António Moniz

The most significative text of the European Commission on the construction of a strategy for an Information Society is, undoubtly the document on “Job Opportunities in the Information Society”. The major dimension of the change process was not anymore the technological evolution one. Information society should integrate the social-economical dimensions with industries that use information and communication products and services, beside those of so-called “Information Society industries”. Is not only this sector that is growing in terms of employment, but also the other sectors can be also important ICT users. Employment in the information society leads the employment growth in EU. In this study are analysed the different national programs and strategies, and with particular relevance the Portuguese case.

The new book edited by Rodríguez and colleagues focuses on the topic of forecasting and responsible innovation. The original title is “Anticipación e Innovación Responsible: La construcción de futuros alternativos para la ciencia y la tecnologia” (Forecasting and Responsible Innovation: The construction of alternative futures for science and technology), and was published by Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid. Throughout this text, the reviewer is using the term forecasting instead of anticipation to convey the Spanish concept of “anticipación.” Both concepts are usually applied to “the act of looking forward” (Merriam-Webster dictionary1) or “the act of expecting or foreseeing something; expectation or presentiment” (Farlex free dictionary2) The concept of forecasting is usually used in scientific debate to mean “to estimate or predict in advance” (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2016) or “the process of making predictions based on past and present data and most commonly by analysis of trends” (Wikipedia3) (Glenn, 1994, p. 4) expressed this definition well by saying that “studying the future is not simply economic projections or sociological analysis or technological forecasting, but a multi-disciplinary examination of change in all major areas of life to find the interacting dynamics that are creating the next age.” The concept has been developed mainly by Armstrong (2001) and followed by Farrukh and Holgado (2020), Schnaars (2009), and Marinakis (2012), among others. The editors are professors and researchers from the University of Basque Country (EHU) and from the University of Mondragon (MU). The book involves a whole set of experts on the topic, including the editors themselves (Hannot Rodríguez, Sergio Urueña, Andoni Eizagirre, and Oier Imaz), and Armin Grunwald, René von Schomberg, Javier Garcia Fronti, Domingo García Marzá, Andoni Ibarra, and others. Although still published just in Spanish, it is an important contribution to the social sciences and philosophy of sciences regarding the analysis of alternative sociotechnical futures with strong ethical principles, which delineates an innovative approach in an era when the formation of public opinion largely suffers from systematic distortions based on vested interests.

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Some programs and research networks are dealing with topics associated to the automtive sector and they observe one of the most significative sectores of modern economies. Because of that is so interesting to forecast some possible changes in an horizon of 10 to 20 years. But this exercse must not be centred only on technical aspects of automobile construction, or on the design, or even on the mobility systems. How one can face these problems, and how it can be so decisivelly important, is what we will try to answer in this paper that resumes some of the debates on the foresight exercises in Germany (Futur) and on the automotive sector in Portugal (WorTiS).

The socio-economic subsystem encompassing fisheries may be defined as including not only the harvesting sector but also several related activities occurring both upstream (shipbuilding, gear manufacture) and downstream (processing, distribution and trade). But these closely interrelated economic activities can also be set within a much broader system which would include the ecological, institutional and political influences which frame economic behaviour. The value of this broader conceptualisation is that it treats fisheries not as an isolated and independent economic activity but as part of a more holistic and complex system. This broader perspective is of particular significance when attempting to examine the concept of regional dependence. The socio-economic subsystem for fisheries is dominated by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). And Peniche emerges as one of Portugal’s most important fishing ports whether measured in terms of the volume of landings or the total numbers of fishermen. It also has one of the highest levels of fisheries dependence of all coastal municipalities in Portugal with over 20% of its workforce currently engaged in fisheries related employment, faces a daunting and uncertain future. The social fabric of fisheries dependent communities also suffers serious damage; once again, the technocratic approach to management has no solutions to offer. It is essential, therefore, to turn away from the existing approach and to develop instead new forms of intervention; in short, to provide a new vision. This implies change not only to the policy process but also in the attitudes of the social actors and in the preoccupations of fisheries related research. An integrated approach is required based on participative action and the development of an integrated information network.

