Orga

Introduce myself:

  • Regensburg (running)
  • Montreal
  • Bamberg

CV: not straight-forward/planned

Teaching: when I teach, I teach - you have my attention.

Warm-up question

Die Vorlesung mit Leben füllen, Ihre Ideen mit einbringen

  • Studiengänge?
  • Semester?
  • Wer plant den Master zu machen?
  • Jemand, der nicht in Bamberg bleiben möchte?
  • Wer schon im Auslandssemester/Wo?
  • Wer schon ein Praktikum?
  • Wer hat ein klares Berufsziel?
  • Was interessiert Sie an Digital Work, was würden Sie gerne lernen?

Warm-up: Reflection on the photo

What do see in the picture?

  • Same building (previously a factory, today a coworking space)
  • Major differences in worker protection: if a worker was injured 200 years ago, he was fired. If a worker is injured today, the manager may be fired.
  • The modern office almost looks like a church, focus on empowerment and well-being of workers
  • There are no production facilities, but books and digital devices (focus on knowledge work)

Historical development

  • Darstellung stark verkürzt. Ich lasse hier viel weg - was uns interessiert sind die großen Linien.
  • Wichtig: Viele große Organisationen und Managementprinzipien gehen auf bis in die Zeit zurück.
  • Rationalisierung/Effizienz
  • Focus: mass markets and standardization, large organizations, low bargaining power of employees, low skill requirements (for most workers)
  • Logic: push-to-market
  • Massive gains in productivity (chart?), frees up human labor

Taylorist principles

  • principles: have been criticized widely
  • influence: how organizations structure work, hierarchies , how we think about work
  • department structures: division of labor
  • HR/hiring: selection of the best workers based on objective figures (such as years of experience) - maybe also influenced by unions
  • outcome-based compensation, 360 feedback -> objective selection/training
  • Context: low skill requirements/workers can be replaced quickly

Competitive strategies move beyond mass production

Lean/kanban:

  • making information flow transparent in the factory (coordination)
  • stop the line, all workers focus on solving the problem (all are involved, have to think beyond their individual areas)

Focus: can be a cost or differentiation focus

Ausdifferenzierung

Skills: industrial (production/automotive, chemical, …)

Organizations

Can you think of examples? -> e.g., how they deal with innovation

Discuss how each organization would develop/introduce a website

Still simplifying… but we could imagine that:

  • large industrial corporation: No website for 200 years, then the marketing department has hired programmers who are in charge of the website (since 20 years)
  • Public companies: public-relations with shareholders and investors are critical, all communication is controlled
  • SME: B2B, no need for a website… - hard to change established approaches
  • Startups/Digital-Native-Enterprises(DNE)/Freelancers: online as the first step.
  • Startups: investing to grow/scale, reach new customers, offer products/services
  • DNE: Data/Web is their business. detailed analytics/optimization (clickthrough, etc.)
  • Freelancers: using platform services, making quick adoption decisions (if needed - see pandemic)

Transaction cost theory

TODO:

The digital revolution

TODO

Knowledge work

knowledge work: need for generalists (moving away from an extreme division of labor) - craftsmanship / thinking in processes/outside the box knowledge work focus: relevant for students/future jobs (although some believe “knowledge work” is not a useful distinction)

  • Mention: digital technology/augmentation (e.g., drones for facility inspection, service logistics providers, coworking with robots, augmented reality, exoskelette, robot dogs) TBD: cover blockchain? / decentralized workforce

  • open work (open source, open innovation, …)

Information Volume, overload, and the need to rethink (grant book)

How should the future look like?

Should we work? -> Maslow: work: purpose/calling/self-fulfillment TODO : maybe even add a chart of Maslow: does work contradict self-fulfillment or should it coincide? What’s the optimal time that people should work?

Mention: a little bit of an outlook

  • challenges: Robots/AI/Automation taking care of many tasks (especially repetitive ones)
  • What would the ideal world look like, what values would be important?
  • How would you make it happen for yourself? Follow your passion?

Bergman

Maslows pyramid of needs

  • ideally work should not be limited to safety: employment, but also address belonging, esteem, self-actualization (pushing ones boundaries)

How would we live if machines/automation/AI do all the work for us? -> would we work at all?

smart consumption:

  • saving resources
  • easier to grow plants, fix/build things in smart environments

doing what you really want: life is short.

Mention that most issues raised in this lecture are part of a broader discourse (there are variations of positions)

Envisions centers for new work in which mentors help people to understand what they really want (e.g., art, ….)

Fokus: gesellschaftlicher Diskurs

Freiheit (Schaffen von Experimentierräumen, Schaffen einer Kultur der Angstfreiheit, starke Vernetzung innerhalb der Organisation) Selbstverantwortung (Etablieren von Modellen der Selbstorganisation, Erweitern der Budget-Autorität, Etablieren von Beteiligungsmodellen) Sinn („Arbeit, die man wirklich, wirklich will“, Erweitern des Wertschöpfungsbegriffs, Überprüfen von Strukturen und Prozessen) Entwicklung (Etablieren kollektiver Lernstrukturen, Selbstreflexion der Organisation, Etablieren kollektiver Entscheidungsstrukturen) Soziale Verantwortung (Ökologische und soziale Nachhaltigkeit, Regionales Engagement, Prinzip des Ehrbaren Kaufmanns)

Chetty

upward mobility: the “American Dream”

entrepreneurship/innovation: many Einsteins lost

There is saturation in average job prospects (compared to previous generations, across the working population)

Newport

  • why not follow your passion?

    • no evidence that we have a lot of suitable passions in the first place
    • passion as a by-product of skill (rather than a pre-condition)
    • having a rare and valuable skill is necessary to gain autonomy
    • satisfaction depends on autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Self-determination theory)

  • focused on knowledge work

  • It is about *rare skills

Fokus: konkrete/individuelle Strategie

Passion is a side effect of skill/mastery

idea: matching skill and passion

think small, act big:

  • it is important to develop the overall vision
  • you should not focus too much on specific jobs/positions
  • it may be important to take risks, you have to do “self-marketing”

-> “follow your passion” can be a very risky approach ()

TED talk: Cal_newport_follow_your_passion.webm ()

  Common Belief Reality (Career Capital First)
Step 1 ❤️ Find your passion 🔍 Explore interests and opportunities
Step 2 🎯 Choose career based on passion 🛠️ Build rare and valuable skills
Step 3 🏆 Achieve success and happiness ❤️ Passion grows as you gain mastery and impact

Conclusion

Organizations as collections of capital (industrial revolution) Organizations as collections of resources (competitive strategy) Organizations as collections of contracts (transaction cost theory) Organizations as collections of knowledge (knowledge economy/digitalization)

Workers fight for safe jobs, fair wages Workers fight for social insurance and leisure Workers fight for meaning (self-fulfillment) and flexibility

It all depends on the industry (there are low-paying jobs that require no knowledge)

  • MENTION Examples/important to make associations with the contents in the rest of the lecture.