[AISWorld] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: The Future of Work and Innovation in a Networked Society Symposium on May 15, 2018 in Berlin

[Hanna Krasnova]

*CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: *“The Future of Work and Innovation in a Networked
Society” Symposium of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society:
The German Internet Institute to be held in Berlin, Germany, on May 15,
2018.

Conference information: https://vernetzung-und-gesellschaft.de/symposium

The Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society: The German Internet
Institute is organizing a symposium on Tuesday, May 15, 2018 on the subject
of "The Future of Work and Innovation in a Networked Society" and invites
you to submit abstracts for contributions. The aim of the symposium is to
bring together different disciplinary perspectives (e.g., from
communication and social science, legal studies, computer science,
economics science and engineering science) on the transformation of the
working world and of innovation models in the digital society and to
identify and discuss the key challenges for the creation of a
self-determined, creative and innovative society.

Digitalization is one of the central driving forces behind current
transformations both in the working world and in the innovation models of
industries and society. It affects millions of jobs, changes employment
structures in companies and at the same time creates new possibilities for
creative workers and citizens. It provides space for innovative approaches
to the organization of work by making new forms of collaboration among
diverse constituencies possible (and necessary as well), but also enables
new ways of globally fragmenting work, helping organisations to develop
open innovation models of practice. It transforms qualification and skills
requirements as well as forms of blended learning. Digitalization processes
also bring new relevance to the question of how self-determination can be
safeguarded and developed in the world of work and innovation. This
concerns, on the one hand, the new possibilities for monitoring and control
and the issue of the autonomy of the working population. Also, the risks of
precarisation, which particularly emerge due to the development of the
platform economy, must be contained. On the other hand, many creative and
innovative products and services evolve from flexible working environments
where the dividing lines between working and private sphere are blurred and
new models of collaboration, interaction and models of work are tested. The
symposium will specifically focus on self-determination in these changing
working environments. Self-determination means that digitalization should
not be seen as an unavoidable fate; instead, our capacity to shape it
should be emphasized. Also, self-determination is a necessary prerequisite
for any creative work – in social contexts as well as in working
environments, where permanently employed people work together with
click-work-forces.

Of course, power relations must also be taken into account. Thus, the
current form of digitalization reflects to a considerable extent the
interests of a small group of powerful companies (and states) as well as
the dominant “engineering ideologies”. It is therefore all the more
important to make this shaping of the digitalization process visible and to
develop approaches that strengthen the possibilities for
self-determination. Thematic priorities of the symposium The symposium will
highlight current changes in the world of work and innovation through
digitalisation and the internet, thus linking up with the theme “Working
Worlds of the Future” of the Science Year 2018.

We welcome contributions from different disciplines (e.g., from
communication and social science, legal studies, computer science,
engineering science, and others) on the following thematic areas and
questions:

- Working in highly automated processes

- Skill change, education and learning in the digitalised world of work

- Algorithmic governance: Using artificial intelligence and big data at the
workplace

- Platform economy, gig economy, sharing economy

- Alternative models of collaboration and innovation

- Social media and online communication at work

- Human-computer and human-machine interaction

- Socio-technical systems perspective on introducing digital technologies
at work

- Data-based business models and the transformation of industrial structures

- The “dark sides“ of work in the digital society: stress, overload,
surveillance

- Maker culture and new forms of work

- Ways and methods of researching digitalization of work

- Digitalized work and participation in political communication

- Network effects, competition and innovation on digital markets

- Intellectual property as means to foster innovation and participation

- New ways of corporate learning—blended, gamified, adaptive

- Fair open innovation practices

- The role of user contributions in social innovations

*Key dates*

- Abstracts must be submitted as a PDF file by February 16, 2018

- The abstract submission system is available online: https://easychair.org/
conferences/?conf=wing2018

- Submission feedback will be given by March 16, 2018.

- Conference date: May 15, 2018 Symposium updates will continuously be
posted on the website of the Weizenbaum Institute.

The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research and began operating at the end of 2017. It is operated by a
Berlin-Brandenburg consortium coordinated by the Berlin Social Science
Center (WZB), and includes also the four Berlin universities—Free
University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, Technical University Berlin,
and the Berlin University of the Arts—as well as the University of Potsdam
and the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS). The
institute's aim is to combine interdisciplinary basic research with an
exploration of concrete solutions, entailing knowledge transfer into
politics, business and society.

The symposium links up with the Science Year 2018 of the Federal Ministry
of Education and Research.

Further conference information:
https://vernetzung-und-gesellschaft.de/symposium
______

Prof. Dr. Hanna Krasnova, Chair
Chair of Business Informatics, esp. Social Media and Data Science
Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences
Universität Potsdam
www.uni-potsdam.de/social-media-krasnova
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