Darmstadt University of Technology Research Group on Work, Technology, and Society - Current...

Darmstadt University of Technology

Research Group on Work, Technology, and Society - Current activities and research projects Workshop Darmstadt, 30.01.08

Workshop - current activities and research projects 230.01.08


Outline

Research group on Work, Technology, and Society

Facts and Figures

Fields of Research

Mission Statement

Working Groups

Selected Projects (Web) Service Oriented Architectures and Organization

Tacit Knowledge and its Implications for Knowledge Management

Labor Flexibility and ICT



Research Group on Work, Technology and Society – Facts & Figures

Facts and Figures

People Prof. Dr. phil. Rudi Schmiede, Dr. phil. Helmut Wenzel, Dr. phil. Christian

Schilcher, MA (Med.wiss.) Sabine Krause

Dr. phil. Mario Seger, Dr.-Ing. Regina Beuthel, Dipl.-Ing. Vera Nitsch, Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Karlheinz Müller

14 doctoral students, among them Dipl.-Soz. Peter Kels, Dipl.-Vw. Tina Klug, Dipl.-Soz. Sebastian Remer

Courses On theories and structures of society, work and technology, knowledge and

information, media and scientific information systems, spatial dimensions of work

Active in Graduate Schools On the development of technologies and society

On infrastructures of electronic markets



Research Group on Work, Technology and Society – Fields of research

Our research focuses on social change and economical development linked with formalization, informatization, and new modes of knowledge production.

Information technology (IT) plays, of course, an important role in this context.

Research fields

1)Critical Analysis of the so-called information- and knowledge society (historical perspectives and contemporary analysis combined)

2)Analysis of work, employment, and organization in the course of informatization

3) Examination of the meaning of information technology regarding inter- and intra-organizational change

4) Living in the information- and knowledge society - consequences for individuals



Research Group on Work, Technology and Society – Mission statement

To identify social opportunities and support the autonomy of the individual, we are engaged in research and teaching on the human uses and control of modern information and communication technologies. To this end we work with a mixture of theoretical and empirical approaches and methods. Furthermore, we are active in inter-organizational projects (e.g. technology and organization assessment, governmental research, …) and in inter-disciplinary research (e.g. with computer and information science, engineering, architecture, …).



Research Group on Work, Technology and Society – Working Groups

Kairos (Kritical Analysis of the InfoRmatization Of Society) examines social change from a macro-sociological perspective. Kairos most important analysis (theoretical and empirical) are published in „Virtuelle Arbeits-welten. Arbeit, Produktion und Subjekt in der ‚Informationsgesel-lschaft’". Further studies are available in the form of conference papers, articles, & doctoral theses.

Currently, Kairos works on topics such as knowledge management, different forms of knowledge production and the relationship of information and knowledge.

Projects in process:

Meaning of knowledge and experience in intensive care medicine: Alexandra Manzei [since 10/2004],

Doctoral theses:

Theoretical and empirical analysis of society: Helmut Wenzel 2000, Nicolai Egloff 2001, Alexandra Manzei 2002

Knowledge & knowledge management: Christian Schilcher 2006, Andreea-Malvina Zarcula 2006

Use of media: Thomas Berker 2000, Ute Enderlein 2002, Oana Mitrea 2005, Sabine Krause




Transfer combines our research in development of work, organization and technology with questions on industrial relations.

Industrial relations in IT-Industry (ArbIT): Andrea Baukrowitz, Andreas Boes [11/1998-5/2000]

Lack of IT-Experts in Hesse („Pro IT –– IT-Fachkräfte für Hessen"): Christoph Mürdter, Ulrike Stein (in cooperation with Inst. f. Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Kultur IWAK, Frankfurt am Main) [1/2001-12/2003] www.proit-hessen.de

Telework in public administration: Mario Seger [1/2001-12/2002]

Professional development in IT-Industry (ProIT-Professionals): Regina Beuthel, Karlheinz Müller (advisory), Vera Nitsch, Mario Seger, Ulrike Stein, Annette Albert, Svetlana Pereverzeva [1/2004-8/2005 for Hesse government, 9/2005-12/2007 for federal government] www.proit-professionals.de

Projects:

http://www.proit-hessen.de/

http://www.proit-professionals.de/





Projects II:

Topology of modern office work. (Zentrum für Arbeitswelten): Tina Klug, Brigitte Petendra, Sebastian Remer (together with architects (TUD), real estate economists (european business school), and Congena GmbH) [since 1/2004] www.z-aw.de

Evaluation 10-SVP. communicative Aspects of 10-SVP rollout at Deutsche Bahn AG (Evaluation of a real estate management system): Tina Enders, Sybille Jahn [4/2005-1/2006]

http://www.z-aw.de/





Doctoral theses:

(Work & IT:) Philine Warnke 2002, Carsten Dose 2004, Mario Seger 2005, Jacqueline Rudat, Tina Klug, Peter Kels, Kira Marrs 2006

(Organization & IT:) Jochen Fortner 2002, Regina Konrad 2002, Claudia Rainfurth 2003, Rainer Lehmann 2005, Herwig Dahnke 2005, Alexandra Jähnich, Boris Gloger, Hans-Günter Joost, Brita Hohlmann, Sebastian Remer www.soa-change.com

(Industrial relations:) Karl-Heinz Reichert 2001, Andreas Boes 2002, Andrea Baukrowitz

http://www.soa-change.com/




telos (technology for electronic libraries and the organization of the semantic web) comprises all technical development projects regarding digital libraries and integrated scientific information systems. We see digital libraries as one important field of modern know-ledge production and dissemination.

