Social media play a paradoxical role for matters of interest representation in global value-creation networks. On the one hand, social media platforms offer workers and trade unions the possibility to mobilize across geographical and institutional distances. On the other hand, these platforms also allow third parties to extract and process the digital traces of this communication about interest representation (e.g. Tweets). The aim of this paper is to introduce a specific form of processing – “Predictive Risk Intelligence” – as a new research object. Predictive Risk Intelligence providers use social media data to make predictions about events such as strikes and protests. They make these predictions available to other actors – for example, companies – as a service. In this paper, we introduce the phenomenon of Predictive Risk Intelligence through a case study of a provider of these services. Based on the case study, we develop a set of research questions related to established and new actors in the field of interest representation in value-creation networks. Finally, we discuss possible solutions for methodological challenges of the new research topic.
Riskante Retweets: „Predictive Risk Intelligence“ und Interessenvertretung in globalen Wertschöpfungsnetzwerken