The role of e-government in the rise of administrative efficiency

The aim of e-Government - one of the key objectives laid out in the Commission's i2010 Action plan - is to bring administrations closer to citizens and businesses by providing online public services e-Government refers to the provision of online public services to citizens and businesses. Services for citizens include registration to government services such as health care, education or employment benefits. For businesses, e-Government services can take the form of online alerts for public procurements or funding opportunities as well as information and support on applicable legislation in a given sector.[e-government] [administrative efficiency]

Learning architectures and negotiation of meaning in European trade unions

As networked learning becomes familiar at all levels and in all sectors of education, cross-fertilisation of innovative methods can usefully inform the lifelong learning agenda. Development of the pedagogical architectures and social processes, which afford learning, is a major challenge for educators as they strive to address the varied needs of a wide range of learners. One area in which this challenge is taken very seriously is that of trade unions, where recent large-scale projects have aimed to address many of these issues at a European level. This paper describes one such project, which targeted not only online courses, but also the wider political potential of virtual communities of practice. By analysing findings in relation to Wengers learning architecture, the paper investigates further the relationships between communities of practice and communities of learners in the trade union context. The findings suggest that a focus on these relationships rather than on the technologies that support them should inform future developments

How Does Restructuring Contribute to Union Revitalization?

[Excerpt] As we look cross-nationally at labour movement revitalization, we see a complex process of change that varies depending on the socio-political/economic context. Although we observe a diverse set of union strategies and outcomes, we find that structural adjustment is a common element of revitalization efforts. The mere presence of restructuring does not, of course, assure positive results. In this chapter we define various forms of restructuring, outline factors that shape and promote restructuring, and discuss the likelihood that restructuring leads to union revitalization by using examples from our cross-country comparison

outcomes of the Deep View Project

UID/SOC/04647/2013Despite early legislation supporting telework contracts in 2003, virtual work is still not expressive in the labour market. The current labour minister stated that the government encourages the topic to be discussed through social dialogue and collective bargaining. Virtual work received little consideration from the social partners in social dialogue. Collective agreements considering virtual work were also meagre and mostly repeated parts of the labour law emphasizing the improvements of working conditions. We detected collective bargaining outputs in the computer programming activities and two company agreements in the health care sector but did not find any convention mentioning telework in the finance sector.publishersversionpublishe

Understanding the Process of Information Technology Implementation

Research concerned with the implementation of information technology (IT) in organizations can be divided, roughly, into two streams: factor, or variance studies; and process studies (Markus and Robey, 1988). The great majority of work has adopted a variance approach where several factors that are likelyto be associated with successful IT implementation are identified, made operational, and then tested, usually using a cross-sectional design, with statistical methods. In reviewing these studies, Lucas (1981) notes that although some 150 factors have beenidentified, only a relatively few, limited to top management support and user involvement , are consistently associated with successful implementation. In addition, researchers tend to create new factor models rather than extending and confirming the most promising existing models, and no integrated model has emerged that explains a reasonable portion of the variance in implementation outcomes (although Lucas, Ginzberg and Schultz, 1990, made a valiant attempt in this regard). Process studies, on the other hand, seek to understand the process by which IT is implemented in organizations, using interpretive techniques based on interview, observational, and collected data. Although there are relatively few process studies, they are particularly appropriatefor theory building (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Markus and Robey (1988) have pointed to the need for more process studies of technology implementation. In this paper we describe an ongoing process study of IT implementation in five settlement houses in New York City, using an action research approach (Argyris et. al., 1985). Settlement houses are the primary way that social services are delivered to community members of inner cities. From a research perspective, the IT implementation in the settlement houses is important in several respects. First, while IT implementations in profit-seeking firms have been widely researched, relatively few studies have been conducted in not-for-profit businesses. Not-for-profit firms are likely to differ from their profit-seeking counterparts in terms of their organizational values, goals, reward and control structures of individuals, organizational processes, staffing, environmental influences, and acquisition of resources. Second, few existing studies address the dynamicsinvolved in implementing IT in a group of cooperating, autonomous organizations. Our implementation study involves a confederation of five settlement houses and United Neighborhood Houses of NYC (UNH), an organization which provides technical assistance to the houses. This confederation is analogous in structure to IT partnerships and alliances, which have become popular among businesses in the for-profit secto

