HCI and CSCW have a long-standing interest in the consequences of digital transformation for work practices. A key part of this is its impact on labour relations. While prior HCI studies have examined labour relations in domains such as platform work, few have looked at industrial settings. This paper presents an ethnographic study of works councils in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Germany. Works councils exemplify the principle of Co-Determination, which is the right of employees to participate in the design and management of their workplace and play a vital role in vetting new technologies whenever they imply changes in work practices. A number of issues confront works councils when they attempt to accomplish this, namely a lack of time, knowledge, and external support. We discuss these issues and consider their implications for both design and the constitution of workplace democracy in future industrial settings.

Previous CSCW research has paid increasing attention to regional innovation systems providing the context for CSCW research and design. In this paper we provide insights into attempts to intervene in such a regional innovation system via practice-oriented activities. Our findings describe experiences of co-creating knowledge around digitization of SMEs on a regional level, beyond individual company contexts. We reflect on the benefits and challenges such an approach affords and highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships and similarities between practices in different contexts to enable intended but also initially unexpected knowledge spillovers. Our findings highlight how a praxeological approach to CSCW can be influential in regional development programs, and open this field to CSCW research and design. We draw out lessons for similar interventions and outline fruitful avenues for future research.