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Das Weizenbaum-Institut nimmt Stellung zum geplanten Dateninstitut. Nach einer kurzen Einleitung werden Ziel und Aufgabe, Adressaten, Herausforderungen und konkrete Handlungsbereiche behandelt.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly reinforced the need for geographic restructuring and a rehoring of production, as it has demonstrated the vulnerability of globalized production. This article provides an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the geographies of production, looking particularly at developments in the automotive, electronics, and clothing industries. Criticizing overly simplified prospects for deglobalization, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be interpreted as a trigger for a general retreat from global manufacturing but rather as an event that is reinforcing long-standing shifts toward more multipolar production and consumption. While the issue of global production network resilience has attracted great attention in corporate strategies and industrial policies, re- or nearshoring of production networks is only one of several strategies and it has hardly been implemented so far. Ongoing disruptions and, above all, geoeconomically/-politically and environmentally motivated policies could well lead to a shift in investment and sourcing patterns. Political efforts in this direction are, however, limited by pre-existing global economic development paths and the balance of power associated with them.

With the publication of the Data Act proposal in February 2022, the European Commission approached an important milestone in the implementation of the data strategy it had announced two years earlier. The legislative proposal includes a package of measures that are supposed to make more IoT data available to data-driven enterprises. The legislation is expected to bring about more competition in the aftermarkets for IoT devices and related services, more value generation from such data and more techno-logical innovation enabled by access to data. The most innovative and far-reaching regulative instrument applied in this context is, without doubt, the mandatory access rights regime that would facilitate flow of data from private (mostly large) enterprises to other (mostly smaller) enterprises and to the public sector. This regime is accompanied by rules about the necessity and content of commercial contracts that define private entitlements concerning access to as well as use of co-generated IoT data, including statutory requirements concerning fairness, non-discrimination and compensation. This Position Paper primarily addresses the access rights regime and its accompanying rules focusing on contracts regarding access to data. It also briefly touches upon the provisions on data portability, rules for switching between providers and trade secrets. We conclude that the consolidated impact of the access rights regime on IoT device manufacturers, third parties and the data economy at large is hard to predict. At the same time, we argue that the legal positions and entitlements the Data Act would create require further scrutiny and that there is certainly room for clarifications and im-provements in the legislative proposal. The analysis concludes with several specific recommendations.

Today, artificial intelligence and machine learning play a crucial role in various fields of application. In one way or another, they influence our everyday lives. This current state of affairs and the suggestive power of these terms have triggered fundamental discussions in society. However, the technical basics have not received the attention they deserve - and need. This is especially true from a legal perspective, where groundwork on both the fundamental functionality as well as all the relevant terms surrounding the technology seems to be almost non-existent. This paper aims to fill this gap. We examine the technical background of artificial intelligence and machine learning from an interdisciplinary perspective and aim to develop common definitions that can be used for further research in legal academia. These findings provide a common starting point for a more differentiated treatment of legal (and technical) questions surrounding artificial intelligence and machine learning and allow legal academia to make reliable legal statements as well as to advance legal research in this field.

Blockchain-based systems are enjoying unbroken popularity. Different economic and social actors are investigating their application for fostering decentralization and separation of power. Whether a blockchain-based system can live up to such goals is heavily determined by the choice of a consensus protocol - the rules by which participants agree on what gets added to the blockchain. Bitcoin’s consensus protocol is inherently decentralization-enabling, at a notoriously high ecological cost. So-called permissioned protocols, while incomparably more efficient, are dismissed as being closed-off and "centralized". Federated blockchain systems represent a middle ground between these two extremes and promise to offer openness and security without sacrificing ecological sustainability. As a rough approximation, their approach can be described as bootstrapping consensus from a web of trust. In this overview article, after a short review of the Bitcoin approach and possible alternatives to it, we introduce the ideas behind federated blockchain systems and discuss their impact on future blockchain systems.

The shift to remote work poses particular challenges for teamwork. It makes spontaneous and informal communication more difficult and may weaken social relations in teams. This study based on an online survey of 1,516 individuals who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic examines the functioning of teamwork in remote-work contexts and attempts to answer the following questions: (1) What organizational and technical working conditions influence working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) How did collaboration in different forms of teamwork evolve under working-from-home conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic? (3) What effects of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic can be observed in terms of teamwork productivity? Overall, the study reveals quite surprising differences between different forms of team organization. The quality of team collaboration and team productivity slightly increased in agile teams, even in a situation where at least some members of the team were working from home. In contrast, respondents working in traditional teams reported slightly negative effects of working from home on teamwork quality and team productivity.

