ICT, the Knowledge Society and Changes in Work

Thematic Workshops





Subtheme Thematic Workshop 1:

ICT and skill change: opening the black box?

 
Convenor: Bram Steijn (email: steijn@fsw.eur.nl)

The (supposed) relationship between technological change and skills concerns a ‘classic' theme both within sociological and economical scientific research. In the past, this discussion was framed by discussions whether or not technological change leads to ‘upgrading', ‘downgrading' or ‘polarization'.

Recent research has gone beyond the simple technological determinism implied by these earlier studies and has acknowledged the fact that the relationship between technological change and skill change is mediated by many intervening variables – in this respect the importance of variables related to organizational structure and culture is especially to be noted. Clearly, the assumption that ‘organization precedes automation' remains in this respect an important position. In a similar way, Zuboff's argument that new technology can be used in two very different ways (‘to automate or to informate') is still valuable for contemporary research. Nevertheless, the exact mechanisms that relate technological and organizational variables to skill changes remain unclear.

In this subtheme we will therefore try to open the "black box" between technological development and skill change, i.e. shed light on the conditions steering direction and content of the relationship between these two variables.

Paper presentations of Workshop 1

Session 1 (Thursday June 9, 15.00 – 16.30 hrs)

  • M. de Mul and A. de Bont (instituut Beleid en Management Gezondheidszorg, Erasmus University) Changing relationships between professionals in shared-care programs On ICT, redistribution of tasks, and standardizing in eye care
  • G. Valenduc and P. Vendramin (Work & Technology Research Centre, Namur), Work organisation and skills in ICT professions: the gender dimension
  • R. Batenburg & B. Steijn (University of Utrecht/Erasmus University Rotterdam), Sourcing IT skills in organizations: an international comparison

Session 2 (Friday June 10, 10.15 – 12.00 hrs)

Session 3 (Friday June 10, 13.00 – 14.45 hrs)

Subtheme Thematic Workshop 2:

Virtual teams and virtual organizations

 
Convenor: Erik Andriessen (email: j.h.t.h.andriessen@tbm.tudelft.n l)

Global market developments and the large-scale use of diverse applications in the area of information and communication technology have been key factors in the emergence of distributed teams. Such teams are often referred to as virtual teams. Virtual teams enable collaboration between people across traditional boundaries and offer tremendous opportunities for various achievements. Businesses are no longer tied to a single time zone and are, for example, able to develop software around the 24-hour clock. In this way use can be made of widely dispersed expertise. The Internet as the almost universal medium for interaction across boundaries has created an infrastructure that enables many organizations to launch virtual teams. Hardly any technical obstacle for communication and collaboration across geographic boundaries remain as these processes are supported by high tech collaboration solutions, such as groupware and other collaborative applications (e.g. videoconferencing, electronic blackboards).

However, virtual teams also have to solve problems that come with having less than optimal communicative channels, of missing non-verbal cues in communication and unplanned social encounters, resulting in reduced ‘awareness' of the availability of others, and of work progress. This may imply issues of trust and cohesion. Global virtual teams have to deal with the additional issues of communicating across different time zones, languages, and cultures. Inadequate ICT tools or infrastructures and the incompatibility of technology often results in barriers for cooperation.

Paper presentations of Workshop 2

Session 1: Virtual teams (Thursday June 9, 15.00 - 16.30 hrs)

  • Tobias Kwakkelstein, Jan de Leede, Peter Oeij & Jan-Kees Looise (The Netherlands), Working in Virtual Teams: Exploring the High Road
  • J. de Rooy & R. Verburg (The Netherlands), How to Coordinate Virtual Teams: in Theory and Practice
  • Eleftheria Vasileiadou & Peter van den Besselaar (The Netherlands), Seeking Structure. Studying the Interaction between the Use of Email and the Emergency of Structure in a Scientific Virtual Team

Session 2: Virtual communities (Friday June 10, 10.15 - 12.00 hrs)

Session 3: Virtual organizations (Friday June 10, 13.00 – 14.45 hrs) 

Subtheme Thematic Workshop 3:

ICT, work and social inequality

 
Convenor: Jos de Haan (email: j.de.haan@scp.nl)

In an information society a new form of capital, digital capital, may lead to unequal outcomes. This inequality may reinforce existing differences between population groups or classes. Those who already have an attractive labor market position may benefit more from the diffusion of IT than those with less attractive jobs. This points to accumulation of advantage at the workplace. Digital capital can be assumed to depend on the user's 1) motivation to use ICT, 2) possession of ICT or accessibility at the work place, 3) digital skills and 4) ICT-use patterns. Especially, digital skills are important. These skills support the competencies of workers to maintain social contacts and to gather, process and distribute information.