Portugal had only very few foresight exercises on the automobile sector, and the most recent one was a survey held in a project on work organisation systems in the automobile industry, its recent historical paths and the special strategies of location of companies (the WorTiS project). This involved several teams with different disciplinary backgrounds and from two Portuguese universities. The provisional main results of the first round of a Delphi survey held in Portugal on the automotive sector were already published, but a further analysis was not yet done. This foresight survey was done under the WorTiS project, developed in 2004 by IET – Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation (at FCT-UNL), and financed by the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology. Some of this experience on foresight analysis is also been transferred to other projects, namely the WORKS project on work organisation restructuring in the knowledge society that received the support from EC and still is running. The majority of experts considered having an average of less knowledge in almost all the scenario topics presented. This means that information on the automotive industry is not spread enough among academics or experts in related fields (regional scientists, innovation economists, engineers, sociologists). Some have a good knowledge but in very specialised fields. Others have expertise on foresight, or macroeconomics, or management sciences, but feel insecure on issues related with futures of automobile sector. Nevertheless, we considered specially the topics where the experts considered themselves to have some knowledge. There were no “irrelevant” topics considered as such by the expert panel. There are also no topics that are not considered a need for co-operation. The lack of technological infrastructures was not considered as a hindered factor for the accomplishment of any scenario. The experts’ panel considered no other international competence besides US, Jap

Technology Assessment (TA) considers the knowledge on (possible ou probable) technological effects in the processes of decision making and exploring potencial technological risks with secondary effects. Besides that, it is a scientific process with the aim of contributing the public and political opinion formation relative to social aspects of science and technology. That formation is done in an interactive and communicational mode. It overtakes the legitimacy and technology conflicts problems. TA is dealing with a political process either it is related with a parliamentary level decision on the introduction or limitation of new technologies, or at the level of participative processes of entities interested in the labour sphere. In this study, it is concluded that the TA processes at the level of organization of work can aim to fulfill higher levels of productivity and performance of installed equipment, or even to increase the quality of the product or the production process. That does not mean necessarily increases in income of workers and employees. That is why the participation of these actors is also so fundamental to this process.

The 2nd International Conference on "Foresight Studies on Work in the Knowledge Society" was organised by IET, the Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation, at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of "Universidade Nova de Lisboa" (FCT-UNL), and took place on January 26 and 27 of 2009 with the support of the European project WORKS-Work Organisation Re-structuring in the Knowledge Society (financed by the European Commission, and co-ordinated by HIVA Leuven)

This paper is based in a report for the international project “GERPISA-Labour Relations” on the concept of leader-factory, and in other papers written after that using the case study of the Renault factory in the Aveiro region. This case study is articulated with other studies on engine factories of the same company in Spain, France and Mexico. That study has been co-ordinated by Prof. Juan José Castillo (Univ. Complutense Madrid, Spain). Here we present the results of this empirical research from where were developed the first indicators of a discussion on the concept of new production models and leader-factory that have been studied by the GERPISA international network.

In this working paper is presented information on the Portuguese labour market developed with the support of the European project WORKS-“Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society”. Is still a on the process article and thus commentaries are welcome. The structure is based on the following topics: a) The employment policy (Time regimes - time use, flexibility, part-time work, work-life balance -, and the work contracts regimes – wages, contract types, diversity); b) Education and training (skilling outcomes, rules on retraining and further training, employability schemes, transferability of skills); c) Equal opportunities (relevance of equal opportunity regulation for restructuring outcomes, the role of gender and age regulation); d) Restructuring effects (policy on transfer of personnel, policy on redundancies, and participation or voice in restructuring).

In this paper will be discussed different types of scenarios and the aims for using scenarios. Normaly they are being used by organisations due to the need to anticipate processes, to support policy-making and to understand the complexities of relations. Such organisations can be private companies, R&D organisations and networks of organisations, or even by some public administration institutions. Some cases will be discussed as the methods for ongoing scenario-building process (Shell Internacional). Scenarios should anticipate possible relations among social actors as in the Triple Helix Model, and is possible to develop strategic intelligence in the innovation process that would enable the construction of scenarios. Such processes can be assessed. The focus will be made in relation to the steps chosen for the WORKS scenarios. In this case is there a model of work changes that can be used for foresight? Differences according to sectors were found, as well on other dimensions. Problems of assessment are analysed with specific application to the scenario construction methods.

Algunos de los fenómenos donde el concepto de “globalización” es aplicado incluyen la internacionalización de los mercados, la globalización de la cultura, el dominio político hegemónico del mundo por algunos estados poderosos, o grupos de estados, el poder creciente de organismos supranacionales, y el desarrollo de una división global de trabajo. De acuerdo con Radice, la globalización é generalmente definida como “un proceso a través de lo cual una proporción creciente de transacciones económicas, sociales e culturales ocurre directamente o indirectamente entre partners de países distintos” (Radice, 2004: 154). Un ponto de partida para entender la división global del trabajo debe ser la investigación de los modos como las empresas se reestructuran, una vez que son los actores-llave en la decisión sobre que trabajo debe ser encontrado y donde. Las “cadenas de valor” descriven cada etapa en el proceso productivo de un producto o un servicio final. La palabra “valor” en la frase “cadena de valor” dice respecto al valor añadido. Cada etapa en la cadena de valor implica recibir inputs, procesarlos, y entonces pasarlos a la unidad siguiente en la cadena, con el valor que está sendo adicionado no proceso. As unidades separadas da cadena de valor pueden estar dentro da misma empresa (in-house) o en distintas empresas (outsourced). Similarmente pueden estar en un mismo local, o en otra localización. La normalización de muchos procesos del negocio, combinada con la digitalización da información y el desarrollo de redes de telecomunicaciones de elevada capacidad ha tornado posible el trabajo tele-mediado, pudiendo este ser externalizado y/o re-localizado, conduciendo à introducción de una división de trabajo internacional no trabajo de procesamiento de información. Esta comunicación presentará algunos resultados derivados do proyecto europeo WORKS, donde son estudiados casos portugueses de empresas que justamente se integran en

