9./10. März 2017 in Duisburg

Das Rhein-Ruhr Promovendensymposium ist eine Veranstaltung, die das Institut Arbeit und Qualifikation (IAQ) und das Institut für Soziologie (IfS) der Universität Duisburg-Essen organisieren. Das Organisations- und Programmkomitee besteht aus PD Dr. Martin Brussig (IAQ) und Prof. Dr. Marcel Erlinghagen (IfS). Eine Förderung bei der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung wurde beantragt und in den Vorjahren bewilligt.

Die jährlich ausgerichtete Veranstaltung richtet sich an Promovendinnen und Promovenden unterschiedlicher sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen und angrenzender Fächer (z.B. Soziologie, Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Politikwissenschaft), deren laufende Doktorarbeit einen Zusammenhang mit mindestens einem der beiden Oberthemen „Arbeit“ oder „Soziale Sicherheit“ aufweist. Im Rahmen des Symposiums besteht für die Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer die Möglichkeit, ihre im Entstehungsprozess befindliche Arbeit vorzustellen und mit erfahrenen Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern sowie anderen Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden intensiv zu diskutieren. Dabei sind sowohl theoretisch-konzeptionelle als auch empirische oder sozialpolitische Arbeiten gleichermaßen erwünscht.

Interessierte Promovendinnen und Promovenden können sich für die Präsentation ihrer Arbeit bewerben, indem sie bis zum 15. September 2016 eine Zusammenfassung ihres Vorhabens (maximal 3.000 Zeichen) einreichen. Eine Entscheidung über die Annahme des Vortragsvorschlags fällt spätestens bis zum 15. November 2016. Angenommene Bewerberinnen und Bewerber müssen den Organisatoren dann bis spätestens 31. Januar 2017 einen zusammenhängenden Aufsatz (maximal 60.000 Zeichen) zusenden.

Die ausgewählten Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer werden auf dem Symposium in maximal 20 Minuten wesentliche Aspekte ihrer Arbeit vortragen. Dieser Vortrag und der zuvor eingereichte Aufsatz werden anschließend durch eine(n) erfahrene(n) Forscher(in) kommentiert und im Plenum diskutiert. Für eingeladene Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer übernehmen die Organisatoren die anfallenden Fahrt- und Hotelkosten.

Bitte senden Sie Ihre Bewerbung in elektronischer Form an:

Prof. Dr. Marcel Erlinghagen
c/o Silke Demmler (Sekretariat)
Institut für Soziologie
Universität Duisburg-Essen

Special Issue of Management Revue
Demands in the modern workplace

Guest Editors:
Sascha Ruhle, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
Johannes Siegrist, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
Stefan Süß, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
Eva-Ellen Weiß, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

The flexibility of work organization and employment, the growing need for training and development, digitalization of work, the increasing blurring boundaries between work and private life – the list of developments that have shaped the modern working world in recent years is long. Those developments will continue to affect employees as well as organizations and economies. Especially for employees, several of these developments are challenges rather than improvements. Various approaches have increased our understanding of these and similar challenges, including the job demand-control model (Karasek, 1979), leader-member exchange (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Hesselgreaves & Scholarios, 2014), the effort–reward imbalance model (Siegrist, 2002) and the concept of work-family conflict (Barnett, 1998).

There are numerous indications that demands in the modern work place lead to elevated stress experiences (Sparks et al., 2001; Sverke et al., 2002; Stansfeld & Candy, 2006) and related health consequences (e.g. Schnall et al., 2009; Siegrist & Wahrendorf, 2016). Sources of stress may, for example, be rooted in role overload or even role underload depending on the type of demands (Shultz et al., 2010). Further, research shows that changing working conditions can provoke conflicts between work and private life (e.g., Byron, 2005). In the long run, impairments of job satisfaction and health can result as well in reduced work engagement and elevated turnover intentions (e.g., Kinnunen, 2008; Li et al., 2015). Thus, organizations increasingly aim at improving working conditions in order to keep their employees healthy and productive.

Divers options exist for organizations to tackle these challenges. For example, both supervisor and coworker support have been shown to reduce the negative consequences of demands (Luchman & González-Morales, 2015), and the same holds true for a transformational leadership style (Weiß & Süß, 2016), while an increase in time flexibility might even further strain the individual (e.g., Biron & van Veldhoven, 2016). Another way to deal with workplace demands might be the development of personal resources, which in turn can decrease burnout (Huang et al., 2015) or the adequate design of employees’ task fields (Shultz et al., 2010).

Yet, to answer challenges resulting from demands in the modern workplace, research might benefit from considering not only results from a single discipline, but a combined perspective. Multiple disciplines, like business administration, psychology, sociology, and occupational medicine contribute to, e.g., research on stress and resulting strain (e.g., Ganster & Rosen, 2013). A joint approach might further enhance our understanding of the prevention, occurrence, and the consequences of work demands as multiple perspectives on the area of research are being combined.

