Authors:Alice Melchior, Simone Haasler Pages: 156 - 159 Abstract: Digitalization is engendering profound societal transformation that is significantly restructuring our working lives. For society, and the world of work in particular, digitalization presents a major challenge, as the digital transformation of work does not simply relate to technological innovation; rather, it involves a complex sociotechnical process that is socially prepared, technically enabled, and discursively negotiated, and that ultimately must be individually mastered. As a result, the ongoing digitalization of “working worlds” is characterized by multiple dimensions and processes that evolve and proceed unevenly. These processes interact in complex ways, not uncommonly contradicting each other. Against this background, this thematic issue explores some of the implications and dynamics of the digital transformation of work concerning social inclusion. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7686 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Lene Baumgart, Pauline Boos, Katharina Braunsmann Pages: 160 - 171 Abstract: In the digitalization debate, gender biases in digital technologies play a significant role because of their potential for social exclusion and inequality. It is therefore remarkable that organizations as drivers of digitalization and as places for social integration have been widely overlooked so far. Simultaneously, gender biases and digitalization have structurally immanent connections to organizations. Therefore, a look at the reciprocal relationship between organizations, digitalization, and gender is needed. The article provides answers to the question of whether and how organizations (re)produce, reinforce, or diminish gender‐specific inequalities during their digital transformations. On the one hand, gender inequalities emerge when organizations use post‐bureaucratic concepts through digitalization. On the other hand, gender inequalities are reproduced when organizations either program or implement digital technologies and fail to establish control structures that prevent gender biases. This article shows that digitalization can act as a catalyst for inequality‐producing mechanisms, but also has the potential to mitigate inequalities. We argue that organizations must be considered when discussing the potential of exclusion through digitalization. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7056 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Monika Nerland, Mervi Hasu, Miria Grisot Pages: 172 - 183 Abstract: Primary health services are subjected to intensified digitalisation to transform care provision. Various smart and assistive technologies are introduced to support the growing elderly population and enhance the opportunities for independent living among patients in need of continuous care. Research has shown how such digitalisation processes evolve at the intersection of different and often competing discourses, oriented towards service efficiency, cost containment, technological innovation, client‐centred care, and digital competence development. Often, increased technology use is presented as a solution to pressing problems. However, how discourses are negotiated in work contexts and their mechanisms of social inclusion/exclusion in evolving work practices have received less attention. This article examines how care workers in the primary health sector are discursively positioned when care technologies are introduced in the services. We employ a perspective on discourses and subject positions in analysing strategic documents and interviews with care workers in a large Norwegian city. We show how managerial discourses that focus narrowly on the implementation and mastery of single technologies provide limited spaces for workers to exert influence on their work situations, while discourses that emphasise professional knowledge or broader technological and organisational aspects provide a variety of resources for workers’ agency. The way care workers adopt and negotiate subject positions varies based on their tasks and responsibilities in the organisation. We discuss the need to move beyond “solutionism” in efforts to digitalise care work in order to provide inclusive spaces supporting the contributions of various worker groups. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7121 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Stefano De Marco, Guillaume Dumont, Ellen Johanna Helsper, Alejandro Díaz-Guerra, Mirko Antino, Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz, José-Luis Martínez-Cantos Pages: 184 - 197 Abstract: This article examines how inequalities in digital skills shape the outcomes of online job‐seeking processes. Building on a representative survey of Spanish job seekers, we show that people with high digital skill levels have a greater probability of securing a job online, because of their ability to create a coherent profile and make their application visible. Additionally, it is less probable that they will experience burnout during this process than job seekers with low digital skill levels. Given the concentration of digital skills amongst people with high levels of material and digital resources, we conclude that the internet enforces existing material and health inequalities. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7017 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Anja-Kristin Abendroth, Antje Schwarz Pages: 198 - 210 Abstract: The spread of digital communication in the employee–supervisor exchange relation has increased the risks of blurred boundaries between life domains and, subsequently, the need for work–life supportive supervisor behaviors (WLSSB). However, media richness and social presence theory indicate that WLSSB is simultaneously at risk because close bonds with supervisors are more difficult to develop and challenges in integrating work and personal life are more difficult to be signaled and understood. Following social network theory in the argument that it is not only the characteristic of the medium that is of importance but also the social embeddedness of its use, this research asks to what extent the association of digital communication with one’s supervisor and perceived WLSSB is context‐dependent. The overall results based on the European Social Survey (round 10) reveal that in‐person communication is more strongly associated with WLSSB than digital communication. However, more nuanced investigations suggest that this is not necessarily driven by the richness of the mode of communication. We find that the meaning of digital communication with one’s supervisor gains importance in size and significance (a) where it complements seldom in‐person communication, (b) where the organizational norm of high work devotion is weak, and (c) where work–life supportive state policies are pronounced. We conclude that the implications of digital communication for WLSSB are dependent on the centrality of digital communication in opportunities for the exchange of WLSSB and dependent on supervisors’ interest and agency to enact WLSSB in digital work communication. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7084 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Ines Entgelmeier, Timothy Rinke Pages: 211 - 224 Abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICTs) promote flexible forms of work. Based on analyses of data from the German BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey 2018, this article shows that ICT (computer/internet) use is associated with both overtime and better temporal alignment of work and private life. Additional analyses show that these associations differ by gender and parenthood. Especially if also working from home, men with and without children do more overtime when they use ICTs than women with and without children. Better temporal alignment is found only among men without children who use ICTs and work from home compared to women without children. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7128 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Sebastian Schongen Pages: 225 - 238 Abstract: Digitalisation has a wide range of impacts on the workplace, such as enabling new work models with flexible work schedules, changing work content, or increasing workplace control. These changes directly affect not only individuals’ work but also their private lives. Scholars theorise that digitalisation either enables or impedes workers’ ability to maximise their work–life balance, which in turn fosters or inhibits the social inclusion of some societal groups and reduces or reproduces social inequalities. Focusing on the German healthcare sector, I explore the impact of using networked digital technologies on work–life balance, and whether it influences gender and educational inequalities. Pressured by government, economic concerns, and medical innovation, this sector is undergoing a transformation process that is expediting the introduction of new networked digital technologies. Thus, it provides an ideal setting for empirical investigation, as one core assumption about digitalisation is that technological innovation at work has societal consequences that must be individually mastered. To assess the relationship between digitalisation and work–life balance, I use survey data from hospital employees on the use of networked digital technologies and individual outcomes. The research is designed as a natural experiment. The treatment group comprises employees at a university hospital equipped with cutting‐edge networked digital technologies (N = 1,117); the control group comprises employees at several church‐owned hospitals (N = 415) with a level of digitalisation corresponding to the average for the sector. I first discuss confounders and then employ quantitative methods to establish a link between digitalisation and work–life balance, assess its direction, and address gender and educational inequalities. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7117 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Davide Arcidiacono, Giorgio Piccitto Pages: 239 - 250 Abstract: A great deal of the literature has underlined how job quality is a key element in individual well‐being. However, the rise in platform work challenges this issue, since not only do “plat‐firms” play an increasingly important role in job matching, work organization, and industrial relations, but they also increase the risks of a poorly inclusive socio‐technical system in terms of the quality of working conditions and accessibility. In this sense, the platform economy is intertwined with multiple forms of social exclusion by acting on pre‐existing inequalities that stratify workers within the labor market. This is particularly true in Italy, a country with a strongly dualistic labor market, which leads to a remarkable gap between insider and outsider workers. Therefore, the goal of our analysis is to evaluate the impact of the platform model on job quality in the Italian context. This will be accomplished by adopting an integrated and multidimensional perspective through the application of the OECD Job Quality Framework. The analysis identifies how job quality is differently affected by the type of platform work involved in terms of creating differentiated patterns of social inclusion/exclusion in the case of platform workers. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7043 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Dominik Klaus, Barbara Haas, Maddalena Lamura Pages: 251 - 261 Abstract: This article is about those who need or want to make a living from working on online platforms. Moreover, questions of financial dependence are related to why this work is done and what social recognition the workers expect from it. Our mixed‐methods approach captures this heterogeneous field of online platform work by dividing it into three categories: (a) microwork, (b) mesowork, and (c) macrowork. Microwork involves offering short, repetitive tasks to an anonymous crowd, such as human intelligence tasks. Macrowork consists of market‐based freelance platforms offering highly skilled professionals complex and more extensive tasks. In between, mesowork covers platforms offering specialized tasks such as software testing or content creation. While income opportunities and working conditions vary widely between these platforms, common features include self‐employment and the ability to work from anywhere. Quantitative results show that only for a few highly skilled workers does income from platform work account for a crucial share of their household income. Surprisingly, workers’ household incomes do not differ by skill level. Qualitative results complement this picture by giving us a more contextual understanding of the significant variation among workers. We find cases in which monetary remuneration is not the only reason for doing platform work. So, despite all the criticism of precarious working conditions, platform work does have some positive aspects and can also hold the potential for the social inclusion of people who cannot participate in traditional labor markets. This article contributes to these discussions by providing workers’ perspectives on the risks and challenges of online platform work, acknowledging their different living situations, socioeconomic status, and health issues. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7186 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Laura Wiesböck, Julia Radlherr, Mai Linh Angelique Vo Pages: 262 - 273 Abstract: Previous studies show that gig economy‐based work opens up new ways in which inequalities are (re)produced. In this context, it is particularly important to look at female cleaners in private households, where gender inequalities intersect with other axes of disadvantage such as class, migratory experience, or ascribed ethnicity. This spatially and linguistically fragmented group presents challenges for scientific research, which is reflected in insufficient data available to date. The aim of the project GigClean—from which research for this article is drawn—is to address this gap. The guiding research question is: How do domestic cleaners in the informal labour market experience working in the gig economy' The methodological design consists of 15 problem‐centred interviews with platform‐based cleaning labourers in private households in Vienna, who predominantly operate in the informal economy. Our results suggest that undeclared domestic work via online plat‐forms is associated with increased power gaps between workers and clients as well as changing working conditions to the detriment of cleaners. Specifically, three recurring themes could be identified: reserve army mechanisms; lookism, objectification, and sexual harassment; and information asymmetry and control. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7119 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Authors:Teresa Sophie Friedrich, Basha Vicari Pages: 274 - 286 Abstract: The Covid‐19 pandemic caused a digitalization boost, mainly through the rise of telework. Even before the pandemic, advancing digital transformation restructured the way of working and thereby changed the quality of jobs—albeit at a different pace across occupations. With data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we examine how job quality and the use of digital technologies changed during the first pandemic year in different occupations. Building on this, we analyze change score models to investigate how increased workplace digitalization connects to changes in selected aspects of employees’ subjective job quality. We find only a weak association between the digitalization boost in different occupational fields and the overall decrease in subjective job quality. However, telework—as one aspect of digitalization—is connected to a smaller decrease in work–family reconciliation and conformable working hours. Thus, it may buffer some detrimental pandemic effects on job quality. In addition, telework is connected to increased information overload, creating a new burden for specific employee groups. PubDate: 2023-11-15 DOI: 10.17645/si.v11i4.7082 Issue No:Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
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