Die Umstellung auf Homeoffice während der COVID-19-Pandemie war eine Herausforderung für Teams. Die sozialen Kontakte und die Vielzahl informeller Begegnungen und Kommunikationsströme nahmen ab, die Interaktion fand vor allem virtuell statt und erforderte neue Kommunikationsmuster. In der vorliegenden, auf einer Befragung von 1.516 Erwerbstätigen beruhenden, Studie wurde untersucht (1) welche organisatorischen, aber auch technischen Bedingungen die Arbeit im Homeoffice während der COVID-19-Pandemie prägen, (2) wie sich die Zusammenarbeit in unterschiedlichen Formen der Teamarbeit unter den Bedingungen des Homeoffice während der COVID-19-Pandemie entwickelt hat und (3) welche Auswirkungen des Homeoffice sich während der COVID-19-Pandemie im Hinblick auf die Produktivität der Teamarbeit beobachten lassen. Die Studie zeigt überraschende Unterschiede zwischen unterschiedlichen Formen der Teamorganisation. Agile Teams konnten im Homeoffice die Qualität der Teamzusammenarbeit und die Teamproduktivität leicht steigern. Befragte, die in traditionellen Teams arbeiteten, berichteten hingegen leicht negative Auswirkungen des Homeoffice während der Pandemie auf die Qualität der Teamarbeit und die Teamproduktivität.

Auch im Jahr 2021 stand die politische Partizipation von Bürger:innen in Deutschland im Zeichen der COVID-19-Pandemie. Mehrere Infektionswellen schränkten das soziale Leben weiterhin ein und nahmen Einfluss auf die öffentliche Meinungsbildung und das politische Engagement: Großveranstaltungen wie Demonstrationen konnten nicht oder nur unter Auflagen im Rahmen des Infektionsschutzes durchgeführt werden, relevante Teile des politischen Diskurses und des politischen Handelns fanden im Internet statt. Die Längsschnittstudie zu politischer Partizipation, die die Forschungsgruppe "Digital Citizenship" des Weizenbaum-Instituts für die vernetzte Gesellschaft seit 2019 durchführt, befasst sich mit dem politischen und sozialen Engagement in Deutschland. Die forschungsleitende Frage nach der Nutzung digitaler Medien und ihrem Einfluss auf politisches Handeln wurde in diesem Jahr durch Fragen zu politischen Geschlechternormen und feministischen Einstellungen ergänzt. Sie sollen Aufschluss über die Hintergründe für geschlechtsbezogene Ungleichheiten in der politischen Partizipation geben (S. 10-11). Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt der Untersuchung bezog sich auf die Wahrnehmung und Verbreitung von Falschnachrichten ("Fake News") und Hassrede ("Hate Speech") in sozialen Medien (S. 11-12). Der Weizenbaum Report dokumentiert jährlich ausgewählte Befunde dieser bevölkerungsrepräsentativen Längsschnittuntersuchung, die von Oktober bis Dezember 2021 zum dritten Mal durchgeführt wurde. Die Besonderheit dieser Studie, durch die sie sich von vielen anderen Datenerhebungen unterscheidet, ist das sogenannte Paneldesign, bei dem dieselben Personen jedes Jahr erneut befragt werden. Dieses Studiendesign ermöglicht es, Veränderungen im Hinblick auf die Mediennutzung, die politische Partizipation oder bestimmte politische Einstellungen im Zeitverlauf sehr detailliert verfolgen zu können. Weiterführende Informationen zum Weizenbaum Panel, zu den methodischen Details der Erhebungen sowie alle früheren B

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.

