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The Growing Gap Between Pioneers and Laggards: Digitalization, automation, and organizational change in the wake of the COVID-19-crisis in Germany
Get PDFThe COVID 19 crisis has had a massive impact on the world of work. Based on a standardized survey of 540 company sites and 34 qualitative case studies in six industries (automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering, logistics, healthcare and financial services), this study examines how companies’ digitalization and automation strategies have changed in the context of the pandemic. The analysis shows that the companies surveyed have by and large coped well with the crisis. However, an increasing polarization is becoming apparent. Digital pioneers intensified digitalization measures to a greater extent than those that were already behind in this respect before the pandemic. The focus of digitalization during the pandemic was particularly on supporting processes in administration, human resources management and sales. Automation also primarily played a role in these fields and only a minority of respondents expected employment losses in the medium term. Another key finding of this study is the correlation between technical and organizational innovation. It can be observed that those companies that invested more heavily in technical digitalization processes were also more inclined to make organizational changes with regard to management styles, working hours and work organization.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
From private digital platforms to public data spaces. Implications for the digital transformation
Get PDFTechnological developments such as Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence continue to drive the digital transformation of business and society. With the advent of platform-based ecosystems and their potential to address complex challenges, there is a trend towards greater interconnectedness between different stakeholders to co-create services based on the provision and use of data. While previous research on digital transformation mainly focused on digital transformation within organizations, it is of growing importance to understand the implications for digital transformation on different layers (e.g., interorganizational cooperation and platform ecosystems). In particular, the conceptualization and implications of public data spaces and related ecosystems provide promising research opportunities. This special issue contains five papers on the topic of digital transformation and, with the editorial, further contributes by providing an initial conceptualization of public data spaces' potential to foster innovative progress and digital transformation from a management perspective
Making Sense of EU Platform Regulation
Get PDFThe platforms that hold the power in the digital economy, and the politics that surround them, are a central topic in contemporary political economy. The EU is widely perceived as a digital laggard, as it is home to very few leading digital corporations, and it is exposed to the market hegemony of the Big Tech platforms. Moreover, the EU is often considered the pioneer of digital regulation, and its platform politics have gained momentum as the EU Commission has unleashed a swathe of new regulatory initiatives, ranging from competition policies to governance of digital content, data flows and platform work. In this essay, we treat platform control and regulation as a matter of contested market design. We offer an analysis of the recent stream of EU platform regulation, questioning how it relates to the historical trajectory of the platform economy and established path dependencies within the EU. We argue that it is characterized by a critical approach to the power of digital platforms and a continuation of negative integration in the EU, and we suggest that it should be understood as a manifestation of counter-hegemonic neoliberalism, as it essentially enforces market-based governance of society through political market design
Zwischen Wissenschaft, Praxis und Politik: Wie Juristen Gesetzgebungsverfahren in Fachzeitschriften begleiten
Get PDFDie Rechtswissenschaft setzt sich in Zeiten transparenter Gesetzgebungsverfahren umfassend mit den Entwürfen und Vorschlägen für Gesetze und Richtlinien auseinander. Dadurch werden Wissenschaftler zu Sprechern im Diskurs mit Interessenverbänden, Rechtspraktikerinnen und Politikern, die sich während eines Gesetzgebungsverfahrens öffentlich zu Wort melden. Auch wenn sich Wissenschaft und Praxis damit in einem Diskursraum begegnen, so sind die methodischen Anforderungen an Beiträge zu diesem Diskurs doch nicht deckungsgleich. Für Beiträge mit wissenschaftlichem Anspruch können höhere Rationalitätsanforderungen gestellt werden als für jene mit rechtspraktischem Hintergrund. Die Beiträge zu laufenden Gesetzgebungsverfahren in juristischen Fachzeitschriften zeichnen jedoch ein verschwommenes Bild mit unklaren Grenzen zwischen den Rollen der Autoren und den methodischen Grundsätzen. Der Artikel betrachtet den gesetzgebungsbegleitenden Diskurs in juristischen Fachzeitschrif- ten aus der Perspektive der Diskurstheorie des Rechts und der juristischen Methodenlehre. Hierzu wird das empirische Beispiel der Reform des Europäischen Urheberrechts diskursanalytisch untersucht. Bei dieser politisch und gesellschaftlich umstrittenen Reform wurde von verschiedenen Akteuren, aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven und mit divergierenden Interessen um Deutungen, Setzungen und Interpretationen der Reform und ihrer Folgen gerungen. Anhand dieses Falles zeigt der vorliegende Beitrag das Verhältnis wissenschaftlicher und praktischer Diskursbeiträge auf und diskutiert theoretisch untermauerte Anforderungen an Gesetzgebungsverfahren-begleitende Diskurse in der Rechtswissenschaft.In times of transparent legislative processes, academic lawyers deal in-depth with drafts and proposals for laws and directives. As a result, scholars become spokespersons in the discourse with interest groups, legal practitioners, and politicians who speak out publicly during a legislative process. Even though science and practice meet in a discourse space, the methodological requirements for contributions to this discourse are not identical. Contributions with a scientific claim can be subject to higher rationality requirements than those with a legal practice background. However, contributions to ongoing legislative processes in legal journals provide a blurred picture with unclear boundaries between authors’ roles and methodological principles. This article examines legislative discourses in legal journals from the perspective of the discourse theory of law and legal methodology. For this purpose, the empirical example of the reform of the European copyright law is examined from the perspective of discourse theory. In this politically and socially controversial reform, different actors, from different perspectives and with diverging interests, struggled for interpretations of the reform and its consequences. Based on this case, the article describes the relationship between scientific and practical discourse contributions and discusses theoretically supported requirements for discourses in legal scholarship accompanying legislative processes
The influence of digital competences, self-organization, and independent learning abilities on students’ acceptance of digital learning.
