The Future Of Digital Work The Challenge Of Inequality

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP WG 8.2, 9.1, 9.4 Joint Working Conference on the Future of Digital Work: The Challenge of Inequality, IFIPJWC 2020, which was supposed to be held in Hyderabad, India, in December 2020, but was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This conference was organized for IFIP’s 60th anniversary and to commemorate its mission to “achieve worldwide professional and socially responsible development and application of ICTs.” The 22 full papers presented together with an introduction and two keynotes were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. They are organized in topics on: innovation and entrepreneurship; the social significance of digital platforms; transforming healthcare; and the dark side of digitalization.

Addressing the big questions about how technological change is transforming economies and societies Rapid technological change—likely to accelerate as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic—is reshaping economies and how they grow. But change also causes disruption, creates winners and losers, and produces social stress. This book examines the challenges of digital transformation and suggests how creative policies can make it more productive and inclusive. Shifting Paradigms is the second book on technological change produced by a joint research project of the Brookings Institution and the Korea Development Institute. Contributors are experts from the United States, Europe, and Korea. The first volume, Growth in a Time of Change, was published by Brookings in February 2020. The book's underlying thesis is that the future is arriving faster than expected. Long-accepted paradigms about economic growth are changing as digital technologies transform markets and nearly every aspect of business and work. Change will only intensify with advances in artificial intelligence and other innovations. Investors, business leaders, workers, and public officials face many questions. Is rising market concentration inevitable with the new technologies or can their benefits be more widely shared? How can the promise of FinTech be captured while managing risks? Should workers fear the new automation? Are technology-driven shifts in business and work causing income inequality to rise? How should public policy respond? Shifting Paradigms addresses these questions in an engaging manner for anyone interested in understanding how the economic and social agenda is being transformed by today's winds of change.

Digital work has become increasingly common, taking a wide variety of forms including working from home, mobile work, gig work, crowdsourcing, and online volunteering. It is organizationally, interpretively, spatially, and temporally complex. An array of innovative methodologies have begun to emerge to capture this complexity, whether through re-purposing existing tools, devising entirely novel methods, or mixing old and new. This volume brings together some of these techniques in an accessible sourcebook for management, business, organizational, and work researchers. It presents a range of innovative methods which capture and analyse digitally-related work practices through reflexive accounts of real-world research projects, and elucidates the range of challenges such methods may raise for research practice. It outlines debates and recommendations, and provides further reading and information to support research practice. The book is organised in four sections that reflect different areas of focus and methodological approaches: working with screens; digital working practices; distributed work and organizing; and digital traces of work. It then concludes by reflecting on the methodological issues, research ethics, requisite skills, and future of research given the intensification of digital work during a global pandemic that has impacted all aspects of our lives.

With 140 contributions by authors from 19 different countries, XVIII International Symposium of Organizational Sciences – SymOrg 2022 successfully sets the high level for future conferences. The topic of SymOrg 2020, “Sustainable Business Management and Digital Transformation: Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-COVID Era”, attracted researchers from different institutions, both in Serbia and abroad. This year, more than 300 scholars and practitioners authored and co-authored scientific and research articles that had been accepted for publication in the Book of Abstracts. All the contributions to the Book of Abstracts are classified into the following 13 key topics:  Blockchain Technology in Business and Information Systems  Business Analytics  Creativity, Innovation and Sustainable Management  Digital Operations and Logistics Management  Digital Transformation of Financial Industry  Digital Transformation of Public Administration  E-Business Ecosystems  Evidence-Based Public Policy Making in the Post-COVID Environment  LEAN Business Systems – Structures, Processes and Models  Managing Digital Transformation Projects under Discontinuity  Managing Human Resources in the Post-COVID Era  Rethinking Marketing and Communication in the Post-COVID Era  Quality Management and Standardization in Digital Transformation Era. The participation of numerous domestic and international authors and the diversity of topics justify our efforts to organize the Symposium. As SymOrg is traditionally at the intersection of academy and business, we believe that this year’s meeting will bring about many in-depth discussions, contribute to prospective partnerships, and build stronger business and academic networks. We also believe that meeting will contribute to the exchange of knowledge, research results and experience among industry experts, research institutions and faculties, which all share a common interest in contemporary organizational sciences. We are very grateful to our distinguished keynote and plenary speakers: Ana Draskovic, Aleksander Aristovnik, Manuel Mazzara, Basant Agarwa and Priyanka Harjule. Also, special thanks to moderators for organizing the panels and workshops in the fields of higher education, business, supply chain, doctoral research studies and student engagement and sustainability. The Faculty of Organizational Sciences would like to express its gratitude to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development and all the partners and individuals who have supported and contributed to the organization of the Symposium. We are particularly grateful to the contributors and reviewers who made this issue possible. But above all, we are especially thankful to the authors and presenters for making SymOrg 2022 a success! Belgrade, June 6, 2022 Marko Mihić, Ph.D. Sandra Jednak, Ph.D. Gordana Savić, Ph.D.

