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Purpose Digitalization is changing organizations with positive and negative impacts such as increased autonomy on the one hand and increased surveillance and control on the other hand. In this context, new modes of control occur: in addition to managerial control, new modes of control are multi-directed, stemming from colleagues, customers and underlying algorithms. This paper investigates the interrelation of autonomy and new modes of control in digital work contexts from the workers' perspectives.Design/methodology/approach Empirical data are based on a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative interviews with 25 and a quantitative questionnaire with 127 workers from urban food logistics organizations in Germany.Findings The results show that new modes of control are relevant for work engagement in digital work contexts: managerial and algorithm control are perceived as support. Peer and customer control are perceived as coercion.Originality/value Besides investigating the interrelation of autonomy and control and differentiating new modes of control, our study also makes important contributions to the perception of control as support and coercion.

Die Logistik als globale innovative Branche erfährt grundlegende Veränderungen durch die fortschreitende Digitalisierung. Es bilden sich neue Geschäftsmodelle heraus und die Arbeitsorganisation wandelt sich. Arbeitsprozesse können digital und transparent erfasst und kontrolliert werden. Der Beitrag untersucht die Auswirkungen dieser technologischen Veränderungen auf Logistikmitarbeitende und deren Arbeitsbeziehungen. Ziel ist es, die Digitalisierung in der urbanen Lebensmittellogistik in Hinblick auf die Wahrnehmung von Autonomie und Kontrolle aus Perspektive der Arbeitskräfte ebenso zu analysieren wie die Effekte, die daraus für die Ausgestaltung der Arbeitsbeziehungen resultieren. Zur Analyse wird auf eine qualitative Studie mit Berufskraftfahrenden sowie Kurierfahrenden in der urbanen Lebensmittellogistik zurückgegriffen. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich im Alltag die Gleichzeitigkeit von Autonomie und Kontrolle, die auf die Einbindung von neuen Technologien in die Arbeitsorganisation sowie die Rolle von Führungskräften zurückgeführt werden kann. Schließlich werden Erfordernisse an Digitalisierungsprozesse festgehalten.

AbstractThe ongoing development and adoption of digital technologies such as AI in business brings ethical concerns and challenges. Main topics are the design of digital technologies, their tasks, and competencies in organizational practice, and their collaboration with humans. Previous guidelines on digital ethics mainly consider technological aspects such as the nondiscriminatory design of AI, its transparency, and technically constrained (distributed) agency as priorities in AI systems, leaving the consideration of the human factor and the implementation of ethical guidelines in organizational practice unclear. We analyze the relationship between human–computer interaction (HCI), autonomy, and worker involvement with its impact on the experience of alienation at work for workers. We argue that the consideration of autonomy and worker involvement is crucial for HCI. Based on a quantitative empirical study of 1989 workers in Germany, the analysis shows that when worker involvement is high, the effect of HCI use on alienation decreases. The study results contribute to the understanding of the use of digital technologies with regard to worker involvement, reveal a blind spot in widespread ethical debates about AI, and have practical implications with regard to digital ethics in organizational practice.

Purpose
While staffing agencies are gaining importance in work relationships with the highly skilled workforce, their work relations with highly skilled independent contractors have not been investigated yet. Staffing agencies as labor market intermediaries charge a fee to help independent contractors as well as client organizations to create contracts for services while independent contractors remain self-employed. Besides their growing relevance, their exact role remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of staffing agencies in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors.


Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied a mixed-methods design comprising a qualitative interview study with independent contractors and staffing agencies' representatives (n=29) coupled with a quantitative survey of staffing agencies (n=81).


Findings
The analysis shows that staffing agencies are important actors in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors. However, the relationships can be differentiated into rather standardized ones on the one hand and individualized relations on the other hand. This seems to correspond with differences between sectors.


Originality/value
First, the authors discuss staffing agencies as new intermediaries and highlight their relevance in the negotiation of working conditions. Second, the authors emphasize variations of the role of staffing agencies in triadic work relationships of highly skilled independent contractors in relation to specificities of sectors. Third, the study also adds on organizational support theory and related research.

In the course of worldwide reforms in health care systems, flexible employment is of increasing relevance in medicine and also includes the highly skilled workforce of hospital physicians. With reference to Hirschman's seminal work on exit, voice and loyalty, this article analyzes the phenomenon of deploying locum tenens physicians as independent contractors in hospitals. The results of two qualitative empirical studies drawing on 30 qualitative interviews show conditions and consequences of exit– voice– loyalty behavior on different levels. On the meso level of organizations, locum tenens physicians help to enforce improvements in everyday hospital practices because as independent contractors, they gain a new, more autonomous position – they receive voice through exit.

