Special Issue "Digitalization of Knowledge Work and Its Influence on Occupational Health"

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Communication".
Impact Factor: 2.468

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2020.


Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is a better understanding of how digitalization influences occupational health and how to ensure sustainable management of digitalisation with an integrated focus on both organizational performance and employee wellbeing.

Digitalization of knowledge work using digital technologies, such as robotics, internet of things or artificial intelligence changes business models, provides new revenue and value-producing opportunities and new managerial and work processes (Vuori, Helander & Okkonen, 2019).

Such a digitalized working environment can have a positive and negative influence on the occupational health of employees (Poulsen & Ipsen, 2017). From a positive point of view, knowledge workers become, for example, independent of a concrete workplace, can access more people, become more innovative with the help of the crowd (Kirchner & Razmerita, 2019), can avoid working in dangerous working environments, or can improve health by applying digital tools (like Apps).

From a negative point of view, digitalization of work can create a physical distance with less contact to colleagues, lead to 24/7 accessability, might cause an information overload, increase the monitoring of work related activities and affect work-life balance .

Digitalization of knowledge work therefore opens the door to an increase in occupational health challenges—in particular of a psychosocial and organizational nature —that need to be better understood and managed (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2018).

A number of questions for this Special Issue can be identified but are not exclusive:

What is the positive and negative influence of a digitalized work environment on the occupational health?
How is the influence of a digitalized working environment perceived by different groups of employees and how can these differences be addressed by occupational health experts and managers?
What are the managerial actions and interventions that workplaces can take to improve or secure employees’ wellbeing (e.g., training, involvement into digitalization strategies)?
How we can ensure a combined focus on both business and sustainable management by integrating performance and well-being?
References

Kirchner, K., & Razmerita, L. (2019). Managing the Digital Knowledge Work with the Social Media Business Value Compass. In 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 6438-6447).

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2018). Foresight on new and emerging occupational safety and health risks associated with digitalisation by 2025. https://osha.europa.eu/en/tools-and-publications/publications/foresight-new-and-emerging-occupational-safety-and-health-risks/view

Poulsen, S., & Ipsen, C. (2017). In times of change: How distance managers can ensure employees’ wellbeing and organizational performance. Safety science, 100, 37-45.

Vuori, V., Helander, N., & Okkonen, J. (2019). Digitalization in knowledge work: the dream of enhanced performance. Cognition, Technology & Work, 21(2), 237-252.

Assoc. Prof. Kathrin Kirchner
Assoc. Prof. Christine Ipsen
Guest Editors