Project Details
Projekt
Autonomy and control in digital work contexts of high-reliability organizations: The cases of medical centers and airports (ANDROMEDA)
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Accounting and Finance
Accounting and Finance
Term
since 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442170935
Currently, digitalization is changing work contexts significantly and this has a high impact on worker perception of autonomy and control. The perception of autonomy and control is crucial for worker performance in organizations. This is especially true for high-reliability organizations and services like medical and health and security services or sensitive transportation systems like air traffic. It is the aim of this project to analyze perceptions of autonomy and control in digitalized work contexts with a special focus on high-reliability organizations. Addressed new application fields regarding digital changeover impacts for autonomy and control perception of workers in high-reliability organizations are the two cases of medical centers and airports. Medical centers provide essential health services and deal with emergencies and life-critical events. At the same time, medical centers are a node for digital developments within the health care sector. Airports are similarly important transportation hubs with crucial security and mobility functions for the economy and society. They are regionally important for high-reliability services and at the same time make up a global network of passenger and cargo air traffic. In addition, digital developments affect work in airports in an profound way e.g. by passengers and cargo administration processes being transferred to digital applications. In both cases, workplaces show a high degree of technology, teams are highly specialized, exposed to high physical and psychological stress, have rapidly changing work intensity, process a large amount of data, are confronted with important decision situations and act in situations where small mistakes may have fatal consequences which is why the perception of autonomy and control and the resulting effects for work engagement and cooperation in teams are critical. A mixed-methods study design will provide insights into perceptions of autonomy and control as well as cooperation between workers. The empirical investigation comprises (1) expert interviews with the strategic organizational level, (2) participating observations (incl. observation interviews) and (3) guided problem-centered interviews with workers. The qualitative results obtained will (4) be generalized with a quantitative survey by comparing the perception of autonomy and control in different work contexts. The project mainly relates to the levels of micro and meso developments in organizations through digital change and adresses the impact dimensions “permeating, “making available” and “perpetuating” for the workforce. The results of the present research project are relevant for the discussion about the perception of autonomy and control and its effects in digitalized workplaces on the workforce and the cooperation in teams, for the design of HRO and the process design in logistics companies.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