Telos is part of European Delos-Network of excel-lence.

Darmstädter Virtueller Gesamtkatalog (DVK): Helmut Wenzel, Winfried Goß, Steffen Noé [1995-1997]

Evaluation of a digital library (Interdoc): Stefan Winkler, Wolfgang Meier [1999/2000]

Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Soziologie (VibSoz): Wolfgang Meier, Sue Heise (in cooperation with IZ Sozialwissenschaften, Bonn) [5/2000-3/2002] www.vibsoz.de

Webserver German sociological association (GSA): Christian Hölzel, Vitus Väth [1-12/2001] www.soziologie.de

SozioNet: Wolfgang Meier, Sue Heise, Natascha Schumann [4/2002-5/2005] htttp://www.sozionet. org/index.xml

Projects (I):




telos (technology for electronic libraries and the organization of the semantic web) comprises all technical development projects regarding digital libraries and integrated scientific information systems. We see digital libraries as one important field of modern know-ledge production and dissemination.

Telos is part of European Delos-Network of excel-lence.

Projects (II):

Concepts of Digital Libraries: Stephan Körnig, Marianne Engel [1/2001-12/2002]

Global Info: Stephan Körnig (in cooperation with German Chemical Society (GDCh), Ffm) [4/1997-12/2000]

Generic portals and competence networks, DL-Services: Stephan Körnig, Julia Stoll [1/2003-8/2005]http://www.generische-portale.de/space/start

Doctoral theses:

Franz-Karl Kaltenborn 1999, Stefan Winkler, Mariangela Josefina Biscochea Pereira, Peggy Martin




Further doctoral theses:

Klaus Schmierl: Payment by Results in Modern Industries, 1995.

Reinhard Breßler: Industrial Re-search, 1996.

Peter Rosenthal: Social Aspects of Automotive Design, 1999.

Jürgen Büscher: The year 2000-Problem (Organizational re-search), 2003.

Irem Erat: Turkish Immigrants.



Outline

Research group on Work, Technology, and Society Facts and Figures

Fields of Research

Mission Statement

Working Groups

Selected Projects (Web) Service Oriented Architectures and Organization


Labor Flexibility and ICT



(Web) Service Oriented Architectures and Organization



Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture are heavily hyped. But: Where there's Smoke there's Fire.

“One of the most misunderstood and hyped technologies in recent memory” (Kaye 2003)

“Mainframe – Client/Server – Enterprise Services Architectures“ (Woods and Word 2004)

“Web Services will change the world“ (Silberberger 2003)

…

“Web Services: XML´s Killer App“ (Novell 2001)

“Silver bullet - Web Services“ (SAP 2004)

“From niche to mega trend of Internet“ (CGE&Y 2002)

…

…

…

“Mega-trend in Internet” (FAZ 2002)

“Lego-Logic” (ibid. 2005)

“Web-Services will change the world economy” (Computerwoche 2003)

“SOA is IT´s Perestroika” (ibid. 2006)

…

…



So, What Is a SOA?

Definition

IT Flexibility“A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a specific software architecture based on services as fundamental elements for integrating and developing applications.

Services are specific software components. They are well-defined, self-contained and encapsulate high-level business functionality. Services communicate with each other […] [and] can adopt different roles.

When acting as a service provider a service publishes its interfaces that can be invoked by other services that play the major role of a service requestor. A SOA is characterised by the loosely coupling of the services involved. A service can be replaced by other services at runtime” (Berbner et al. 2005)

Benefits

Improves access to market

Allows re-alignment of IT on Business Processes

Eases network collaboration

Facilitates data integration, less vendor dependency



Web Service and SOA Research focuses strongly only on technical questions. An embedded perspective is needed.

SOA, Web Services

The usage of technology always

implies organizational and

social issues

Technology never just comes

out of the box but follows

certain trajectories

We must analyze SOA from a much broader perspective, including technical, economical, political, and social problems. We must understand SOA as an important change management problem. Therefore, we must focus on people's specific roles and requirements.



