SPP 2267:  The digitalisation of working worlds. Conceptualising and capturing a systemic transformation

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences ; Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine ; Humanities ; Geosciences ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
• Term: since 2020
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422743478

The Priority Programme 2267 (PP) investigates the digitalisation of the working worlds to be a systemic transformation that could change all the institutional systems of the society of work in a fundamental and lasting way. The intention is to research the digital transformation as an interaction of three dynamics in which this socio-technical change is: a) socially prepared, b) technically enabled and c) discursively negotiated and socially mastered. The PP investigates the societal conditions and ways of shaping the current digitalisation of the society of work, and the dynamics and impact of this systemic transformation. The aim is to achieve and deepen an interdisciplinary combination of perspectives from the social sciences, economics, and history on new configurations of work and technology, on multi-layered dynamics of change and on changing forms and places of value creation. The task of the Coordination and Synergy Project (CSP) is to create and manage the organisational infrastructure necessary for achieving the overall goals of the PP in the 2nd funding phase. The coordination supports the PP substantially with original research contributions. To ensure this sustainably, the administrative-organisational objectives of coordination and the theoretical-methodical objectives of a synthesis of interdisciplinary content are closely interlinked and pursued in an integrative approach. The CSP is not only a coordinating unit of the PP, but also a methodically, and theoretically synergy-facilitating unit. The synergy objectives are deeply integrated into the coordination objectives of the CSP. Its purpose is to identify areas of connection between individual projects and over funding phases and to develop strategies for their interdisciplinary elaboration. The inten¬tion is not to delegate responsibility for theory development or for the overarching research ques¬tions to a single but largely detached and self-contained theory project, but to ensure that each individual project, as well as the PP network, has access to the content, the structures, and the methods they need to engage in the joint task of interdisciplinary theory building. The content work of the CSP will provide a theoretical and methodological basis for answering questions regarding how individual projects can capture and conceptualise the digitalisation of working worlds as systemic transformation. The CSP’s fundamental task – realizing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary coordination and synergy within the PP and across both funding periods – are accomplished by focusing these objectives: (1) creating inward-directed structures within the PP to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration; (2) promoting and securing the PP’s interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary visibility; (3) initiating and coordinating structures of academic self-governance and peer leadership within the PP; (4) supporting young academics; and (5) ensuring equal opportunity within the PP.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Belgium, Canada, Norway

Projects

• 2C-NOW: Collaboration and Coordination in Networks of Work - Phase 2: Hybrid Workgroups and Workspaces (Applicants Schubert, Petra ;  Williams, Susan )
• Artificial Vision at Work: The Digital Transformation of Work as a Transformation of the Practice and Organisation of Seeing (Applicants Heinlein, Michael ;  Seising, Ph.D., Rudolf )
• Autonomy and control in digital work contexts of high-reliability organizations: The cases of medical centers and airports (ANDROMEDA) (Applicants Klumpp, Matthias ;  Ruiner, Caroline )
• Characteristics of Digital Technologies and Gender Inequality at Work (Applicants Abraham, Martin ;  Niessen, Cornelia )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Pfeiffer, Sabine )
• Cultures of malfunctioning. The long and difficult history of the digitally networked factory (Applicant Heßler, Martina )
• Data Work. The Development of the IT Service Industry in Germany, 1950s-1990s. (Applicant Homberg, Michael )
• Digital and Ecological Transformations in the Regulatory Environment of Labour Relations (Applicant Haipeter, Thomas )
• Digital Transformation in Healthcare: From Digital Tools to Digital Actors (DigiAct) (Applicants Rosenkranz, Christoph ;  Seeger-Nukpezah, Tamina ;  Sunyaev, Ali )
• Digitalization and Deep Structural Change: Is the Platformization of the Healthcare Sector Inevitable? (Applicants Reimers, Kai ;  Schellhammer, Stefan )
• Does the macro-level matter? A comparative analysis of institutional frameworks and gigwork platforms across EU-28 countries (Applicants Beyer, Jürgen ;  Kirchner, Stefan )
• Dynamics of the digital transformation: permeation, making available, and perpetuating in the process of digitalization within the healthcare sector (Applicants Melchior, Alice ;  Pollak, Reinhard )
• Flexibility in Digitalized Working Worlds: Use and implications of telecommuting and digital work communication across European countries (Applicant Abendroth, Anja-Kristin )
• Organizational Implications of Digitalization: the Development of (Post-)Bureaucratic Organisational Structures in the Context of Digital Transformation (Applicants Apelt, Maja ;  Kühl, Stefan )
• Politics of Inscription in the digital transformation: The Labour Process in the intersection of firm strategies and technology design (Applicants Kratzer, Nick ;  Neumaier, Christopher ;  Nies, Sarah )
• The digital transformation of the labour market: intermediaries, infrastructure, and institutional change (Applicant Pongratz, Hans J. )
• The effects of technology diffusion and narratives on firms and workers (Applicant Bachmann, Ronald )
• The Post-Pandemic Digitalisation Surge and Inequality (DigiCLASS2) – (Un-)Equal Experiences and Work-Life Trajectories (Applicant Holst, Hajo )
• The social construction of human-robot co-work in context: narratives, robot platforms, and institutional settings (SoCoRob II) (Applicants Meister, Martin ;  Schulz-Schaeffer, Ingo )
• Towards a digital transformation of the legal professions? Practices and Regulation of Digitalisation in the Legal System (Applicants Apitzsch, Birgit ;  Rehder, Britta )

• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Sabine Pfeiffer