Die COVID-19-Krise hat massiven Einfluss auf die Arbeitswelt. Basierend auf einer standardisierten Befragung von 540 Betrieben und 34 qualitativen Fallstudien in sechs Branchen (Automobil, Chemie, Maschinenbau, Logistik, Gesundheit und Finanzdienstleistungen) untersucht die vorliegende Studie, wie sich im Kontext der Pandemie die Digitalisierungs- und Automatisierungsstrategien von Unternehmen verändert haben. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die befragten Betriebe die Krise im Großen und Ganzen gut bewältigt haben. Dabei zeigt sich allerdings eine zunehmende Polarisierung. Digitale Vorreiter haben Digitalisierungsmaßnahmen während der Pandemie in stärkerem Maße intensiviert, als jene, die in dieser Hinsicht bereits vor der Pandemie zurücklagen. Der Fokus der Digitalisierung während der Pandemie lag insbesondere auf der Unterstützung von Prozessen in der Verwaltung, dem Personalmanagement und dem Vertrieb. Automatisierung spielte primär in diesen Feldern eine Rolle und nur eine Minderheit der Befragten erwartete mittelfristig Beschäftigungsverluste. Ein zentraler Befund der vorliegenden Studie ist zudem der Zusammenhang zwischen technischer und organisatorischer Innovation. Es lässt sich beobachten, dass jene Unternehmen, die stärker in technische Digitalisierungsprozesse investiert haben, zugleich auch eher geneigt waren, organisatorische Veränderungen im Hinblick auf Führungsstile, Arbeitszeit und Arbeitsorganisation vorzunehmen.

We explore the impact of automation and digitalization on labor in the US agrifood system during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study considers each of the primary nodes in the system stretching from consumer through grocery stores and restaurants to last-mile delivery, distribution, food processing, farming, and agri-inputs. Not only automation and digitalization, but also the role of platforms such as Amazon, and food delivery firms such as GrubHub, Instacart, and Uber Eats are discussed. For restaurants, we consider not only dine-in restaurants, but also “ghost kitchens”. Furthermore, the possibility that farmers or distributors could disintermediate other nodes and deal directly with consumers is discussed. We conclude that, as a generalization, the further upstream one goes from the consumer, the less immediate and disruptive automation is likely to be for labor. However, our overall conclusion is that, given the current trajectories, labor is becoming increasingly precarious. If the current labor shortages continue, then automation is likely to accelerate. Platformization, while rampant in the relationships with final consumers, is likely to be less rapidly adopted further upstream where relationships are B-to-B and thus composed of actors that are wary of sharing data.

The unprecedented rise of startups such as Google or Amazon has spurred an ongoing debate on the conceptualization of the corporate model these firms represent. Thus far, attention has centered on the analysis of their product and market strategies highlighting their platform nature as common feature and its defining characteristic. By applying and scaling the platform business model these companies have been able to capture value created outside the firm. The focus on the platform nature and the evolution of their external ecosystems, however, has left the work that is done inside these companies to create and provide online platforms largely unnoticed. Against this background, the article seeks to contribute to the debate by analyzing the inner mode of production as an essential component of their corporate model. The second nature of online platform firms, it is argued, is that they are tech companies. Building on this, the article aims to reconstruct how as tech companies they have learned and perfected to continuously develop and operate the internet applications that power their online platforms at global scale.

This discussion paper investigates two questions: To what extend can Tesla be regarded as a digital firm, and do we - as a result - see elements of a distinct "Tesla production system"? While the EV-startup is widely approached as a competing automaker focusing on the electric drive train, which it certainly is, this paper argues that it can only fully be understood as a digital firm - a digital car company with a digital product embedded in a digital ecosystem. Its roots in Silicon Valley, its software-first approach, and its strategic exploitation of user activity data point into this direction. In the second part, this paper explores to what extent Tesla's rootedness in software and its Silicon-Valley ancestry gave reason to introduce methods borrowed from software development on the shop floor. To a certain degree, concepts from agile software development found their way to the very assembly-line at Tesla. Although it might be exaggerated to speak of a distinct "Tesla Production system", indications for a considerable and possibly enduring alteration of Lean Production paradigm can be determined.

