The Faceless Employer: Algorithmic HRM, Psychological Contract Mutation, and the Erosion of Occupational Self

Abstract

When algorithms evaluate, promote, and discipline workers, who exactly is the employer? This article argues that the deployment of machine-learning AI in human resource management (HRM) does not merely breach or violate the psychological contract. It mutates it structurally by generating what we term the faceless employer: an algorithmic decisional entity that exercises managerial authority without the four relational attributes historically grounding such authority: visibility, moral accountability, reciprocal obligation capacity, and interpersonal recognition. Building on and departing from Charlwood and Guenole’s (2022) paradox analysis, we develop an integrative three-stage model introducing three interconnected constructs (the faceless employer, psychological contract mutation, and erosion of the occupational self) supported by four formal propositions and anchored in secondary empirical evidence. We argue that the paradox of AI in HRM, previously conceived at the organizational level, is simultaneously enacted at the individual psychological level, and that without deliberate HR intervention to restore human relational presence alongside algorithmic systems, the erosion of workers’ occupational self follows a self-reinforcing path from which recovery becomes progressively more difficult. The article contributes to the ongoing dialogue on AI and work by shifting attention from algorithmic bias and efficiency, both well-covered terrain, to the under-theorised relational and identity consequences of depersonalised managerial authority.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, psychological contract, occupational identity, algorithmic management, human resource management, faceless employer

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/18-4-05

Publication date: April 30^th 2026