Therefore, prospective papers may address, but are not restricted to, the following questions:

• Which individual and organizational consequences result from the various developments that characterize the modern working world? And how might organizations manage the different technological and economic changes in order to reduce negative consequences for employees?
• Under what circumstances do particularly problematic work demands arise? What are the differences between various forms of employment and their influences on work demands?
• How can organizations manage the various demands in the workplace and which approaches are the most promising ones? What possible help can leadership or co-worker support provide to face increasing work demands?
• What are the socio-structural and economic antecedents of and consequences caused by work demands? Are there burdens which are unequally distributed among different social or occupational classes that account for differences in the exposure to changing demands?

Potential authors
Authors are encouraged to submit research manuscripts that are likely to make a significant contribution to the literature on demands in the modern workplace. The focus of the Special Issue is empirical – qualitative or quantitative – evidence, and we welcome contributions from business administration, industrial and organizational psychology, work sociology, and occupational medicine as well as other disciplines dealing with the topic of the Special Issue.

Deadline
Full papers for this special edition of “management revue” must be with the editors by 31 January 2017. All submissions will be subject to a double-blind review process. Papers invited for a “revise and resubmit” are due on 31 May 2017. Final decision will be made by September 2017. The special edition will be published in 2017 or 2018. Please submit your papers via email to Sascha Ruhle and Stefan Süß, using “management revue” as a subject.

Submission Guidelines
Manuscript length should not exceed 8,000 words (excluding references) and the norm should be 30 pages in double spaced type with margins of about 3 cm (1 inch) on each side of the page. Further, please follow the guidelines on the website http://www.management-revue.org/authors_guidelines.php and submit the papers electronically by sending a “blind” copy of your manuscript (delete all author identification from this primary document), and in a second document information that would typically appear on the document’s title page (title, author names, complete postal addresses, titles, affiliations, contact information including email, and phone).

We look forward to receiving your contribution!
Sascha Ruhle, Johannes Siegrist, Stefan Süß & Eva-Ellen Weiß

Special Issue of Management Revue
Digital Working Life

Guest Editors:
Mikael Ottosson, Lund University (Sweden)
Calle Rosengren, Lund University (Sweden)
Doris Holtmann, Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg (Germany)
Wenzel Matiaske, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg (Germany)

Working life is undergoing a radical change in which new digital technologies are changing the nature of labour and its organizational forms in a pervasive manner, regardless of whether it concerns qualified professionals or labourers. The framework, which previously regulated the content of work, as well as when, where and how it would be conducted is being reconsidered. A process that presents both challenges and possibilities.

One fundamental aspect of ICT is that it can make employees more accessible to others and allow work to become more available to the employee. Easy access to ICT functions (e.g., email, text and voice messages), for example, enable employees to continue working after leaving the office for the day. This ease of access may have both positive and negative effects. Although much of the research focus to date has concentrated on how ICT may act as demands, stressors or certain characteristics of ICT can enhance work-life balance, employee satisfaction, well-being and productivity.

Another aspect of new digital technologies concerns the manner in which the work process is monitored and controlled. Surveillance in the workplace is not a novelty. Nor is it unreasonable to expect that employers have both rights and reasons to do so. To a certain extent, of course. However, increasing availability of relatively inexpensive and easy to use technology, for example software monitoring programs, enables employers to expand the range and scope of their control over their employees’ activities. The increase in potential methods to track and monitor employee behaviour poses questions that concern where the borders for personal integrity are drawn. Who has the right to personal details, and at what point? In what way does this monitoring affect the social relations between employer and employee in terms of control, autonomy and trust?

Digital technology, in computers, phones or in the “Internet of things” also provides tools that enable the standardization of work on a completely different level than previously. For some workers, we see a degradation and depletion of work, and also that the control of work is increasing; a development that is usually described using the concept of “Digital Taylorism.” How does this development affect the working man or the working class?

In the special issue we would like to discuss our topic in an appropriately broad and interdisciplinary manner. We are particularly interested in questions such as:

• Virtual work and stress
• Digital technologies and work-family boundaries
• Virtual teams and E-leadership
• Digital Taylorism
• Virtual work and trust
• Digital surveillance

This is not an exhaustive list.

Deadline
Full papers for this Special Issue of Management Revue must be submitted by September 30th, 2016. All contributions will be subject to a double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due January 31st, 2017. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.management-revue.org/submission/ using ‘SI Digital Working Life’ as article section.

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Mikael Ottosson
Calle Rosengren
Doris Holtmann
Wenzel Matiaske