Head of department
Caroline Ruiner has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Hohenheim since October 2019. Prior to this, she was Assistant Professor with a focus on the sociology of work and organization at the University of Trier. She completed her habilitation at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Ruhr University Bochum in 2018. She received her doctorate from the University of Augsburg and previously studied business administration and sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Her research focuses on the transformation of work in the context of digital transformation and links this development with the sustainability transformation (twin transformation). A particular emphasis is placed on the implications of the use of AI. She examines how these developments affects individuals, teams, and organizations as well as industrial relations.
Her research has been published in peer-reviewed national and international journals such as Economic and Industrial Democracy, Employee Relations, Journal of Business Logistics, Industrielle Beziehungen and Zeitschrift für Soziologie. Other notable publications include a sociology textbook (with Mona-Maria Bardmann, 2024, UTB) and a textbook on the sociology of work and industry (with Maximiliane Wilkesmann, 2016, UTB), which received the Teaching Award of the German Sociological Association.
Caroline Ruiner has extensive experience in conducting and coordinating empirical research projects with international collaborators from France, Italy, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Austria. She has also organized international workshops and conferences in Germany, Greece, Japan, Italy and the USA.
Research interest
Changes in the work environment and their effects at the individual and organizational, as well as with regard to industrial relations
- Employment relations of highly skilled workers, particularly solo self-employed in knowledge-intensive fields, and the role of intermediary actors
- Cooperatives as new labor market organizations
- Working conditions, digitalization, and representation of interests in logistics
- New work in different organizational contexts, especially system-critical areas
- Twin transformation as the interplay between sustainability and digital transformation, and its impact in work contexts
- Ethical design of AI and its effects on employees
