EVENTS

Prof. Dr. Julia Zeller-Lanzl, Universität Hamburg, DIT

Digital technologies are transforming the world of work at an unprecedented pace. They enable new forms of collaboration, create flexibility, and open up new possibilities for knowledge work and innovation. At the same time, many employees experience digital work as increasingly accelerated, boundaryless, and demanding.

These tensions have become particularly visible in recent years through two profound developments: the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift toward hybrid work, as well as the rapid spread of (generative) AI. Both developments have rapidly changed where we work and how we work, communicate, and make decisions.

In my inaugural lecture, I explore how digital work can be designed in ways that allow people to benefit from it in the long term. It focuses on three perspectives: How can digital technologies meaningfully support people? How can digital work be designed in healthy and sustainable ways? And how can we prevent people from being excluded or left behind by digital transformation?

Drawing on current research and future research directions, I discuss why the future of digital work depends not only on technological innovation, but above all on how we design digital work in organizations and for people.

Institution

• UHH