"Die Ausarbeitung dieses Blickwinkels erfolgt in drei Schritten: Ein erster Schritt versucht die Metapher der 'Geschäftsgrundlage' in die Basistheoreme der Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung zu übersetzen, indem der Individualisierungsbegriff für die hier verfolgte Argumentation 'operationalisiert' wird. Dabei werden mit dem Normalarbeitsverhältnis, dem Wohlfahrtsstaat und dem bürgerlichen Geschlechterarrangement im Privaten drei zentrale 'Grundlagen' der modernen Gesellschaft ausgewiesen, auf die sich die 'Politik' reflexiver Modernisierung richtet. Der zweite Schritt soll der im Titel gestellten Frage nach dem Wandel - besser: der damit behaupteten Umordnung - dieser Grundlagen insbesondere mit Blick auf deren Bedeutung für die Geschlechterverhältnisse im Privaten nachgehen. Dabei beziehen wir uns auf eine der modernen Kerninstitutionen, die heterosexuelle Paarbeziehung, als jenem Nukleus, um den herum sich die moderne Kleinfamilie als die vielfach beschworene 'Keimzelle der Gesellschaft' bilden soll. Im dritten, abschließenden Schritt versuchen wir kurz die aus dem behaupteten Wandel der Geschäftsgrundlagen resultierenden möglichen Folgen zu resümieren." (Textauszug)

In the last decades, managerial instruments have gained importance to medical decisions and the logic of managerialism is juxtaposed with the logic of medical professionalism. Recent changes in the hospital employment structure raise the question of contradictory logics not only at the organizational but also at the individual level. Therefore, we investigate the rise of locum doctors which is a relatively new phenomenon in Germany. Our qualitative interview study with 21 locum tenens, permanently employed physicians, and chief physicians shows that locum physicians re-contextualize professional standards in hospitals. According to their self-perception, patient care stays at the center of their medical practice regardless of economic, bureaucratic, and hierarchical requirements as well as hospital-specific routines. We argue that the interrelationship between professionalism and managerialism exists not only within organizations but also on an individual level of locum doctors.

In dieser Teilsoziologie ist schon lange kein Lehrbuch mehr erschienen. Dieses hier bietet einen breiten Überblick über Ansätze, Geschichte, "Klassiker" in diesem Gebiet und hat auch die neuesten Arbeitsformen (z.B. Coworking-Spaces) mit berücksichtigt. Reihenspezifisch didaktisch aufgebaut, mit Tabellen, Grafiken und Fotos ausgestattet. (2)

AbstractModern work structures and organizations are often characterized by the simultaneous existence of multiple logics. Research has made profound efforts in describing a wide range of possible responses to different constellations of multiple logics in recent decades. But less is known about the subsequent effects of those responses. Since responses to multiple logics aim to change the initial constellation, they are likely to provoke counter-responses that alter the new constellation. Thus, as butterfly effect, certain strategies in dealing with multiple logics can initiate a series of responses that can lead to a fundamental change in the constellations of logics. The rise and fall of locum tenens physicians in Germany illustrate how series of responses can evolve, increase, and fundamentally alter the given constellation of logics. Thereby, our multi-method study also sheds light on the role of omnipresent actors and raises the question of how the actors can be theorized in a setting of multiple logics.

Highly skilled freelance workers are mainly depicted as a challenge to trade unionism because of their mobility, market power and specific interests in organisational support. The authors explore the manifestations of collectivism of highly skilled freelance workers on the basis of semi-structured interviews with 14 highly skilled freelancers and 35 representatives of intermediaries such as trade unions, professional associations, staffing agencies and cooperatives in medicine, IT and film in Germany. The results reveal new forms and dynamics of labour market collectivism arising from concurrent conflicts and negotiations of job access and working conditions.

PurposeDigital technologies comprehensively change work processes and working conditions. However, the use of digital technologies and the modes of collaboration between technologies and human workers differ in terms of specific work organization and automatization. Referring to the job demands-resources model (JD-R), this paper investigates job demands and resources from the workers' perspectives and develops a digital work typology according to dimensions of digitalization and forms of human–computer interaction (HCI).Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a qualitative-empirical study with 49 interviews in four German production and logistics organizations, emphasizing different job demands and job resources for five digital work types identified.FindingsThe results indicate that job demands and resources are to be differentiated in relation to specific work contexts. In this sense, this paper presents an analysis of dimensions of technology use and the impact of technology use on working conditions through empirically analyzing job demands and resources in digital work settings.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is to empirically analyze job demands and resources in digital work settings from the workers' perspectives and to develop a digital work typology based on the dimensions of digitalization and form of HCI. This typology can set the basis for further research insights as well as management practice measures in human resources management (HRM).