer, Harney, McLaughlin, Wright (Eds). Protecting the Future of Work: New Institutional Arrangements for Safeguarding Labour Standards. Emerald.

Wood AJ et al. (2022) ‘How anger sparks voice: exploring individual and collective voice in the remote gig economy.’ In Wilkinson, Dundon, Mowbray and Brooks (Eds) Missing voices? : Worker voice and social dialogue in the platform economy. Elgar.

Wood AJ and Lehdonvirta V (2022) ‘Data (in)justice, protest and the (re)making of space among fragmented platform workers.’ In Currie, M., J. Knox and C. McGregor (Eds) Data Justice and the Right to the City. University of Edinburgh Press.

Graham M, Lehdonvirta V, Wood AJ et al. (2021) ‘The uneven potential of online platform work for human development at the global margins.’ In Drahokoupil J and Vandaele K (Eds) A Modern Guide to Labour and the Platform Economy. Edward Elgar.

Wood AJ (2020) ‘Minimum wages for online labor platforms?’ In Larsson A and Teigland R (Eds) The Digital Transformation of Labor: Automation, the Gig Economy and Welfare. Routledge.

Wood AJ and Burchell BJ (2018) ‘Unemployment and well-being.’ In Lewis A (ed) Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Economic Behaviour 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press.

Burchell BJ and Wood AJ (2017) ‘You Are Never Secure: UK Workers in the Era of ‘Flexibility’.’ In Svendsen Z and Daw S (eds) World Factory: The Game. Nick Hern Books.

 

Journal Articles

Wood A (2024) Algorithmic Management: From Technology to Politics and Theory. Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society.

Martindale N, Wood AJ and Burchell BJ (2024) What do platform workers in the UK gig economy want?. British Journal of Industrial Relations.

Wood AJ (2024) Consent, Control, and Contradictions in the Post-Fordist Work Organisation. Critical Sociology.

Wood AJ and Lehdonvirta V (2023) Platforms disrupting reputation: precarity and recognition struggles in the remote gig economy. Sociology.

Wood AJ et al. (2021) Dynamics of Contention in the Gig Economy: Rage against the Platform, Customer or the State. New Technology, Work and Employment.

Wood AJ and Lehdonvirta V (2021) Antagonism beyond employment: how the ‘subordinated agency’ of labour platforms generates conflict in the remote gig economy. Socio-Economic Review.

Wood AJ (2021) Workplace Regimes: A Sociological Defence and Elaboration. Work in the Global Economy.

Soffia M, Wood AJ, Burchell BJ (2021) Alienation is Not ‘Bullshit’: An Empirical Critique of Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs Theory. Work, Employment and Society.

Wood AJ (2020) Beyond mobilisation at McDonald’s: Towards networked organising. Capital and Class.

Wood AJ et al. (2019) Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy. Sociology.

Wood AJ et al. (2019) Good gig, bad gig: autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy. Work, Employment and Society.

Wood AJ (2019) The Taylor Review: Understanding the gig economy, dependency and the complexities of control. New Technology, Work and Employment.

Wright C, Wood A.J, et al. (2019) Towards a new web of rules: An international review of institutional experimentations to strengthen labour standards. Employee Relations.

Wood AJ (2018) Powerful Times: Flexible Discipline and Schedule Gifts at Work. Work, Employment and Society.

Wood AJ (2018) Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation in six Asian and African countries. New Technology, Work and Employment.

Wood AJ (2016) Flexible scheduling, the degradation of job quality and barriers to collective voice. Human Relations.

Wood AJ (2015) Networks of injustice and worker mobilisation at Walmart. Industrial Relations Journal.

 

Other Publications

Wood AJ, Martindale N and Burchell B (2023) Gig rights & gig wrongs initial findings from the Gig Rights Project: Labour rights, co-determination, collectivism and job quality in the UK gig economy. Co-Determination, Collectivism and Job Quality in the UK Gig Economy.

Wood A.J (2021) Algorithmic Management: Consequences for Work Organisation and Working Conditions. Interim Report – Prepared for the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

Graham M, Lehonvirta V, Wood A.J, Barnard H, Hjorth I, Simon D.P (2017) The Risks and Rewards of Digital Gig Work at The Global Margins. University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute.

Wood A.J, Burchell B.J and Coutts A (2016) From Zero Joy to Zero Stress: Making Flexible Scheduling Work: The University of Cambridge Zero2Zero Workshops. A report published as part of a ESRC Impact Acceleration Award project.

Wood A.J and Burchell B.J (2014) Zero Hour Contracts as a Source of Job Insecurity. Report submitted March 2014 to the UK Government Department of Business Innovation and Skills Consultation on Zero Hour Contracts.

Wood A.J (2013) Organising the Future. A report for the Union of Shop, Distribution and Allied Workers (USDAW).

Grants and Projects

2022: University of Bristol School of Management General Research Funding Grant (value: £4288) to fund 'Gig Rights Project'.

2021: BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (value: £10,000) to fund ‘Gig Rights Project’.

2015 Grant: ESRC Impact Acceleration Award based upon Alex Wood's PhD research (Principle Investigator: Brendan Burchell) (value: £9821.34).

2014 Grant: Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust Supplementary Funding (value: £6,916).

2013 Grant: University of Cambridge Overseas Fieldwork Funding (value: £1,340).

2013 Scholarship: ESRC Overseas Fieldwork Research Funding (value: £1,272).

2010 Scholarship: ESRC 1+3 Studentship at the University of Cambridge (value: approx. £73,000).

Research Groups & Affiliations

Awards

2020: Shortlisted for SAGE Prizes for Innovation and Excellence for Sociology article: ‘Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy.’

2020: Shortlisted for SAGE Prizes for Innovation and Excellence for Work, Employment and Society article: ‘Good gig, bad gig: autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy.’

2017: University of Oxford Reward and Recognition Scheme Award for Excellence

2013: Best PhD paper at Work, Employment and Society 2013 Conference (value: £500 bursary + £150 prize).

2009: Aston University School of Languages and Social Sciences Best Student (value: £120).

Job Title:
Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology
Alex Wood
Contact Information: