Session Information
32 SES 13 A, Organization, Diversity, and Digitization. Organizational Educational Theory and Research Perspectives
Symposium
Contribution
Digital technologies are increasingly finding their way into the provision of social services. For social organizations, this presents a wide range of opportunities and challenges. To meet these challenges, an interdisciplinary consortium consisting of five scientific organizations, three IT companies and 14 social institutions in Austria is working on the "Digital Social Route Map" project. The core of the project is the creation of a digital tool that helps people find information about services to solve social problems. The aim is to create an innovative product that, with the help of target-group and demand-oriented use of adequate digital technologies, creates added value for those affected as well as for social service providers compared to existing offers. The consortium works in an integrative and participative process with potential users and different organizations. The implementation of the "Digital Social Route Map" poses numerous challenges for the organizations involved in the project, as they are caught between the diverse opportunities offered by digital technologies and the heterogeneous demands of (potential) stakeholders. Particularly in the areas in which digital technologies find their way into direct client work, multi-layered technical, ethical, and organizational questions arise that can stand in "contradictory relationship to professional logics of social work" (Kutscher et al. 2020). Among other things, social organizations have to deal with data protection concepts and IT security, ensure equal technical access for their (vulnerable) stakeholder groups, consider the impact on the relationship with and trust by clients, and ensure the quality and diversity of services. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of the stakeholder groups requires that aspects of diversity - which are of central importance for (social) organizations - be given special focus when organizations implement digitization processes (Mayer/Vanderheiden 2014; Becker 2016; Dreas 2019). On the one hand, digitization can create further barriers to access, but at the same time it can also represent an opportunity to establish diversified, innovative, needs-based, and low-threshold services. In this respect, working with these ambivalences of integrating new technologies is a crucial aspect in the digitization process of social organizations and their services (Deckert/ Langer 2018; Grunwald 2018; Roehl/ Asselmeyer 2017). In order to address the described tensions and ambivalences between digitalization and diversity-conscious service orientation, social organizations need to engage in experimental and disinhibiting learning and transformation processes. In this contribution, experiences from a practice-oriented research project are shared that exemplify how social organizations can deal with these processes.
References
Becker, M. (2016). Was ist Diversity Management? In K. Fereidooni & A. P. Zeoli (Hrsg.), Managing Diversity. Die diversitätsbewusste Ausrichtung des Bildungs- und Kulturwesens, der Wirtschaft und Verwaltung (S. 291–317). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Deckert, R., & Langer, A. (2018). Digitalisierung und Technisierung sozialer Dienstleistungen. In K. Grunwald & A. Langer (Hrsg.), Sozialwirtschaft. Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Praxis (S. 872–889). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Dreas, S. A. (2019). Diversity Management in Organisationen der Sozialwirtschaft. Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Grunwald, K. (2018). Organisationsentwicklung/ Change Management in und von sozialwirtschaftlichen Organisationen. In K. Grunwald & A. Langer (Hrsg.), Sozialwirtschaft. Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Praxis (S. 333–356). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Kutscher, N., Ley, T., Seelmeyer, U., Siller, F., Tillmann, A., & Zorn, I. (Hrsg.). (2020). Handbuch Soziale Arbeit und Digitalisierung. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa. Mayer, C.-H., & Vanderheiden, E. (Hrsg.) (2014). Handbuch Interkulturelle Öffnung. Grundlagen, Best Practice, Tools. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rubrecht. Roehl, H., & Asselmeyer, H. (Hrsg.). (2017). Organisationen klug gestalten. Das Handbuch für Organisationsentwicklung und Change Management. Stuttgart: Schäffer-Poeschel.
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