Robots will most likely enter our work teams in the near future. To make such a robot an accepted and authentic member of a team, we need to first assess the relational competencies that the robot ought to have. We want to scan the existing literature to get an overview over important competencies which focus mainly on conversations within teams.

One way to alleviate the need for teaching different robots individually is by using teleoperation. Typically, human demonstrations can be captured by skeleton tracking with VR or motion capture, which requires special hardware. Can the use of simple videos combined with deep learning and AI achieve similar results which can be generalized?

Handshaking as a synchronous haptic interaction actively involves sensing the pressure exerted by the partner and accordingly adjusting one’s own force. This is an important aspect when it comes to robotic handshaking since touch can convey complex emotions.

The main focus of this thesis is to investigate works that use developments in computer vision and AI to efficiently detect human hands and gestures. It would involve looking into existing state-of-the-art methods and developing a real-time hand and gesture detection method, which can be easily integrating with existing Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) methods.

Robots are now capable of recognizing human emotion and expressing their own emotions through facial expressions or body gestures. Should robots show emotions? How are robots capable of showing emotions useful for human beings?

Loneliness is on a rise during this pandemic. In such challenging times, robots understanding and showing emotions can help in building relationships with humans that foster emotional security. The purpose of this study is to investigate if emotional robots can help to decrease the feeling of loneliness.

The disclosure of personal information, thoughts and feelings is an important factor for sympathy and central to the development of close relationships between people. In the context of a master thesis, the role of information disclosure in human-robot interaction should be investigated. Here, the focus is primarily on the extent of disclosure by the service robot. The thesis can include a video shoot with the robots and/or the design and evaluation of an online study.

Due to robots and other new technologies entering our working world, social aspects of teams might change as a consequence and impact collaboration and communication. This might give room to a fearfully anticipated loss of “social touch” in working teams. As water always finds its way, it is highly likely that humans engage in social-psychological regulation tactics to fulfil their social needs. We want to take a closer look at fruitful theoretical approaches (mainly rooted in psychology) that might play a role in this context. Additionally, an explorative study will be conducted to examine potential social-psychological regulation tactics.

Digitalization and AI offer extensive opportunities for companies' marketing activities. However, these new algorithms are also associated with a number of challenges. The suggested topics in the attached PDF are intended to shed light on these aspects.

The increasing work from home is blurring the boundaries between work and private life. What does constant availability do to employees? What influence do digital readiness, digital resilience and competencies in the use of information and communication technologies have?

We want to take a closer look at team performance in the digital age by scanning novel literature that is concerned with this topic. As a result of the literature review, we plan to give an outlook for future technologies and their potential impact on team performance.

With deep learning systems that can analyze facial reactions otherwise invisible to the eye, HR can try to know if someone is a good fit for the company. In this thesis, you will be performing facial expression recognition in real-time for the seven basic emotions and you will be study how effective emotion recognition is in employee performance interviews.

Covid-19 has made working from home part of the everyday life for many employees. The line between work and private life is therefore becoming increasingly blurred. The research questions deal with how home office affects employees and how it influences their mental health as well as organizational outcomes.

A generation of young employees is currently growing up with constant availability and increasing work from home. The primary research question deals with how young and older people differ in terms of their work-life balance? Which different preferences can be identified? How do they deal with the same demands? What different resources do different generations have?

Covid-19 has made working from home part of the everyday life for many employees. How does this affect employees? What effects on satisfaction, stress experience, commitment and productivity can be identified? What influence do the framework conditions at home have, such as equipment, additional obligations, etc.?

A generation of young employees is currently growing up with constant availability and increasing work from home. The primary research question deals with how young and older people differ in terms of their work-life balance? Which different preferences can be identified? How do they deal with the same demands? What different resources do different generations have?

Digitalization and COVID-19 led to a major shift on how we actually work and will work in the future. The suggested topics in the attached PDF are intended to shed light on these aspects. The topics cover all exciting areas of HR work of the future: from AI-based recruiting and leadership to digital work opportunities.

With advancing digitization also comes a greater responsibility that not only involves technical performance and safety but also social aspects and more concrete ethics. In order to shed more light on this important topic, this thesis should aim at providing insights that can help to answer a number of research questions, including

- What do we already know about ethical aspects of placing technology, such as robots, in teams?

- How do ethics for all-human teams and ethics for human-robot teams fit together?

- What are important ethical considerations for future research on and deployment of human-robot teams?

Selecting suitable instruments and methods to measure causal effects is a challenge for many researchers across scientific fields. It is an important prerequisite for any further decisions regarding any study design. We want to take a closer look at various methods that are currently used to assess causality in (field) experiments in business contexts, compare them and derive specific recommendations.

Many jobs are experiencing a major shift in the skills and core capabilities required for the future. This change does not stop at “classic” office jobs such as team assistance and PMO. We want to take a closer look at how the jobs of a team assistant and a PMO in large corporations are changing, what today’s core competencies are, and which competencies will be needed in the future.