The globalisation in the clothing sector and its implications for work organisation: a view from the Portuguese case

The clothing sector in Portugal is still seen, in many aspects as a traditional sector with some average characteristics, such as: low level of qualifications, less flexible labour legislation and stronger unionisation, very low salaries and low capability of investment in innovation and new technology. Is, nevertheless, a very important sector in terms of labour market, with increased weight in the exporting structure. Globalisation and delocalisation are having a strong impact in the organisation of work and in occupational careers in the sector. With the pressure of global competitiveness in what concerns time and prices, very few companies are able to keep a position in the market without changes in organisation of work and workers. And those that can perform good responses to such challenges are achieving a better economical stability. The companies have found different ways to face this reality according to size, capital and position. We could find two main paths: one where companies outsource a part or the entire production to another territory (for example, several manufacturing tasks), close and/or dismissal the workers. Other path, where companies up skilled their capacities investing, for example, in design, workers training, conception and introduction of new or original products. This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the Portuguese case studies in several clothing companies in what concern implications of global context for the companies in general and for the workers in particular, in a comparative analysis with some other European countries.

International Conference on “Foresight Studies on Work in the Knowledge Society“ in Monte de Caparica (FCT-UNL) on 19-20 October 2006

On 19 and 20 October 2006, the Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Organisation (IET) organised the first international conference on “Foresight Studies on Work in the Knowledge Society”. It took place at the auditorium of the new Library of FCT-UNL and had the support of the research project “CodeWork@VO” (financed by FCT-MCTES and co-ordinated by INESC, Porto). The conference related to the European research project “Work Organisation and Restructuring in the Knowledge Society” (WORKS), which is financed by the European Commission. The main objective of the conference was to analyse and discuss research findings on the trends of work structures in the knowledge society, and to debate on new work organisation models and new forms of work supported by ICT.

Management Structure and Work Team Processes; Responsibilities and Responsiveness

This paper explores the management structure of the team-based organization. First it provides a theoretical model of structures and processes of work teams. The structure determines the team’s responsibilities in terms of authority and expertise about specific regulation tasks. The responsiveness of teams to these responsibilities are the processes of teamwork, in terms of three dimensions, indicating to what extent teams indeed use the space provided to them. The research question that this paper addresses is to what extent the position of responsibilities in the team-based organization affect team responsiveness. This is done by two hypotheses. First, the effect of the so-called proximity of regulation tasks is tested. It is expected that the responsibility for tasks positioned higher in the organization (i.e. further from the team) generally has a negative effect on team responsiveness, whereas tasks positioned lower in the organization (i.e. closer to the team) will have a positive effect on the way in which teams respond. Second, the relationship between the number of tasks for which the team is responsible with team responsiveness is tested. Theory suggests that teams being responsible for a larger number of tasks perform better, i.e. show higher responsiveness. These hypotheses are tested by a study of 109 production teams in the automotive industry. The results show that, as the theory predicts, increasing numbers of responsibilities have positive effects on team responsiveness. However, the delegation of expertise to teams seems to be the most important predictor of responsiveness. Also, not all regulation tasks show to have effects on team responsiveness. Most tasks do not show to have any significant effect at all. A number of tasks affects team responsiveness positively, when their responsibility is positioned lower in the organization, but also a number of tasks affects team responsiveness positively when located higher in the organization, i.e. further from the teams in the production. The results indicate that more attention can be paid to the distribution of responsibilities, in particular expertise, to teams. Indeed delegating more expertise improve team responsiveness, however some tasks might be located better at higher organizational levels, indicating that there are limitations to what responsibilities teams can handle.

Ergonomics and Usability – key factors in Knowledge Society

During the recent years human society evolved from the “industrial society age” and transitioned into the “knowledge society age”. This means that knowledge media support migrated from “pen and paper” to computer-based Information Systems. Due to this fact Ergonomics has assumed an increasing importance, as a science/technology that deals with the problem of adapting the work to the man, namely in terms of Usability. This paper presents some relevant Ergonomics, Usability and User-centred design concepts regarding Information Systems.

Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society

It is generally agreed that major changes in work are taking place in the organisation of work as corporate structures are transformed in the context of economic globalisation and rapid technological change. But how can these changes be understood? And what are the impacts on social institutions and on workers and their families? The WORKS project brought together 17 research institutes in 13 European countries to investigate these important issues through a comprehensive four year research programme.

Future gender relations in global restructuring processes case study evidence from knowledge-intensive, manufacturing and service occupations

Global restructuring processes have not only strong implications for European working and living realities, but also have specific outcomes with regard to gender relations. The following contribution analyses in which way global restructuring shapes current gender relations in order to identify important trends and developments for future gender (in)equalities at the workplace. On the basis of a large qualitative study on global restructuring and impacts on different occupational groups it argues that occupational belonging in line with skill and qualification levels are crucial factors to assess the further development of gender relations at work. Whereas global restructuring in knowledge-based occupations may provide new opportunities for female employees, current restructuring is going to deteriorate female labour participation in service occupations. In contrast, manufacturing occupations can be characterised by persistent gender relations, which do not change in spite of major restructuring processes at the work place. Taking the institutional perspective into account, it seems to be crucial to integrate the occupational perspective in order to apply adequate policy regulations to prevent the reinforcement of gender related working patterns in the near future.

Molecular diversity of bla genes in Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli isolates

Dissertation presented to obtain a Ph.D. degree in Biology, speciality Microbiology, by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Human-robot teamwork: a knowledge-based solution

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Knowledge discovery from trajectories

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Derivation methods for hybrid knowledge bases with rules and ontologies

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

The portuguese pharmaceutial market in the near future - A time series exploration approach

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação

Identification of mating type genes in the bipolar basidiomycetous yeast rhodosporidium toruloides: first insight into the MAT Locus structure of the sporidiobolales

Eukaryotic Cell, Vol.7, Nº6

Learning to manage in knowledge-based organizations: the role of learning logs or portfolios

Paper presented at the 8th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Barcelona, 6-7 Sep. 2008 URL: http://www.academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2007/eckm07-home.htm

Innovation through virtual communities of practice: motivations and constraints in the knowledge-creation process

This paper appears in International Journal of Projectics. Vol 4(1), pp. 39-49

Enterprise information portals: potential for evaluating research for knowledge management and human capital assets using social network analysis

Paper presented at the ECKM 2010 – 11th European Conference on Knowledge Management, 2-3 September, 2010, Famalicão, Portugal. URL: http://www.academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2010/eckm10-home.htm