Organizations worldwide are at crossroads regarding human workers’ roles and identities concerning their operational interaction with technology – e.g., given the rise of artificial intelligence, robotics, and technology in all fields of work. Good work has been a topic for organization research, with a focus on workers themselves as leaders and team members, but less so regarding technology impact on good working conditions besides the obvious ergonomic angle. The sustainability angle holds the social sustainability dimension to be referred to from a holistic perspective. This field is relevant to the human factor in organizations and supply chains in addition to the field of digital ethics, emphasizing issues of fairness, justice, longtermism and social responsibility of global actors towards planet, people and environment. Within this thesis project, the following questions could be addressed:

• What does good work in the context of human-technology interaction in supply chains mean? How is this related to sustainability and digital ethics?
• How do different levels of organizational policies, leadership styles, team collaboration and individual expectations relate when it comes to building human-centered systems and good work settings in globalized and digital supply chains?
• How can organizations enhance people’s willingness to experiment with new forms of structuring and routines and therefore generate their evolution as a form of good work design? Is this feasible for the core question of human-technology interaction where efficiency issues are usually at the forefront of stakeholder objectives?
• How can organization studies carry out an effort to reveal fundamental principles for good work and human-centered operations, e.g. is it feasible to formulate generalized organizational design principles (e.g., the EU legislation on AI and robotics), or do we need dedicated industry standards to cover the issue?

 Material

Knights, D., & Latham, Y. (2020). Disabled People and Digitalization: Disruptive documents in distributing digital devices. Organization Studies, 41(6), 855–872, https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840619869744

Sharma, G., & Bansal, P. (2017). Partners for Good: How Business and NGOs Engage the Commercial–Social Paradox. Organization Studies, 38(3–4), 341–364, https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616683739

Slager, R., & Gond, J.-P. (2022). The Politics of Reactivity: Ambivalence in corporate responses to corporate social responsibility ratings. Organization Studies, 43(1), 59–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840620964980

Thorén, C., Ågerfalk, P. J., & Rolandsson, B. (2018). Voicing the Puppet: Accommodating Unresolved Institutional Tensions in Digital Open Practices. Organization Studies, 39(7), 923–945, https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617695358

Viviani, C., Arezes, P.M., Bragança, S., Molenbroek, J., Dianat, I., & Castellucci, H. I. (2018). Accuracy, precision and reliability in anthropometric surveys for ergonomics purposes in adult working populations: A literature review. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 65, 1-16, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2018.01.012