Project Details
Projekt
The digital transformation of the labour market: intermediaries, infrastructure, and institutional change
Applicant
Professor Dr. Hans J. Pongratz
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Term
since 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442171347
The digitalisation of work has not only caused significant changes in the range of jobs that are accessible through the labour market, but also in the methods and practices by which these jobs are mediated. The project will therefore focus on the digital transformation of processes and procedures on the labour market, which are particularly apparent in new platform models for recruiting personnel or organising jobs for the self-employed. The effects of this emerging digital infrastructure on the institutional system of the labour market will be examined from a primarily macrosociological perspective. The starting point for the analysis will be the digitalisation strategies of intermediary organisations that are driving the transformation of the labour market forward with innovative digital business models (crowdworking, online job boards, networking sites, etc.) as well as on the basis of conventional staffing services (temporary employment, headhunting, etc.).Research will be conducted on the interplay between the strategies used by the intermediaries, the ways in which digital infrastructure operates and the institutional framework conditions on the labour market. The objectives of the project are to empirically map this change process and to interpret its transformative potential from a socio-analytical perspective. On the one hand, the analysis will focus on the relationship between the identified digitalisation strategies and the efforts to flexibilise and deregulate labour markets, which have long been pursued and legitimised in discourse by the global employment industry. On the other hand, the project will look into the impact the digital transformation of intermediation processes has on the prevailing institutional structure (especially public employment services, industrial relations, education and social policy). Due to the centrality of the socio-economic function of labour markets, the project can make a substantial contribution to the issue of systemic transformation with many points of contact within the Priority Programme. Using qualitative methods (especially expert interviews and document analyses), the empirical analysis will include case studies of intermediaries and development scenarios for digital infrastructure. The theoretical framework will involve socio-analytical concepts of platforms and their intermediary functions, which can be found across the sub-disciplines of the sociology of labour, the sociology of technology and economic sociology. This project will also adopt analytical approaches used in labour market research to interpret the institutional consequences and the associated social changes. By focusing on the processes of intermediation on the labour market, the project will contribute to fundamental research on the sociology of intermediary organisations, the evolution of the platform economy and the flexibilisation of employment relationships.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
