Year: 2023
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Having reached the end of this book, we will now draw a provisional conclusion and give an outlook on further projects.As already mentioned in the introduction (Hartmann and Shajek 2022, this volume), the Institute for Innovation and Technology (iit) has been working on the future of work for many years.In the publications of the 2010-2020 decade (in particular the volumes by Botthof and Hartmann 2015; Wischmann and Hartmann, 2018), the main aim was to present fundamental theories on the then still new topic of Industry 4.0, to initiate a socio-political discourse, and subsequently to compile and focus on practical examples from the field of research and development.In the early 2020s, a new substantive focus was then set on digital sovereignty and outlined in its complexity with two edited volumes (Hartmann 2021, 2022).In the present publication, we now put the workplace in the center and focus on the opportunities, possibilities, and limits of digital sovereignty from a wide range of academic disciplines, for different industries and in different parts of the world.What becomes clear is: Digitalization now permeates almost every aspect of our workplace, it has complex and multi-layered effects, and it can only be analyzed here by way of example.At the same time, our work is characterized by a fundamentally optimistic view: Digitalization can enable sovereignty in the first place or promote sovereignty and open up the scope for action, for example, with the help of digital assistance systems (see the contribution by Bächler and Behrendt 2022, this volume) or through the possibilities of digitally supported education (see the contributions by Kanyane 2022, this volume and Windelband 2022, this volume).In addition, approaches are presented to positively shape the change towards digital work.The underlying assumption here is that there is also freedom of choice in the digital workplace and no technological determinism (see also Botthof and Hartmann 2015).All facets resulting from the dimensions transparency and explainability, confidence and freedom of action for people, and technology and organization (Hartmann and Shajek 2022, this volume) can be positively influenced.This focus inevitably leaves out some aspects that will, however, also be of central importance for the (digital) future of work: From a work psychology perspective, these include questions of psychological stress resulting from the changed working conditions and corresponding occupational health management issues (some individual aspects are, however, dealt with in the article by Mayer et al. 2022, in this volume).But there are also many aspects arising from the digitalization of workplaces for the interactions of employees, e.g., for the cooperation between supervisors and their employees.In this context, these are common conditions for success in digital work (see, e.g., Busch-Heizmann et al. 2021).Digital work platforms are also given far less consideration (cf.Hartmann and Shajek 2022, in this volume), which might be a consequence of the
Source: Springer eBooks
Authors: Alexandra Shajek, Ernst Andreas Hartmann
Institution: VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik
Language: English
Topic: Legal and Labor Studies
Subfield: Industrial relations
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4367155656