Seminar at the IUC Dubrovnik (April 11-15th, 2016) & Special Issue of Management Revue

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 and the corresponding seminar (IUC Dubrovnik, http://www.iuc.hr, 11.-15.April 2016), 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
Potential contributors to the seminar at the IUC Dubrovnik are encouraged to submit an abstract of 1-2 pages before January 31st, 2016 electronically via Management Revue’s online submission system at http://www.management-revue.org/submission/ using ‘IUC Dubrovnik’ as article section.

All contributors to the seminar are invited to submit their paper for the special issue of Management Revue. Full papers must be submitted by July 31st, 2016. All contributions will be subject to a double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due October 31st, 2016. 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.

Hoping to hear from you!

Mikael Ottosson
Calle Rosengren
Doris Holtmann
Wenzel Matiaske

Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) sind für die Betriebswirtschaftslehre aus mehreren Gründen interessant und relevant. Zum einem stellen Sie in der Mehrheit der Volkswirtschaften nicht nur die große Zahl der Unternehmen- gemessen an deren Zahl- dar, sondern erwirtschaften auch den Großteil der Leistung gemessen an der Beschäftigung, Wertschöpfung und Wachstum. Zum anderen werden die Belange der KMU innerhalb der BWL erfreulicherweise in den letzten Jahren zwar stärker gewürdigt, erreichen jedoch noch immer nicht die Aufmerksamkeit der Projekte im Kontext internationaler Großunternehmen.

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Die Forschung zu KMU hat sich bisher nicht ausführlich mit Geschäftsmodellen befasst. Umgekehrt lag auch der Fokus der Business Model-Forschung eher auf Großunternehmen. Daher lädt die ZfKE zur Einreichung von theoretisch konzeptionellen und empirischen Beiträgen sowie Literature Reviews für dieses Sonderheft der ZfkE ein. Neben weiteren sind insbesondere die folgenden Themen von besonderem Interesse:

• KMU- spezifische Ausprägung von Geschäftsmodellen
• Business Model Innovation in KMU
• Verbindung von Geschäftsmodellen und Strategischem Management in KMU
• Rolle von Entscheidungsträgern für KMU-Geschäftsmodelle
• Einfluss der Digitalisierung auf Geschäftsmodelle von KMU
• Geschäftsmodelle von KMU im Kontext von Industrie 4.0
• Unterscheide der Geschäftsmodelle junger und etablierter Unternehmen.

Beiträge können bis zum 01. März 2016 mit dem Stichwort „ZfKE Special Issue Geschäftsmodelle“ per Email bei patrick.ulrich@uni-bamberg.de eingereicht werden.

weitere Informationen

This sub-theme invites researchers from all over the world who study organizational working time regimes, their evolution, persistence, consequences for work-life balance, and approaches to changing them. Recent studies reveal the difficulties in advancing changes in the temporal organization of work, in particular in professional service firms which have traditionally expected their highly qualified employees to commit to a regime of long working hours, constant availability to clients and superiors, and an ever-increasing pace of work (e.g. Costas & Grey, 2012; Michel, 2011; Perlow, 1999; 2012). Such working time regimes have been widely criticized for their detrimental effects on productivity, employee well-being and gender equality in the workplace. However, reports on firms’ experiences with change initiatives reveal disappointing results (for a recent review, see Putnam et al., 2014): managerial efforts to attenuate the long hours patterns often fail, whilst the established working time regimes largely persist despite their drawbacks for individuals and companies.

The sub-theme particularly invites contributions that focus on one or more of the following questions:

• How are working time regimes enacted in different organizations, industries and institutional environments?
• What kind of organizational temporal structures (e.g. boundaries of work vs. non-work), rhythms (e.g. periods of intensive vs. non-intensive work), and orientations (e.g. concerning the past, present and future) are prevalent in different organizational contexts?
• What are the effects of existing working time regimes for individuals, organizations and societies (e.g. in terms of work-life conflict, health, gender issues, changing demographics, etc.)?
• How are bodies entangled in the continuous (re-)production of working time regimes? What dynamics arise when the different rhythms of bodies, families, organizations and industries meet and/or collide?
• How do business models and corporate strategies relate to working time regimes?
• How do working time regimes become path dependent? What role do initial conditions play in triggering such path dependence?
• What processes and mechanisms drive the persistence and/or path dependence of working time regimes?
• What processes and mechanisms advance change in the temporal organization of work?
• What is the impact of organizational control and unobtrusive forms of power on the stability and/or change of working time regimes?
• What is the relation between systemic and self-reinforcing processes, on the one hand, and individual agency, on the other, in particular when individuals do not conform to and/or resist established working time regimes?
• What processes and interventions are most likely to succeed at modifying and/or breaking highly institutionalized working time regimes?
• What kinds of working time regimes can foster sustainable forms of working and living?

Further Information