Mario Michael Ottaiano
About
Mario Michael Ottaiano is a research associate at the Weizenbaum Institute and a doctoral candidate at Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg/University of the Federal Armed Forces at the Chair of International Labour Relations. He studied sociology at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees with a focus on economic, industrial and labour sociology issues. The general focus of his work is on the qualitative analysis of digitalisation processes in companies and their impact on the work of employees. He is also interested in the role of works councils and trade unions in socio-ecological transformation processes.
In his cumulative dissertation, he deals with the dual structural change, i.e. the digital and socio-ecological transformation of work, employees and their interest groups. Within this context, his research focuses on the perceptions of employees, works councils and trade unions as key stakeholders in dealing with new digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, but also against the backdrop of the restructuring of business models, production methods and work processes in companies.
Mario Michael Ottaiano focuses on different working environments (e.g. industrial production environments, but also office areas) and, consequently, different qualification levels (skilled workers in the blue-collar sector, but also highly qualified workers in the white-collar sector) as well as the different operational levels at which the two aforementioned transformations take place and are perceived and shaped from the perspective of employees, their interest groups, but also from the perspective of management representatives.
Key concepts in the sociology of work that he focuses on are the connection between “technology and experiential knowledge”, “participation and recognition” in technologically induced change processes, and the “transformation of negotiation and co-determination processes”.
Research Group: Working with Artificial Intelligence
Contact
Fields of Research
Mario Michael Ottaiano conducts research on:
- (generative) artificial intelligence and work
- technologically induced change in experiential knowledge and employment
- the digital transformation of skilled blue-collar and white-collar work
- the role and practice of works councils and trade unions in digital and socio-ecological transformation processes
- the transformation of workplace negotiation and co-determination processes
- the function of future-oriented and social collective agreements in the context of german industrial relations
Artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (genAI), digital and socio-ecological transformation, future of work, experiential knowledge, recognition, participation, co-determination and democracy in the world of work, industrial relations
Selected publications
- Ottaiano M. (2025). Tarifvertrag for Future? Potentiale und Grenzen betrieblicher Transformationspolitik am Beispiel der IG Metall Baden-Württemberg. In P. Bartelheimer & S. Ötsch (eds.), Konversion: Wirtschaftsdemokratie für den sozialökologischen Umbau (36th, pp. 109-137). Metropolis-Verlag.
- Ottaiano M. (2025). Neue Herausforderungen für die betriebliche Einführung von generativer KI: Zur Rolle von Partizipation und Anerkennung. Arbeits- und industriesoziologische Studien, 18(2), 143-162
Publications
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