The research group investigated the impact of the digitalisation of work on employees in industry, logistics and services. It identified possibilities of different actors in enterprises to shape the conditions of work while also asked about the possibilities of their regulation through collective contracts or the law.
This research group conducted research at the Weizenbaum Institute from 2017 to 2022. In the newly launched research program, research will henceforth be organised in 16 research groups. These will be flanked and supported by the new Weizenbaum Digital Science Center.
The focus of our research rested on work in automated processes. Yet “automation” was understood in a broad sense, encompassing not only the application of machines and robots, but also the proliferation of the industrial internet, digital process management and artificial intelligence in the worlds of work.
While the application of such technologies may lead to a substitution of workers in some cases, it mostly rather implies a shift in task assignments and a modification of social relations of actors within and between economic entities.
Our research therefore asked how the transformation of the new digital workplace is linked with comprehensive socio-technical transformations affecting the structure and hierarchies in (global) production networks, the emergence of new business models and the hybridisation of products and processes.
Prof. Dr. Martin Krzywdzinski, Principal Investigator
Dr. Florian Butollo; Research Group Lead
Communication formats of the research group
Twitter: @WZB_GlobalWork
To the current research program