The understanding of leadership and the skills of managers at different hierarchical levels strongly influence the extent to which the potential of digitisation can be tapped for the purpose of good work. The current challenge for executives lies in the fact that all interacting elements of the operational interaction structure, such as people, machines, organisational processes and work tasks, are constantly changing. Participation based processes should enable employees to perform their work in a conducive manner to personal development.

This can only succeed if the interaction structure (Person-Technique-Organization) is understood and managed as joint optimization of a socio-digital system. Consequently, the research project eLLa4.0 aims to enable managers to control socio-digital systems through the development of interactional competence. Workshops for different target groups will be developed and summarized in the certificate course "Excellent Socio-Digital Leadership".

In order to qualify executives, a further goal is to test new learning worlds such as the Future Work Lab of the Fraunhofer IAO (Stuttgart) and the demonstration factory ("Demofabrik") of the Institute for Industrial Management (FIR) at RWTH Aachen University. In this way different scenarios of technology implementation could be anticipated, advantages and disadvantages could be discussed and effects on leadership could be estimated.

Involved in the project are the Social Research Centre Dortmund (consortium leader), the Fraunhofer IAO (Stuttgart) and the FIR at the RWTH (Aachen). Further development partners are four companies: BEUMER (mechanical engineering in the fields of conveying, loading, palletising, packaging, sortation, and distribution), Belfor DeHaDE (mechanical engineering and maintenance; automation and electrical engineering), DMG Mori (metal-cutting machine tools and manufacturers of CNC-controlled lathes and milling machines) and WBS Training (professional training and retraining). On the basic of scientific inputs from each company will derive its own measures and develop digital tools to support managers.

The project runs from 1 September 2019 to 31 August 2022 and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and co-financed by European Social Fund. The homepage of the project is www.ellaviernull.de. Informations are available only in german.

Contact: Dr. Ralf Kopp (ralf.kopptu-dortmundde)

Links

• ella4.0 | Homepage
• ella4.0: Sociodigital Transformation towards Excellent Leadership and Labour | project details
• Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO
• FIR (Institute for Industrial Management)

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