Industrial Relations and Working Conditions Developments in Europe 2012

This annual review describes the main developments in industrial relations and working conditions in 2012 in the former 27 EU Member States and in Croatia and Norway, at both national and EU level. The report first sketches the current economic situation in these 29 countries, pointing to relevant political and legislative developments in individual countries. It discusses trends in industrial relations, including changes in the role and organisation of the social partners and the impact of government measures and legislation. The report highlights policies and initiatives, legislative developments and collective bargaining landmarks in five areas – employment conditions, wages, health and safety, skills and competencies, and working time – from the dual perspective of working conditions and industrial relations developments

Management Staff by International Comparison: Most of the Women on Supervisory Boards in Germany are Works Council Representatives

In June 2004 only about one tenth of all the seats on the boards of the 200 biggest companies worldwide were held by women. In 22 of these companies women held at least 25% of the seats on the board. Three of the companies were German. Here the percentage is made up entirely of women who represent the workforce. In 72 of the 100 biggest companies in Germany at least one member of the supervisory board is a woman (7.5% of the total number of seats); more than 80% of these women acquired their seat through the works council. This sobering figure on corporate management is largely a result of the low number of women in top management jobs compared with men. According to information from companies women currently account for about one tenth of the management jobs in Germany. And although progress has been made in some areas in the past decade, an equal distribution of top jobs between men and women is still a distant prospect. In view of the considerable social and demographic changes now underway, it is essential to make better use of the potential of highly qualified women to ensure that the German economy remains competitive. Hence it is proposed to set up a high-ranking 'Glass Ceiling Commission', similar to the one in the United States. It should work out the economic and social consequences of this problem with the cooperation of the private sector, and develop recommendations on the measures and binding framework conditions that may be necessary. That could help to overcome the barriers to the promotion of women into management and decision-making positions.

Outline of a proposal responding to E.U. and U.S. calls for trustworthy global-scale IdM and CKM designs

In 2007, the E.U. FP6 SecurIST called for trustworthy international identity management (IdM) that was user-centric. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called for trustworthy global-scale IdM and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) called for new cryptographic key management (CKM) designs. In this paper we outline the core architecture for (apparently) the first globally scalable, post quantum secure, symmetric key based platform for provisioning IdM, key distribution/agreement and inter-enterprise CKM services. Our proposal employs a decentralised trust model that exploits compartmentalisation, redundancy and diversification simultaneously across service provider, software developer, hardware vendor, class of cryptographic primitive, and protocol axis. It employs behavioural analysis techniques and supports the collaborative management of international name spaces, management of client transactions using public identifiers and supports user-centric cross-cutting control mechanisms. Our proposal is suitable for use with commercial off the shelf hardware and is designed to wrap-around and protect the output of existing security deployments. The platform addresses the U.S. Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) call to create a digital immune system (multi-layered protection, decentralised control, diversity, pattern recognition), the DHS call for combating insider attacks and malware, achieving survivability and availability, and NIST managers\u27 call for a CKM design supporting billions of users without the use of public key technologies. This proposal has been designed as part of our Trustworthy Resilient Universal Secure Infrastructure Platform project

ASSESSMENT OF THE INDICATORS INFLUENCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL BUSINESSES

The article analyzes the role of small and medium-sized businesses in the economic development of the country and assesses the factors affecting to the growth of small business income through the use of the Eviews software package. The study showed that the amount of capital investment plays a significant role in the development of small businesses.The article analyzes the role of small and medium-sized businesses in the economic development of the country and assesses the factors affecting to the growth of small business income through the use of the Eviews software package. The study showed that the amount of capital investment plays a significant role in the development of small businesses