Various crises have been affecting society and the world of work. Therefore, both trade unions and employers' associations consider transformation of the world of work as inevitably. Taking into account the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the question arises what a healthy, socially just, and ecologically sustainable transformation may look like.

The Junior Professorship of Psychology, in particular the Transformation of the World of Work, approaches these questions from an occupational health psychology perspective. To this end, it focuses on three thematic areas in research and teaching:

- The interplay between social justice and ecological sustainability

- Economic stressors and associated dilemmas

- Theoretical and methodological reflexivity and criticism

The junior professorship works on these topics in various national and international, partly interdisciplinary research collaborations.

The junior professorship focuses on three main topics.

The interplay between social justice and ecological sustainability

The ecological crisis requires sustainable and socially just solutions. However, some technological solutions are based on the exploitation of human and non-human resources, which in turn leads to conflicts and refugee movements. The junior professorship therefore aims to look at these two fundamental challenges both separately and in combination. To this end, it builds on previous work on the topic of migration.

Economic stressors and the employment-health dilemma

Increasing flexibilization of labor relations enables organizations to react flexibly to fluctuations in production by reducing personnel costs temporarily. Employees who are considered easily replaceable rarely benefit from this flexibilization and are confronted with low investment in their occupational health and safety. Therefore, they tend to face the question of whether they should give up their job to protect their health (jeopardizing their economic situation) or keep this job to protect their economic basis (risking their health; employment-health dilemma). As crises are likely to exacerbate such dynamics, the junior professorship studies economic stressors and their consequences based on previous work.

Theoretical and methodological reflexivity and criticism

To address current social challenges, a reorientation of work and organizational psychology and related disciplines is necessary with regard to theoretical and methodological paradigms. , Among other things, the lacking representation of marginalized groups, the neglect of explorative questions, and the limited pluralism of theoretical approaches highlight this need.