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.
In May 2004, the merger of Springer Science and Business Media, the German specialist publishing company, and the Dutch publishing group Kluwer Academic Publishers is expected to lead to job cuts. Around 100 of the 500 jobs at Kluwer are to be cut by the end of 2006, while Springer's production department for books and magazines in Berlin, which employs 23 staff, is to be closed by the end of January 2005. Some of the work currently carried out by this department is to be transferred to the group's subsidiary SPS in India, in order to save on staff costs. The areas of logistics, finance and the processing of orders are to be concentrated in Berlin and Heidelberg. The new group will be the world's second largest scientific publishing group, with around 5,400 staff. The new group will trade under the name Springer.
Eurofound (2004), Wolters Kluwer & Springer, Merger/Acquisition in Germany, factsheet number 60441, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/60441.