aikyam school

Full Caseworker Discretion and System Sabotage

Implementing decision-support software under a policy of full caseworker discretion without binding incentives leads frontline staff to disregard or actively sabotage the system. While restricting discretion risks crowding out intrinsic caseworker motivation and ignoring valuable private information, complete discretion renders statistical targeting tools ineffective.

Picture this

Imagine giving a veteran ship captain an automated weather navigation computer, but leaving its use completely optional. If the captain believes personal intuition is superior and fears the computer might eventually replace human judgment, the captain will leave the computer turned off and navigate strictly by memory.

What the evidence says

15% of treatment caseworkers (21 out of 142) never downloaded predictions for any client, overall predictions were inspected for only 37% of jobseekers, and IV estimates confirmed that downloading predictions had no statistically significant effect on compliance rates (0.00 to -0.05 across specifications).

Who
N = 142 treatment caseworkers managing jobseekers across Swiss regional employment offices in a randomized pilot experiment (excluding Geneva).
How
Randomized field study utilizing server access logs to track download frequencies, combined with Instrumental Variables (2SLS) estimation using caseworker randomization as an instrument for prediction downloads.

What to do

Design algorithmic implementation protocols that combine caseworker discretion with explicit compliance incentives or mandatory justification requirements when deviating from statistical predictions.

From the source

"Without strong incentives or coercion, caseworkers may ignore or sabotage a system that is intended to provide information only."

Targeting_Labour_Market_Programmes_Results_from_a_Randomized_Experiment.pdf

Tagged

  • caseworker discretion
  • system sabotage
  • algorithmic adoption

Nearby findings