This paper is a draft contribution for a definition of the concept of divestment. This topic is still very influenced by definitions from the fields of economics or management. Thus, from a group of definitions and approaches developed by different authors we try to elaborate on this divestment concept, searching for indicators and variables related to this practice. The founded indicators allow us to identify the main consequences and the potential social impacts due to divestment situations. Also we try to develop a methodology of research for analysis and impact framework that come from divestment action of companies.

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, Japan or Ge

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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

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.

Working teams in enterprise environment are considered as the most advanced forms of work organisation. This means the forms that can improve productivity quality of working life. Nevertheless, it prevails a slow development and dissemination of these advanced organisational forms in European companies. The reason for that lays in a complex linkage factors from social values to the economical pressures. But other factors are also related to the national systems of education training, to the different systems of industrial relations and technology policy.

The resulting economic integration of industrial processes and manufacturing internationalisation lead several authors to argue that world economy is globalised. In this context, the approach to the divestment concept without an social and económical context, does not show a group of associated practices and representations. Choices and options are motivated by exogenous forces that pushes companies to determine strategies that stop capital investment on new equipment goods, or on other imaterial goods. This type of strategy is designated by "divestment". The social level of consequencies are not due to the closing down or de-localization of production units that are divesting, but can be materialised of efects that are irreversible. This means unemployment, de-skilling, labour precarization and even emergence of new forms of social exclusion in former industrialised regions.

In the last two decades (70 and 80) there took place an intensive controversy in the field of Industrial and Work Sociology. There the topic of the study object of this scientific discipline is again discussed. This controversy, however, has a relatively different sense in comparison with the one that existed in early 60ies. The more recent one followed the increasing number of possibilities of electronical equipment for data processing at the same time its price is decreasing. In this article we try to give knowledge of the main elements that take part in such debate. It is also important to present the international character of the research developed in association with this discussion. It evolves a plurality of research teams that present, compare and synthesize the results of empirical studies that are applied for a wide variety of countries.

The Portuguese National Action Plan for Employment (NAP) is the main instrument for the labour market policy. It was adopted in 1998. The NAP transposes to the Portuguese reality the contents of such guidelines, with the adequate adjustments required by the national specificities, establishing objectives, quantified targets and action deadlines, as well as defining new programmes and measures. Therefore, the objectives of the labour market policy were focusing on the promotion of an adequate transition of the youngsters in active life, on the promotion of social and professional insertion and fight against long term unemployment and exclusion, on the improvement of basic and professional qualification of the working population in a perspective of lifelong training, namely as a way to prevent unemployment phenomena, and on the preventive management and follow-up of sectoral restructuring processes.

This paper is based on a study about the Setúbal region, included in the internacional project “The Future of Industry in Europe” for the programme FAST-MONITOR of the European Community (1992-94). There were some information on the project VW/Ford for this region and those that are connected with research networks on industrial sectors (specially, on the automobile industry), and the network on the spatial and regional factors of regional development. Those studies allowed the scenario development on evolution trends of European industry and, specifically, on the automobile sector, and on the Setúbal region that was studied by the Portuguese team.

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 identified. Whether the

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 cadenas de valor globalizadas, sendo analizadas

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A scenario is a policy analysis tool that describes a possible set of future conditions. The most useful scenarios (for corporations, for policy decision makers) are those that display the conditions of important variables over time. In this approach, the quantitative underpinning enriches the narrative evolution of conditions or evolution of the variables; narratives describe the important events and developments that shape the variables. In terms of innovative methods for policy analysis, the foresight and scenario building methods can be an interesting reference for social sciences. Some examples of these exercises will be present in this paper, either related to vision in science and technology developments, social and technological futures, or related to aggregated indicators on human development. Two cases (Japan and Germany) are held on behalf the ministries of science and education (respectively, MEXT and BMBF), and another with the support of United Nations.

Most of the discussion and controversy on organisation of work concepts has been referenced to the manufacturing industry along the 20th century: it started with the concept of “scientific management” from Taylor, and continued with the new ideas on the importance of human factors as Mayo pointed out in the 1930s. Immediately after the 2nd World War Friedmann studied the human problems related to new manufacturing technologies and automation. And the late 1950 and 1960s were decades of strong debate on the socio-technics with the research at Tavistock Institute of London and the emergence of national programmes on new forms of work organisation. At the end of the last century the concept of collaborative work was developed together with the definition(s) of information systems and organisational design. However, the interest came from other production activities, like the services. This article analyses the approaches developed on these debates on the collaborative work and information system and its application to the manufacturing industry.

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.

In this paper one presents and discuss the hybridation concept using some aspect that integrate it, as the physical architecture of automated systems (hardware), the information system that integrates that architecture and the working places design. Analyzed are also the inter-dependences of those aspects, and we have as a reference the flexible production and assembly system existent at UNINOVA-CRI. The focus is made on possible problems that can occur with the use of possible development of those systems, namely: a) full automation with centralized human control, b) non-automated process of shop-floor work with a system “one man, one machine”, c) hybrid system of automated cells with “elastic” human jobs.

At the last National Conference of Industrial Sociology in Portugal (in March 1999) was presented a paper on the topic of “foresight as a technology and employment policy instrument” (A.B. Moniz) where there was a reference to the need of development of this kind of tools and instruments. This need is clear when one should neutralize the negative effects of such policies, and could support the positive influences, especially with the main aims of improvement of quality of working life. Thus, is today possible to make a first balance of the application in Portugal of a type of foresight analysis exercise: the Delphi method. After some of the uses of this method in Portugal on the fisheries socio-economical system and on the relation between information society and employment, we present in this paper a first assessment of such experiments and present some recommendations for future uses of this foresight technique. We conclude that they must be applied within the context of socio-economical perspectives, and not only the technological ones, although they should include that dimension.

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.

Some of the phenomena where the “globalization” concept is applied include the internationalization of markets, globalization of culture, polítical hegemony of world by some states, or groups of states, the increasing power of supranational institutions, and the development of a global division of labour. A starting point to understand the global division of work is the study of how companies are re-structuring, once they are the key-actors in the decision on which work should be found and where. The “value chains” describe each step in the productive process of a final product or service. Separated units of value chains can be in the same company (in-house) or in different companies (outsourced). Similarly they can be in a same local, or in other location. Normalization of business processes, combined with digitalization of information and the development of telecommunication networks made possible the tele-mediated work. This paper presents results from the European WORKS project, where are studied Portuguese cases of firms that integrate globalized value chain, and are analized the implications on work organization models and the (new) professional structures.

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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)

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.

Some of the phenomena where the “globalization” concept is applied include the internationalization of markets, globalization of culture, pol{\'ıtical hegemony of world by some states, or groups of states, the increasing power of supranational institutions, and the development of a global division of labour. A starting point to understand the global division of work is the study of how companies are re-structuring, once they are the key-actors in the decision on which work should be found and where. The “value chains” describe each step in the productive process of a final product or service. Separated units of value chains can be in the same company (in-house) or in different companies (outsourced). Similarly they can be in a same local, or in other location. Normalization of business processes, combined with digitalization of information and the development of telecommunication networks made possible the tele-mediated work. This paper presents results from the European WORKS project, where are studied Portuguese cases of firms that integrate globalized value chain, and are analized the implications on work organization models and the (new) professional structures.