Patching Algorithmic Management: The Invisible Role of Support in Digital Delivery Platforms

ABSTRACT This article addresses a blind spot in the debate on platform algorithmic management: what happens after disruption. While existing studies have documented how platform workers resist and contest algorithmic control, far less is known about how platforms stabilise and recalibrate control in everyday operations. We introduce the concept of patching to theorise these counteractions as socio‐technical processes through which discontinuities in algorithmic management are identified, prioritised, and provisionally resolved. Drawing on a qualitative case study of food‐delivery platforms in Chile, based on interviews with couriers, support staff, consumers, and other actors, we examine the role of internal support work in sustaining algorithmic control. Our findings show that patching relies on labour‐intensive practices that translate disruptions into manageable problems while preserving the appearance of automated decision‐making. By bringing support work into view, the article challenges technological determinism and binary platform‐worker framings, and highlights the organisational labour through which algorithmic management is continuously produced, repaired, and normalised.