Paper presentations of Workshop 3

Session 1 (Friday June 10, 10.15 – 12.00 hrs)

Session 2 (Friday June 10, 13.00 – 14.45 hrs)

Subtheme Thematic Workshop 4:

ICT and Public Sector Reform

 
Convenor: Willem Trommel (email: W.A.Trommel@utwente.nl)

It is widely assumed that the knowledge society involves profound changes within the functions of the state. This process is propelled, firstly, by the fact that governments are confronted with a new type of social and economic problems which urge for new policy approaches and organisational forms. For instance, as labour markets become much more insecure, governments are forced to rethink their welfare policies. Next to that, however, ICT-applications may have a direct impact on the tasks, organisation and management of the public sector. Changes of this latter type will be the topic of this workshop.

Thus far, debates on ICT and governance are characterised by highly conflicting hypotheses. Some argue that ICT's provide the tools for far-reaching institutional control (‘the managerial state'), in the Foucauldian meaning of the term (audits, inspections etceteras). Others, however, assume that the state is in a process of ‘hollowing out' and that public governance is increasingly performed in horizontal (market-like and/or networked) figurations. The purpose of this workshop is to enrich this debate with empirical evidence on concrete ICT-applications within the public sector.

We distinguish between three levels of public sector organisation:

  • Professional work (‘de-professionalisation'?)

Do ICT's involve a trend from ‘street-level workers' to ‘screen-level workers'? In some areas (such as social security implementation) professional discretion is increasingly limited by ICT-scripts. Next to that, ICT (c.q. the internet) provides clients with information and knowledge that empower them in their contacts with professional workers (such as doctors). This may also contribute to a process of deprofessionalisation, or maybe to a redefinition of professional tasks and roles. In short, how does ICT affect professional tasks in the public sector and what does this mean with respect to public governance?

  • Bureaucracy (‘post-bureaucracy'?)

To what extent do ICT's facilitate market and/or network based forms of public service delivery and policy formation? It is often suggested that ICT's do play a distinct role in this process, yet empirical knowledge is still limited. How does that work precisely? Next to that, the question can also be raised if particular ICT-applications rather trigger the opposite effect, i.e. a revitalisation of bureaucratic (or even tayloristic) styles of management in public sector organisations. In short, can both trends be observed, and if so, how are particular effects dependent on the ways in which ICT's are used?

  • Political steering (‘performance management'?)

Increasingly, public sector organisations (police, hospitals, housing corporations) are forced to produce data on output and outcome, which are used to evaluate performance and settle budgets. Although this is assumed to be an ICT-induced process, it is still unclear which particular ICT-applications are relevant in this respect. Some argue that the ‘agents' under control can easily use ICT-tools themselves, to disturb the audits and inspections of the (political) ‘principal'. In short: in what way do characteristics of ICT-applications influence the process of account giving between administrative and political actors?

Paper presentations of Workshop 4

Session 1 (Thursday June 9, 15.00 - 16.30 hrs)

Session 2 (Friday June 10, 13.00 - 14.45 hrs)

Subtheme Thematic Workshop 5:

ICT and Globalization

 
Convenor: Monique Ramioul (email: monique.ramioul@hiva.kuleuven. ac.be)

The underlying assumption of this subtheme is that the changes in work and their relation to ICT can only be understood in the context of a global restructuring of economic value chains, entailing a different social division of labour and a simultaneous decomposition and recomposition of sectors, organisations, labour processes and skills.

A complex set of drivers of change in work organisations in the knowledge society result from a number of different factors which include the globalisation of markets, the liberalisation of trade, the development and spread of ICT, the deregulation of labour market and the marketisation of the public sector. The ‘knowledge economy' is a ‘networked' economy because of the possibility of transferring knowledge and information on an unprecedented scale. This may lead to decentralisation and a greater global dispersal of social interactions and economic transactions, but at the same time and paradoxically, a strong tendency towards centrality. These developments are accompanied by and enabled by the codification of skills and knowledge leading simultaneously to new forms of flexible and autonomous ‘knowledge work' but also to new forms of Taylorism. Workplace innovation should be seen as the product of a complex process grounded in vertical and horizontal interaction within firms and networking between firm s (industry associations, supply chain relationships, etc.), in interaction with labour market supply developments and the institutional environment including the development of the welfare state, public policy, vocational training, industrial relations and the financial system. In new organization and workplace stratgegies, regional and national institutions can contribute to distinctive trajectories towards a knowledge society. It is therefore important to discover the characteristics of effective and dynamic innovation systems at the regional level.

Paper presentations of Workshop 5

Session 1: Globalisation and new HRM practices (Thursday June 9, 15.00 – 16.30 hrs)

Session 2: Globalisation: geographical and labour market approaches (Friday June 10, 10.15 – 12.00 hrs)