Caroline Ruiner is Professor for Sociology at University of Hohenheim since October 2019. Previously she has been Assistant Professor for Sociology with a focus on sociology of work and organization at Trier University in Germany. She has been habilitated at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Ruhr University Bochum in 2018. She did her doctoral degree at Augsburg University and previously studied management and sociology at the Goethe University Frankfurt.
Her research focuses on new work and new employment relationships and the effects on individual and organizational levels as well as with regard to industrial relations. In particular, she investigates flexible work arrangements with the highly skilled workforce and the negotiation of working conditions especially of highly skilled independent contractors in IT services, film industry and medicine as well as the role of different actors at the intermediary level, such as staffing agencies, professional associations and cooperatives. She also explores the increasing digitalization in logistics with a special view to truck drivers and service delivery cyclists, examining the resulting impact and demands on workers, teams and executives. Currently, she is coordinating the project “Digitalized Idea and Work Management in Production, Logistics and Trade” (DIAMANT) which analyzes and designs digitalization processes in organizations.
She has published the results in refereed international journals such as Economic and Industrial Democracy, German Journal of Human Resource Management, International Journal of Employment Studies, Journal of Business Economics. One important publication is a textbook (Arbeits- und Industriesoziologie, UTB 2016) which received a teaching award from the German Sociological Association.
Caroline Ruiner has international experience in conducting empirical research with colleagues from Austria, France, the Netherlands and UK and organized international workshops and conferences in Germany, Greece, Japan and Italy. Finally, she is founding member of the “Club of Florence ‒ Supply Chains & Societies” as a network of international experts who deal with (socially) relevant issues in logistics.