Baethge-Kinsky Volker
Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut (SOFI), Göttingen, Germany.
Front Sociol. 2020 Jun 9;5:33. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2020.00033. eCollection 2020.
German companies have been affected by a new wave of digitalization during the past years, and this has led to responses both in the way production is organized and in the goals of the German industrial policy. The coordinated response is widely referred to as "Industry 4.0" and is intended to support German industries in the increasingly fierce competition for global leadership in manufacturing. Simultaneously, a social science debate about changes in work and in employee training began and continues to this day. Far-reaching predictions of fundamental change circulate, especially concerning the organization of work and worker competence requirements. Other issues include also the needs and opportunities of firm-based competence development at work as well as the role and the uses of digital media. In recent years, more empirical studies have become available for clarifying open questions, and this paper presents three main results from one such study based on case investigations in 10 German industrial firms. First, digitalization does not change industrial production work radically. There is no general trend of upskilling, downgrading, or reskilling. A moderate trend favoring upgrading is observable, however. Thus, traditional workforce competences are not becoming "obsolete." Rather, in the context of automation, they are being complemented by other skills including new technical qualifications in information technology as well as the ability to take a more theoretical approach to problem-solving in process optimization. Second, our results confirm more cautious assessments of the need for accelerated continuing vocational training. They also make it clear that the potential for increased learning opportunities in digital work and for the increased use of digital media in continuing vocational training has been overestimated. Learning opportunities seem to decrease rather than increase with digital work. Moreover, the use of digital media in continuing vocational training is limited due to organizational, financial, and cultural constraints and due to the lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of digital learning environments. Third, a number of organizational measures are needed to manage change. One measure would be to integrate new skill requirements into a binding institutional curriculum for education and training. Another measure would be to make on-the-job learning opportunities a central aspect of how work is organized.
在过去几年里，德国公司受到了新一轮数字化浪潮的影响，这在生产组织方式和德国产业政策目标方面都引发了应对措施。这种协同应对措施被广泛称为“工业4.0”，旨在支持德国工业在日益激烈的全球制造业领导地位竞争中占据优势。与此同时，一场关于工作和员工培训变化的社会科学辩论已经展开，并持续至今。关于根本性变革的深远预测广泛流传，尤其是关于工作组织和工人能力要求方面。其他问题还包括工作场所基于企业的能力发展的需求和机会，以及数字媒体的作用和用途。近年来，有更多实证研究可用于澄清悬而未决的问题，本文呈现了一项基于对10家德国工业公司的案例调查的此类研究的三个主要结果。首先，数字化并没有从根本上改变工业生产工作。不存在技能提升、技能降级或重新技能培训的普遍趋势。然而，可以观察到一种有利于技能升级的适度趋势。因此，传统劳动力能力并没有变得“过时”。相反，在自动化背景下，它们正被其他技能所补充，包括信息技术方面的新的技术资格，以及在过程优化中以更具理论性的方法解决问题的能力。其次，我们的结果证实了对加速持续职业培训需求的更为谨慎的评估。它们还表明，在数字工作中增加学习机会以及在持续职业培训中更多使用数字媒体的潜力被高估了。随着数字工作的开展，学习机会似乎在减少而非增加。此外，由于组织、财务和文化方面的限制以及对数字学习环境有效性缺乏了解，数字媒体在持续职业培训中的使用受到限制。第三，需要一些组织措施来管理变革。一种措施是将新的技能要求纳入具有约束力的教育和培训机构课程中。另一种措施是将在职学习机会作为工作组织方式的核心方面。
