Algorithmic work systems are commonly evaluated through technical properties such as accuracy, reliability, consistency, or predictive performance. These properties are important but incomplete when algorithms also allocate work, shape discretion, structure evaluation, influence consequential judgments, and redistribute authority between employees, managers, and computational systems. This Original Conceptual Framework Article develops an organizational-safety perspective centered on employees’ capacity to identify, communicate, escalate, contest, and interrupt algorithm-mediated decisions without disproportionate penalty. The article integrates scholarship on algorithmic control, work design, employee voice and silence, safety communication, human–AI judgment, and organizational governance. Its principal proposed contribution is an Organizational Safety and Dissent Rights Framework that distinguishes protected voice from mere channel availability, escalation from initial reporting, human override authority from nominal human presence, and non-retaliation from formal permission to speak. The framework proposes that organizational safety depends on connected capacities for hazard recognition, protected reporting, responsive listening and escalation, usable human override, reasoned review and recourse, and learning. These relationships are conceptual propositions rather than validated causal effects. Their operation is expected to depend on hierarchy, employment precarity, task stakes, time pressure, expertise, algorithmic opacity, local voice climate, and institutional context. The framework therefore offers a bounded basis for theorizing and testing organizational safety beyond technical reliability without claiming universal applicability, implementation readiness, or demonstrated organizational effectiveness.