We are currently witnessing a fundamental structural transformation of the scientific public sphere, characterized by processes of specialization, metrification, internationalization, platformization, and visibilization. In contrast to explanations of this structural transformation that invoke a technological determinism, we demonstrate its historical contingency by drawing on analytic concepts from organization theory and the case of the Open Access transformation in Germany. The digitization of academic journals has not broadened access to scientific output but narrowed it down even further in the course of the “serials crisis”. For a long time, research institutions were not able to convince large academic publishers to adopt less restrictive forms of access to academic journals. It was only through the emergence of new and in part illegal actors (shadow libraries and preprint servers) that the existing path could be broken, and an Open Access path constituted. Following this analysis, we discuss consequences of the Open Access transformation for the public spheres of science and democracy. We conclude that Open Access publishing can only help to transform both communicative spaces towards the normative ideal of a public sphere when complemented by systematic support for non-profit publication infrastructures.

Just like all types of media use, mobile media use is usually measured using retrospective, self-reported indications of quantity in the form of duration and frequency. This is not only problematic due to the fact that people misjudge their own use to a great extent, but also because theoretical approaches predominantly suggest that mere contact is not sufficient for the description of media use. This especially holds for mobile media use, as specific contact episodes are not easily distinguishable anymore due to their short duration and high frequency. Mobile media use is rather characterized by circumstances surrounding the contact itself - they are used for countless purposes, in a habitual manner, and in various situations. In this paper, I am proposing a renewed, multidimensional measure of mobile media use that takes into account these characteristics in addition to well-known measures of quantity and suggest methods for assessing its convergent and content validity.

This article explores the position of industrial internet platforms (IIP) in manufacturing value chains. We develop an understanding of the role of data in global value chains (GVCs), referring to literature on intangible assets and theories on platform business models. We use data from a qualitative empirical study based on 45 interviews on platforms active on the German market to answer (1) whether there are tendencies of oligopolization that lead to an accumulation of power on the side of the platforms, and (2) whether it is the platforms that capture most of the gains derived from higher productivity or lower transaction costs. The analysis shows that platforms mainly act as service providers and/or intermediaries that support manufacturing companies in reaping benefits from data. While the relationship between platforms and manufacturers currently corresponds to a symbiosis, a stronger power imbalance could evolve in the future since processes of oligopolization are likely.

Es gibt Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Krise zu strukturellen Veränderungen der Arbeitswelt geführt hat, die in engem Zusammenhang mit Digitalisierungsprozessen stehen. Einige Veränderungen sind in industriellen Produktionsprozessen, der mobilen Arbeit und auch der Plattformarbeit zu erwarten. Damit solche Veränderungen sich positiv auf die Arbeitswelt auswirken ist politische Gestaltung gefragt. Beobachtbar ist, dass einige Unternehmen ihre Digitalstrategien überdenken, teils forcieren und vermehrt mit neuen Möglichkeiten experimentieren. Hier ist es notwendig, Betriebsrät_innen und Beschäftigte frühzeitig in die Gestaltung neuer Ansätze einzubinden. Am offensichtlichsten hat sich die Arbeitswelt in der Krise durch die digitale Kommunikation im virtuellen Raum verändert. Menschen die bereits im Homeoffice arbeiten, sind jedoch verschiedenen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt. Virulent sind Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, die Vermischung von beruflichem und privaten, sowie die Ausstattung des häuslichen Arbeitsplatzes. Aufgrund der Erschütterung der regulären Arbeitsmärkte nahm auch über digitale Plattformen vermittelte Arbeit zu. Die prekären Arbeitsbedingungen der Plattformarbeiter_innen haben sich während der Pandemie noch zugespitzt, gleichzeitig ist international aber eine politische Regulierung der Plattformarbeit in Sicht, die inzwischen auch in Deutschland in Ansätzen stattfindet.

This Position Paper contains statements drafted by several Research Groups at the Weizenbaum Institute concerning the Data Governance Act (DGA) Proposal. Each statement is followed by a short explanation. The purpose of this Paper is to highlight a number of important aspects of the DGA Proposal and stimulate the debate around it with a special emphasis on the part that concerns regulation of data sharing services (Chapter III, DGA Proposal). The Paper touches upon a number of selected matters without the ambition to cover all the important issues the DGA legislation raises. The statements address the potential risks in creating a centralized architecture for data intermediaries, the problem of imposing a duty on data sharing services to offer data on a non-discriminatory basis, the role and expertise supervision authorities will need to assume and exercise and questions regarding the interface between the anticipated DGA and existing data protection law in the EU. The Paper includes a number of specific recommendations regarding the formulation of several DGA provisions, specifically in connection with its intersection points with the GDPR.

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.