In this working paper are present the main provisional results of the first round of a Delphi survey held in Portugal on the automotive sector. It was done under the WorTiS project, developed by IET – Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation, and financed by the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology. The majority of experts consider to have an average of less knowledge in almost all the scenario topics presented. Nevertheless, we considered specially the topics where the experts considered themselves to have some knowledge. There were no “irrelevant” topics considered as such by the expert panel. There are also no topics that is not considered a need for co-operation (that happens in jus tone case). The lack of technological infra-structrures was not considered as an hindered factor for the accomplishement of any scenario. The experts panel considered no other international competence besides US, Japan or Germany in these topics. Although the members of the expert panel were not as many as needed, These situations will be taken into consideration for a second round of the Delphi survey

The analysis on the technological and organizational change in the European industry, and particularlly the Portuguese one, has been studied at CESO I&D since its foundation on 1988. Few time after that, started a development project that started from a previous research project on the same topics, and supported by JNICT (Ministry of Science). In that projecto we continued to process data that was then not possible to do in the first one. It was then possible to continue a research programme that was urgent and determinant in the field of industrial sociology in Portugal. It focus again on the processes of technological and organizational change in the manufacturing industry.

This article is based on the lesson presented in the scope of academy activities in the area of Sociology (at FCT-UNL). It is intended to approach the controversies concerning the relation between technology and society (technological determinism, effect on employment, importance of the social behaviours in the definition of needs for new products and equipment), and on the most recent trends (over all, since middle of the last century) in terms of technological evolution and of its social and cultural change. Finally, this subject was dedicated to the presentation of the main factors that has lead to the development of the contribution of sociology for the training and education in engineering. Thus, one intends to acquire new elements on this area of knowledge also presented in other schools of engineering of other countries (for examples, United States and Holland), and how the theoretical beddings are been developed since the beginning of 20th century on the modalities of work organization that imply a cooperation between engineering and social sciences.

The majority of papers published in the last decades on European Union policy strongly stress the importance of the so-called Lisbon Strategy approved in the year 2000. The same applies to studies and reports on the shift of the European countries towards modernisation and restructuring policy in recent years. This EU development strategy defines a new direction for the coordination of national policies. But why has it become so important? One of the reasons is the fact that many of the papers are based on the concept of “knowledge society” as the key driver for an increased competitiveness of all political and economic regions of Europe. In this context, the term “knowledge” means the inter-linkage of education (including training, qualification, skills) and innovation (including research, information and communication). The use of the concept represents an important shift in the European strategy: further development would not only be based on investment in material infrastructures, but also more on the immaterial ground. However, this Lisbon Strategy was criticised by many politicians and opinion-makers in the first years of this century because the European structures were not prepared for such a quick change. At the same time, the focus for investment moved away from the traditional support of industrial sectors (manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries, construction) towards the “new economy” sectors. The vision of a knowledge society remained appealing also in a changing international context: the Middle East wars (Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel-Palestine) and the fast growth of the Chinese economy. However, the shadows of new recessions have strongly questioned the options made by the European Council. New challenges have emerged with the need to redefine collective strategies in terms of European development as set by the Lisbon strategy. “Europe 2020” is one more attempt to define a new strategy. But at present no clear path has been identifi

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The foresight and scenario building methods can be an interesting reference for social sciences, especially in terms of innovative methods for labour process analysis. A scenario – as a central concept for the prospective analysis – can be considered as a rich and detailed portrait of a plausible future world. It can be a useful tool for policy-makers to grasp problems clearly and comprehensively, and to better pinpoint challenges as well as opportunities in an overall framework. The features of the foresight methods are being used in some labour policy making experiences. Case studies developed in Portugal will be presented, and some conclusions will be drawn in order to organise a set of principles for foresight analysis applied to the European project WORKS on the work organisation re-structuring in the knowledge society, and on the work design methods for new management structures of virtual organisations.