Guest Lecture by Prof. Dilek Kurt (Yeditepe University, Istanbul) as Part of an Academic Exchange
In her lecture, Prof. Kurt presented the situation of small and medium-sized enterprises in Turkey and discussed findings from a survey of management consultants. The results revealed deficits in the areas of organisation, skills development, and leadership that are in part comparable to those observed in Germany. Leadership in particular is in focus of her current book, Sosyodijital Liderlik: Etkileşim Yetkinliği ile Sosyodijital Dönüşümde Başarı, which explicitly builds on research findings and publications of the Social Research Centre Dortmund.
As became evident in further presentations and discussions, the sociotechnical or socio-digital systems approach forms the shared conceptual foundation both of Prof. Kurt’s work and of key labour research projects at the Social Research Centre. This approach enables an integrated perspective on jointly shaped factors and counteracts one-sided technological approaches by strengthening participatory methods in organisational development and technology implementation. In the context of Industry 4.0 and, increasingly, Industry 5.0, orientation towards this approach is widely recommended, although a quantitatively and qualitatively satisfactory transfer from programmatic intentions to practice has not yet been achieved. At the same time, it was critically emphasised that the approach requires stronger empirical development in light of the dynamics of digitalisation and in the context of Industrial AI. Considerable scepticism was expressed as to whether research and industrial policy will provide sufficient resources for this purpose. Despite repeated historical setbacks, the risk of a renewed dominance of technological determinism was assessed as high.
Although the Social Research Centre is involved in numerous European projects – particularly in the fields of qualification and skills development – the overall limited presence of labour research within EU-funded projects was identified as a matter of concern.
The exchange concluded with discussions on deepening bilateral cooperation and on concrete perspectives for joint acquisition of future research projects.