A new data record is now available in the Qualiservice catalogue at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.983306. 

 

The data set consists of 37 transcripts of qualitative interviews from the study on visions and best practices for workplace technology design, funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation as part of the Digital Transformation Research Network. The study was conducted by Linda Nierling, Felix Gnisa and Philipp Frey from the Institute for Technology Assessment (ITAS) between January 2022 and June 2025. 

The survey was divided into two phases. In the first year, particularly advanced practices of democratic technology design in cooperatives and industrial alternative movement were analyzed. In the second year, German trade unions and works councils were researched, that had established well-developed instruments for co-determination on digitalization for their companies. A total of 54 problem-centered interviews were conducted in 20 cases. 

Based on these empirical findings, concrete courses of action are presented to stakeholders. The best practices identified are intended to serve as visions for the future of employee-oriented technological change. A central question of the research project is how trade union values such as solidarity or democracy in the workplace can be represented and communicated through the formulation of futures in innovations. The aim of the project was to develop strategies based on visionary examples that illustrate the (potential) formability of technology. These strategies are designed to address possible technophobia and uncertainty about the future and ultimately to create confidence and empowerment among the workforce for the collective shaping of digital change. 

The anonymized transcripts of these 37 interviews are now available for secondary scientific use as a Scientific Use File and as a Campus Use File for academic teaching. The data set has a wide range of potential uses, particularly for research into digital transformation, corporate technology policy and trade union practice. This research data could be of interest for questions in the sociology of work and technology, the sociology of industrial relations and conflicts, organizational psychology, research into social innovations and cooperative economic forms, as well as for teaching purposes in the field of digitalization and the world of work