Walter Rohmert Research Award for Dr. Benedikt Andrew Latos
Award for IAW Alumnus
To our great pleasure, this year's Walter Rohmert Research Award for outstanding research achievements in labor science went to a former IAW PhD student: Dr. Benedikt Andrew Latos received the award at the 67th Spring Congress of the Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft (Society for the Study of Labor) for his dissertation on the topic “Auswirkungen von Komplexität auf die Performance von Produktionsgruppen” (Effects of Complexity on the Performance of Production Groups).
Dr. Latos has succeeded in eliminating central deficits in socio-technical complexity research as well as in team research. With his paper, he provides a model for explaining group performance that has been expanded to include relevant complexity dimensions. Literature-analytical and empirical studies formed the basis. The results of the investigation underline that complexity can have both positive and negative effects on the quality of group processes and their results. The evaluation results in practice-oriented recommendations that should be considered when designing group work in production. Regarding production planning, Dr. Latos also provides a metric for capturing the complexity level of group work processes, which he evaluated in a simulation study.
In its verdict, the review panel confirmed the scientific excellence already noted by the supervising professors Susanne Mütze-Niewöhner and Verena Nitsch, as well as the social and practical relevance of the work.
Since 2010, the Walter Rohmert Research Award, which is endowed with 1,500 euros, has been offered by the IAD – Institut für Arbeitswissenschaft (Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors) at TU Darmstadt and awarded in cooperation with the Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft e.V. (Society for Ergonomics).
We congratulate cordially on this honor!