Building Better Programmes: Learning Networks in the Promotion of Workplace Innovation

"This paper starts by providing a generic conceptual framework to improve understanding of critical success factors for the social effectiveness of programmes that promote workplace innovation. Thereafter, the paper shows how this framework can be applied in making choices about the content of projects in the programmes. A distinction is made between user-oriented, method-based, and learning network types of project. The three types are examined and compared, in terms of their ability to provide four kinds of outcomes, programme learning and policy learning. The paper also shows how learning networks can be applied to overcome some of the problems involved in the two other types of project. In elaborating the argument, the author makes use of the experiences gained from the implementation of learning network projects in the Finnish Workplace Development Programme TYKES." (author's abstract

Alternative Paths for Working Life Reform? A Comparison of European and East Asian Development Strategies

"This paper expands the discussion on working life reform from the wellknown European examples to cover recent developments in East Asia as well. A comparison between two European (Finland and Ireland) and two East Asian (Singapore and South Korea) workplace development strategies is carried out by making use of Naschold’s model that he developed in the early 1990s. The main question is how are the macro-level differences in the developmental role of the state and the micro-level differences in the systems of industrial relations and human resource management reflected in the strategies and what policy implications might be drawn from the analysis. At the end, the paper also compares each country’s strategy in relationship to its own earlier historical development and aims to analyse how radical are the strategy choices that have been made." (author's abstract

Workplace Development as Part of Broad-based Innovation Policy: Exploiting and Exploring Three Types of Knowledge

This paper looks at the possibilities that a broad-based innovation policy contained by the national innovation strategy recently adopted in Finland opens up for the promotion of workplace innovations and examines the types of knowledge needed in workplace development. The author highlights the interconnections between workplace development and the prerequisites of both economic growth and the preservation of the Finnish welfare state. The paper also aims to explain why, in addition to the productivity of work, improving the quality of working life should feature as an increasingly important aim in the innovation policy of the future. An argument for the need of three types of knowledge in workplace development - design knowledge, process knowledge and dissemination knowledge - is made, together with an overview on new developments in each of those three domains. In conclusion, the author demonstrates how problems in the productivity of work and the quality of working life can be simultaneously tackled with at work organization level through two kinds of development approaches

Workers as actors at the micro-level of sustainability transitions : A systematic literature review

Work and workers have been neglected topics in sustainability transitions research. Our sys-tematic literature review of 28 academic papers on the subject reveals five ways in which workers are affected or otherwise linked to transitions, indicating the relevance of further empirical studies on the role played by different groups of workers. First, environmental policies and other macro-level changes have indirect consequences for workers. Second, new sustainable work practices emerge or face insurmountable obstacles depending on meso- and micro-level change dynamics. Third, workers may adopt mediating positions and act as intermediaries in transitions. Fourth, novel educational programmes evolve to equip workers with new skills, and fifth, tran-sitions may lead to the creation of new jobs in the labour market. Co-evolutionary change dy-namics of sustainability transitions affect workers in both formal and informal forms of employment, and these questions in accelerating transitions require further attention.Peer reviewe

Work Organization and Technology: Introduction to the Theme of the Special Issue

The relationship between work organization and technology has been conceptualized in economic and sociological studies in a variety of ways, depending on the authors’ ontological premises and use of terminology (e.g., Leonardi & Barley, 2010; Mackenzie & Wajcman, 1985). For one thing, many economic analyses have not even regarded work organization as an analytical entity in itself but rather as a subcategory under an umbrella category of ‘technology’. In cases like this, the concept of technology has been used in the broad sense, also referring to human activities and know-how to do things. In many classical and modern sociological studies of work, the analytical distinction between work organization and technology has been of crucial importance, often based on a narrower concept of technology as a set of physical objects (...

Work organization and Technology : Introduction to the Theme of the Special Issue

The relationship between work organization and technology has been conceptualized in economic and sociological studies in a variety of ways, depending on the authors’ ontological premises and use of terminology (e.g., Leonardi & Barley, 2010; Mackenzie & Wajcman, 1985). For one thing, many economic analyses have not even regarded work organization as an analytical entity in itself but rather as a subcategory under an umbrella category of ‘technology’. In cases like this, the concept of technology has been used in the broad sense, also referring to human activities and know-how to do things. In many classical and modern sociological studies of work, the analytical distinction between work organization and technology has been of crucial importance, often based on a narrower concept of technology as a set of physical objects (...)Non peer reviewe

Joukkoistettu työ niche-innovaationa … ja työsuhderegiimin murtajana? Monitasomalliin perustuva analyysi

Joukkoistettu työ on radikaalisti uudenlainen työllistämisen muoto, joka voi levitessään murentaa perinteisen työsuhteisen palkkatyön valta-asemaa työllistäjänä. Artikkeli sisältää kirjallisuuskatsauksen joukkoistettuun työhön ja analysoi  joukkoistettua työtä suhteessa työsuhteiseen palkkatyöhön käyttämällä viitekehyksenä systeemimuutoksen tutkimuksessa kehitettyä monitasomallia. Mallia sovelletaan joukkoistetun työn ja työsuhteisen palkkatyön välisen suhteen vaihtoehtoisten kehityspolkujen ja niiden edellytysten arviointiin. Erityishuomio kohdistetaan erottumisen ja yhdistymisen polkuun, johon sisältyy mahdollisuuksia joukkoistetun työn tekijöiden oman toimijuuden vahvistumiseen muutoksessa. Artikkeli tuo monitasomallia hyödyntämällä uusia teoreettisia näkökulmia ja välineitä työelämätutkimukseen yleisesti ja joukkoistetun työn tutkimiseen spesifisti sekä esittää useita kohteita työn tekijöiden toimijuutta tukevalle tutkimukselle ja kehittämiselle. Samalla artikkeli pyrkii lähentämään työelämä- ja innovaatiotutkimuksen käsiteperustaa toisiinsa