Coming from a big picture approach one can find similarities in organizational and technical development

Efficiency/ Stability Flexibility

Fordism Mass market Economy by scale Stable environments Basic local

parameters are regulated

Automation

Toyotism Demanding clients Economy by scope Rapid technology

change/ product innovation

De-regulation Modularization Complexity

Clear Input-output relation

Taylorism Centralization Clear boundaries …

Flatter Hierarchy Team Management Delegation of responsibility De-centralization Stronger market orientation Organization around

processes (not tasks) …

Enterprise Technology not only enabler but also follower sometimes even

tie/ limitation in this process

Mainframes Vendor lock in Standardization of hardware

PCs Network C/S, Internet, WS

Org

aniz

atio

nal

E

nvi

ron

men

tE

nte

rpri

se

Tec

hn

olo

gy

Hierarchy Network



A closer look reveals the same again: Conway´s Law shows how communication structure affects the system.

“Any organization which designs a system (defined more

broadly here than just information systems) will

inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the

organization's communication structure”

Replace "system" by "committee." Replace "subsystem" by

"subcommittee." Replace "interface" by

"coordinator."



Looking closer on SOA´s basic principle, it addresses some problems of …

Business Strategy

PC1* PC2 PC3 PC4 PC5 PC6

S1 ** S2 S3 S4 S5 S6

Backend Systems/ Legacy Systems

Communication Networks

* Process Component

** Service



… inflexible monolithic ERP – approaches.

Business Strategy

PC1* PC2 PC3 PC4 PC5 PC6

Backend Systems/ Legacy Systems

PC7

extended

HR Fin Mark Sales … …

ERP approach

* Process Component



Research on SOA and Web Services focuses very much on the technical side. Important organizational issues are mostly unstudied.

Through an additional service layer the SOA decouples the business logic from the system side and thereby increases flexibility.

But the additional layer also affects the organizational structure. Here we need a further layer, too. Hence, SOA is a huge change management project and research is needed at this point.



Applying Conway´s Law: The additional service layer must be reflected in organizational structure, too.

Business Side

IT Side Software architect

SOA Architectural Board

Software Developer

Expert Expert Expert ExpertPrincipal

Service Domain

Domain Owner Expert

Service Owner

Service Domain

Domain Owner Expert

Service Owner

SoftwareProject

PM SD Expert

S6

External provider



First expert interviews reveal: SOA can affect Organizations massively

Research Questions

Method

SOA affects IT Governance massively

How to arrange new responsibility for a service, a service orchestration, a domain?

How to design the SLAs, pricing mechanism (especially in service compositions)?

How to prevent uncontrollable service growth?

New skills for employees needed

How can IT side understand business better (and vice versa)?

Which IT skills are needed in the future?

How to get the mind change needed for successful collaboration on distributed services (not invented here problem vs. prisoner's dilemma)

Engage the SOA change is difficult

How to prevent from rash design decisions?

Flexibility as an objective is abstract and hard to explain…

…and running traditional business cases on SOA is difficult. So, how to convince the sceptics?

Are there any typical patterns of resistance against SOA within organizations?

Case study approach Expert interviews with different stake holders (CIO, External Consultants, External Service Consumers,

External Service Providers, Functional Departments, Software Developers,…) Document analysis



Do you know an interesting SOA Case?

Steve Sawyer, PhD Associate Professor of

Information Sciences and Technology (IST), Pennsylvania State University

Research interests on Social and Organizational Informatics

Prof. Dr. Rudi Schmiede Professor of Sociology at


Research interests in Sociology of Work and Organizations

Co-speaker of Enabling Technologies for E-Commerce

Further Case Study needed

We look for an org. which is involved in SOA projects…

…and which is interested in a research collaboration including expert interviews and data analysis

John M. Jordan, PhD Executive Director of

the eBusiness Research Center (eBRC)

Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University

Publisher of Early Indicators newsletter

www.soa-change.com



Further steps, rough time table

04/05 End of 06 07/08

Finish

Getting an overview of WS and SOA Literature (also: Tracking of IT-Newsletters, consulting & market research reports)

Visiting specific SOA-Conferences and big vendor's road shows

Conducting case study at Deutsche Post

Developing rough research concept

Getting deeper insight into CSCW, SI, OI research

Fostering further fieldwork (expert interviews, case study?)

Further conceptual development

Finishing PhD Thesis

Labor Flexibility and Information and Communication Technology



Research Questions

What is the relationship between the development of information and communication technology and the increasing flexibility of labor?

Understanding that relationship enables to influence developments in a way that negative outcomes are reduced and positive outcomes are promoted.

Flexibility becomes manifest within the micro-level and respectively the subjective dimensions of labor, where modern communication structures play an important role.



Background

Economical restructuring as well as organizational, institutional, and individual changes

Software Developers and IT Industry

Comparison situation in USA and Germany



SWET Analysis

SWET Analysis:“Framework for analyzing labor process restructuring along four fundamental, inter-related dimensions of the labor process.”

Four Dimensions of the Labor Process:

Space

Work

Employment

Time

Benner 2005, p. 2

Thank you for your attention!

Darmstadt University of Technology Research Group on Work, Technology, and Society - Current...

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