Providing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of the gig economy from both a labour and employment perspective, this Research Agenda goes beyond the question of the employment status of platform workers. It investigates how the gig economy is changing the way people work, how the platforms’ business models are spreading in our economies, and what labour and social institutions are needed to respond to the challenges that platform work raises.

We live in an age of artificial intelligence. Machines think and act in ever more complex ways, making suggestions and decisions on our behalf. While AI might be seen as practical and profitable, issues of data surveillance, algorithmic control, and sexist and racist bias persist. In this rapidly changing landscape, social analysis of AI risks getting scaled down to issues of ‘ethics’, ‘responsibility’, and ‘fairness’. While these are important issues, they must be addressed not from an ‘AI first’ perspective, but more thoroughly in terms of power and contention. Approaching artificial intelligence from the often overlooked perspective of critical social theory, this book provides a much-needed intervention on how both old and new theories conceptualize the social consequences of AI. Questions are posed about the ideologies driving AI, the mythologies surrounding AI, and the complex relationship between AI and power. Simon Lindgren provides a way of defining AI as an object of social and political critique, and guides the reader through a set of contentious areas where AI and politics intersect. In relation to these topics, critical theories are drawn upon, both as an argument for and an illustration of how AI can be critiqued. Given the opportunities and challenges of AI, this book is a must-read for students and scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM disciplines.

Over the past 50 years the global labour market is transforming from reliable employment to low-wage and unstable informal and precarious jobs. This ineluctable shift is a consequence of the concentrated application of neoliberalism since the 1980s, as capitalism is converting standardised labour markets in the developed Global North into contingent and informal labour. Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion examines the most important developments and features of global logistics and the emergence of the platform economy through historical comparative chapters and case studies. Part I surveys the logistics revolution and its impact on labour in key sectors of the global economy and probes the viability of the platform as a generator of economic and financial growth and innovation. The chapters of Part 1 offer a fulsome analysis and critique of the economic and technical reconfiguration brought on by neoliberal capitalism and the diffusion of the platform and logistics as a feasible model into the future. Part II examines labour restructuring from standardized to informal work through the platform and information technology, and the political and environmental challenges to labour. Part III provides global case studies on the informal economy through case studies of crucial economies where the platform has become dominant, and Part IV examines how the platform has contributed to geographic mobility and labour migration, and the consequences on workers. Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion presents a unique contribution to the political economy literature through highlighting the significance of the impact of the platform and logistics on the working class and potential challenges from labour across the world. This book is intended for academics, researchers and students studying technological innovation, global supply chains, labour restructuring, and worker resistance.

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2021-520/ Major changes in technology, economic contexts, workforces and the institutions of work have ebbed and flowed since well before the first industrial revolution in the 18th century. However, many argue that the changes we are currently facing are different, and that the rise of digitalized production will entirely transform our ways and views of working. In this collaborative project, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, researchers from the five Nordic countries have studied how the ongoing transformations of production and labour markets associated with digitalization, demographic change and new forms of employment will influence the future of work in the Nordic countries.