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.
Rodenstock, a company specialized on the development, manufacturing and marketing of lenses and spectacles, announced to create 500 new jobs in Germany and abroad in 2007. No information was given where the new jobs and which kind of jobs will be created. Currently, the company employs an international workforce of 5,000.
The family-owned German spectacles specialist had run into difficulties, before financial investor Perima Beteiligungsgesellschaft got involved in 2003.
500 jobs were cut and part of the production was relocated. According to the company’s information, business has substantially improved, overall sales amounted to 371 Million EUR in 2006. Sales increased by 9% in the first quarter of 2007. In March 2007, the European holding company Bridgepoint took over the shares of Rodenstock GmbH that had been held by Permira funds until then. Rodenstock now plans to increase sales to amount to 750 Million EUR by 2010. The company, which is much smaller than its international competitors Luxottica, Safilo or Essilor, will continue to specialize in technologically advanced products.
Eurofound (2007), Rodenstock, Business expansion in European Union, factsheet number 65365, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/65365.