Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
Electrostar is a Germany based company producing domestic appliances. In 2016, the company started to relocate in the home country production activities earlier offshored to China. It is expected all the production activities will be back-shored by the end of 2020. The company declared the relocation decision was based on several motivations: a) reduction of cost advantages initially offered by China; b) reduction of the lot size due to the firm's decision to increase the number of product variants; c) quality concerns; e) higher flexibility offered by producing in Germany; f) delivery time, and g) lower cost of storage.
Eurofound (2016), Electrostar, Reshoring in Germany, factsheet number 58, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/58.