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While the notion of digital sovereignty is loaded with a multitude of meanings referring to various actors, values and contexts, this paper is interested in how to actualize individual digital sovereignty. We do so by introducing the concept of agency affordances, which we see as a precondition for achieving digital sovereignty. We understand this notion as the ability to exercise power to, as autonomy and agency for (digital) self-sovereignty, and as power over the infrastructural sovereignty of the privately owned automated decision-making systems (ADM) systems of digital media platforms. Building our characterization of digital sovereignty on an empirical inquiry into individuals' requirements for agency, our analysis shows that digital sovereignty consists of two distinct but interrelated elements - data sovereignty and algorithmic sovereignty. Enabling practicable digital sovereignty through agency affordances, however, will require going beyond the just technical and extending towards the wider societal (infra)structures. We outline some initial steps on how to achieve that.

The COVID 19 crisis has had a massive impact on the world of work. Based on a standardized survey of 540 company sites and 34 qualitative case studies in six industries (automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering, logistics, healthcare and financial services), this study examines how companies’ digitalization and automation strategies have changed in the context of the pandemic. The analysis shows that the companies surveyed have by and large coped well with the crisis. However, an increasing polarization is becoming apparent. Digital pioneers intensified digitalization measures to a greater extent than those that were already behind in this respect before the pandemic. The focus of digitalization during the pandemic was particularly on supporting processes in administration, human resources management and sales. Automation also primarily played a role in these fields and only a minority of respondents expected employment losses in the medium term. Another key finding of this study is the correlation between technical and organizational innovation. It can be observed that those companies that invested more heavily in technical digitalization processes were also more inclined to make organizational changes with regard to management styles, working hours and work organization. This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (684 11 - "Denkfabrik Digitale Arbeitsgesellschaft") and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 - "Deutsches Internet-Institut").

In this contribution to a 'call for evidence' by the House of Lords (UK), we investigate the pivotal role of the Internet during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Internet has enabled many to work from home, to shop and be educated online, and keep in touch with colleagues and friends. The swift move online of many activities raised concerns about the robustness and resilience of the Internet. Contrary to some concerns, expressed when national lockdowns were being imposed, the Internet did not collapse. However, while the Internet allowed many to work from home etc., not everyone has access to the Internet. Furthermore, there are many differences between those who do have access to the Internet - quite simply, some are able to access the Internet using connections that are a lot faster than others. This shapes what businesses and individuals can do online, with those with slower connections or connections shared between many users being disadvantaged compared to those whose connectivity is better. Finally, it is necessary to remember that not everything can move online. Some occupations, such as those with a greater knowledge content, are more amenable to the move online than those with a larger labour (physical) component.

In the current public discussion, it is considered certain that we are living in a time of rapidly advancing automation, which is driven in particular by the use of robots. Accordingly, many academic publications use robot density as the central indicator of automation. The present study challenges this perspective. It examines two central questions: First, what approaches to automation and digitalization have been pursued in the automotive industry in Germany, Japan and the USA? Second, how have employment and its occupational composition in the automotive industry developed in the three countries? The first part of the study focuses on the development of automation and digitalization approaches in the automotive industry from the early 1990s until today. It combines a qualitative analysis of press articles and a quantitative evaluation of the development of the stock of industrial robots from 1993 to 2018 based on the statistics of the International Federation of Robotics. The second part of the study focuses on the change in employment structures using occupational statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA), the Federal Employment Agency (Germany) and the Statistics Bureau of Japan. The study questions the perception of an automation-related threat to employment and especially to production employment. At the same time, it discusses developments in Germany, Japan and the USA in comparison and highlights differences in automation and digitalization approaches as well as different paths of change in employment structures. Zugl.: Preprint (Manuscript Version) von Krzywdzinski, Martin (2021): Automation, digitalization, and changes in occupational structures in the automobile industry in Germany, Japan, and the United States: a brief history from the early 1990s until 2018, Industrial and Corporate Change, ISSN 1464-3650, Oxford University Press, Oxford, doi: 10.1093/icc/dtab019.

The platform economy has been criticized for exacerbating social inequalities in various ways. This study draws on these discussions and examines the extent to which social inequalities are being reproduced, reduced, or even increased within platform work. The first central question is that of the precariousness of this form of work and the vulnerability of the platform workers as a group. This is followed by a second question about the role of classical dimensions of inequality of education and gender within the group of platform workers. The study focuses on inequalities related to income, workload, and the subjective perception of platform work. It follows a comparative approach, building on institutionalist analyses developed in labor market and inequality research. The empirical analysis is based on case studies of 15 crowdwork platforms in the United States and Germany and on an online survey of crowdworkers in both countries. While platforms represent a global organizational model, they are embedded in different models of capitalism. The study shows that existing labor market segmentation and social welfare systems determine who works on platforms and to what extent. The weaker the social safety net, the more likely platform work is to be both a curse and a blessing: It offers a much needed and flexible source of income, albeit under extremely precarious conditions. The stronger the social safety net, on the other hand, the greater the market power of workers vis-à-vis the platforms.

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