Overview of the academic field
DigiWork is an interdisciplinary research field that consists of academics from the Institute of Welfare, Leadership and Organization at the Faculty of Health, Welfare and Organization and the Institute for Economics, Innovation and Society at the Faculty of Information Technology, Engineering and Economics. A number of PhD students are also affiliated with DigiWork's research groups and projects. Both faculties are located at both campuses in Fredrikstad and Halden.
Digital technologies bring people together in time and space in new ways. Digitalization affects therefore how we structure society, how ethical and political values are shaped and institutionalized, and how we work and interact. With this starting point, DigiWork encompasses a myriad of interdisciplinary aspects and approaches to digitalization and its consequences to working life, work organizations and society as a whole. DigiWork consists of researchers from various disciplines such as health and medicine, information science, social sciences and humanities and the research includes perspectives on how digitalization creates opportunities and challenges on the individual, organizational and societal levels.
- Individual level: Research explores how digital technologies are adapted and how the introduction of digital platforms is helping to shift the labor market, for example, how it contributes to a growing number of those who are self-employed and freelance work. Digital platforms make it possible for employers to offer new forms of work and for the self-employed to take on different assignments.
- Group and organizational level: digitalization processes are explored, for example, with emphasis on how simple and complex information, communication sysytems, use of Big Data and algorithms can strengthen rational decision-making processes and promote democratization. This implies, among other things, that decision-making power that can be moved within a hierarchial decision-making hierarchy and is decentralized from professional practitioners to new groups of employees working with analytical decision-making tools.
- Societal level: the societal conditions for digitalizaton processes in working life, including changes in the labor market, new industries, and availability of work in the private, public and volunteer sectors are explored.
Based on these perspectives, DigiWork explores the interaction between digital technologies and society with an emphasis on:
- Digital challenges for ethical, human and social relations
- The impact of digitalization has on the labor market, working conditions and content, skill requirements and wages.
- The importance of digitalization for industrial relations, enterprises and organizations. Digitaliseringens betydning for industrielle relasjoner, foretak og organisasjoner.
- The interaction between digitalization and policy making, regulations and the welfare state.
- The impact of digitalization on cultural and societal development. This includes class, gender and ethical dimensions. åvirkningen av digitalisering på kulturell og samfunnsmessig utvikling. Dette inkluderer klasse, kjønn og etiske dimensjoner.
DigiWork is interdisciplinary and encompasses various theoretical approaches and several types of research methods. This creates good opportunities to explore interactions, processes and outcomes in working life in the digital transformation, and understand these across fields and sectors.
Research Groups
Here you can find more about the most central research groups in DigiWork, their researchers and research projects.
Here you will find an overview of all the research groups and projects in the Digital Society.
- CC:PPO (Complex Connections: People, Places and Organisations) led by Professor Julianne Cheek and Professor Magnus Frostenson
- Digital decision support systems (DDSS)
- Technological Change, Sustainability and Society (TCSS)