Get PDFDespite digital learning disrupting traditional learning concepts and activities in higher education, for the successful integration of digital learning, the use and acceptance of the students are essential. This acceptance depends in turn on students’ characteristics and dispositions, among other factors. In our study, we investigated the influence of digital competences, self-organization, and independent learning abilities on students’ acceptance of digital learning and the influence of their acceptance on the resistance to the change from face-to-face to digital learning. To do so, we surveyed 350 students and analyzed the impact of the different dispositions using ordinary least squares regression analysis. We could confirm a significant positive influence of all the tested dispositions on the acceptance of digital learning. With the results, we can contribute to further investigating the underlying factors that can lead to more positive student perceptions of digital learning and build a foundation for future strategies of imple- menting digital learning into higher education successfully
Information processing on smartphones in public versus private
Get PDFPeople increasingly turn to news on mobile devices, often while out and about, attending to daily tasks. Yet, we know little about whether attention to and learning from information on a mobile differs by the setting of use. This study builds on Multiple Resource Theory (Wickens, 1984) and the Resource Competition Framework (Oulasvirta et al., 2005) to compare visual attention to a dynamic newsfeed, varying only the setting: private or public. We use mobile eye-tracking to evaluate the effects of setting on attention and assess correspondent learning differences after exposure to the feed, which allows us to uncover a relationship between attention and learning. Findings indicate higher visual attention to mobile newsfeed posts in public, relative to a private setting. Moreover, scrolling through news on a smartphone in public attenuates some knowledge gain but is beneficial for other learning outcomes
Weizenbaum Report 2022: Politische Partizipation in Deutschland
Get PDF**Deutsch**
Der Weizenbaum Report ist eine jährlich erscheinende Publikation zur politischen Partizipation in Deutschland. Er stellt Befunde der bevölkerungsrepräsentativen Befragung der Forschungseinheit Weizenbaum Panel vor, die seit 2019 durchgeführt wird. Im Zentrum steht die Untersuchung verschiedener Formen politischer Partizipation im Zeitverlauf und ihre Entwicklung unter Digitalisierungsbedingungen. Die dritte Welle aus dem Jahr 2021 untersuchte diesmal neben digitaler Partizipation insbesondere auch feministische Einstellungen und politische Geschlechternormen. Die Ergebnisse geben Aufschluss über Ansichten der deutschen Gesellschaft zu Geschlechterungleichheiten in der politischen Partizipation, über demokratisches Vertrauen im Kontext der Pandemie und die Wahrnehmung von Hass und Desinformation im Netz.**English**
The Weizenbaum Report is an annual publication on political participation in Germany. It presents findings from a survey representative of the population conducted by the Weizenbaum Panel research unit since 2019. The focus is on investigating various forms of political participation over time and their development against the backdrop of digitalization. In addition to digital participation, the third wave from 2021 examined feminist attitudes and political gender norms in particular. The results provide information about German society's views on gender inequality in political participation, democratic trust in the context of the pandemic, and common perceptions of hate and disinformation online.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Exploring the material conditions of online mobilisation
Get PDFDigital activism is now considered a widespread form of activism. Studies on its impact and use have proliferated. Most research into this phenomenon has tended to analyze the impact of digital technologies on action and activism. In contrast, this study explores the role of organizations and organizational structures, focusing on internal processes and the functioning of digital campaigning. Based on ethnographic observation and interviews with staff of online campaigning organizations, this paper presents findings on how digital communication and its logic can affect the organization’s internal processes. The paper challenges two established ideas: a) the idea of de-materialization of organizational structures from digital activism; b) that digital platforms tend to support the dissemination of opinions of previously marginalized actors. My fieldwork’s findings demonstrate that the reality in both cases is far more nuanced, with significant identifiable inconsistencies. This research shows that organizations and organizational structures have not de-materialized and that the material conditions of digital activism are key to better understanding this phenomenon and new forms of inequality it might generate
Mobile News Learning. Investigating Political Knowledge Gains in a Social Media Newsfeed with Mobile Eye Tracking
Get PDFThis study investigates whether knowledge gains from news post exposure are different when scrolling through a social media newsfeed on a smartphone compared to a desktop PC. While prior research has mostly focused on new platforms people receive news on (e.g., social media) for political learning, first indications exist that device modality (i.e. exposure on smartphone vs. desktop PC) itself alters news exposure patterns. With the help of mobile eye-tracking, this study investigates cognitive processes that enable learning from exposure among a student sample (n = 122). We extend prior research on the mediating role of attention for learning by investigating whether different frames of political news posts can attenuate this indirect relationship. The study uses a 2 × 2 mixed-subjects design, with the device being a between-subjects condition and news frames (episodic vs thematic) being a within-subjects condition. We find smaller knowledge gains from smartphone news exposure, which cannot be explained by differences in visual attention
International Regulation of Platform Labor. A Proposal for Action
Get PDFPlatform-mediated work is a source of livelihood for millions of workers worldwide. However, because platforms typically classify workers as ‘independent contractors’, those workers are generally excluded from the scope of labor rights. This has a corrosive effect on working standards of platform workers, creating the need for an international regulatory framework to prevent a race to the bottom. To address this situation, the article proposes an outline for an International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention for the regulation of platform work going beyond the employee/independent contractor dichotomy. It identifies five core issues in the platform economy – low pay, poor working conditions, inaccessible and unreasonable contracts, unfair management, and a lack of representation – and demonstrates how existing ILO standards could be adapted to address these issues. The proposals are informed by the evidence collected by the Fairwork project through its participatory and multidisciplinary research