Measuring Digital Work in (German) Employee Surveys: An Overview and Proposal of Systematization

Innovative measurements in representative surveys are needed to draw meaningful conclusions about the prevalence of digital work and its consequences for employees' job demands and resources. Since the digitalization of work encompasses a variety of technological developments and possible impli...

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Published inJournal of contextual economics : Schmollers Jahrbuch Vol. 142; no. 1; pp. 67 - 92
Main Authors Marx, Charlotte K., Abendroth, Anja-Kristin, Meyer, Sophie-Charlotte, Reimann, Mareike, Tisch, Anita
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin Duncker & Humblot GmbH 2022
Duncker & Humblot Gmbh
Subjects
Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
Communication
Debates
Digital technology
Employees
Employment
Labor market
Occupational safety
Sociology
Surveys
Work
Workers
Germany
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Summary:Innovative measurements in representative surveys are needed to draw meaningful conclusions about the prevalence of digital work and its consequences for employees' job demands and resources. Since the digitalization of work encompasses a variety of technological developments and possible implications for employment, there are many different approaches to its operationalization. Within this article, we (1) provide a scheme for classifying different approaches to measuring digital work, (2) apply this scheme to nine different representative German employee surveys that operationalize digital work, and (3) evaluate the measurement of digital work by discussing the advantages and limitations of the different approaches. We identify three approaches to measuring digital work: equipment-based, contentbased, and opinion-based. Besides the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches, we discuss the state of the art in measuring digital work and whether it would make sense to create a standardized set of questions. Keywords: Technological Change, Digitalization, Methodology, Employee Surveys, Germany
ISSN:2568-7603
2568-762X
DOI:10.3790/schm.142.1.67