eWork and Regional Development: Background

Work processes and work organisation

Many of the so-called ‘new ways of working’ involve applications of ICT that have made possible totally new models of how to organise work processes in both space and time, as well as based upon new contractual employment forms and changes to the content of work. This has problematised traditional employment relationships, often characterised, in their broadest sense, by full-time, permanent jobs with a contract of employment, even and stable distribution of working hours over a fixed number of days per week, stable skill requirements and long job tenures (Handy, 1995, and Dostal, 1999).

eWork may take the form of individualised or office-based forms of eWork within the region — contributing to increasing flexibility and competitiveness within the local economy. However it may also take the form of locally-based employment which uses ICTs to supply work to distant employers or customers in other regions or countries. Above all, ICT seems to be contributing directly to the greater flexibility of working processes and the organisation of work. Here, it can be useful to distinguish between two types (Biser, 2002):

worker-centred flexibility: this involves adapting regulatory frameworks and work organisation in order to give workers more choice, such as ability to fit working hours around family life.
company-centred flexibility: this tends to require workers to adapt to the changing requirements of companies regardless of the effect on working conditions.

Both types are, of course, interrelated, and can arguably only be increased in a socially sustainable way if a balance is struck between the two, as in attempts to develop a work-life balance approach to work flexibility.

The overall effects of ICT on work processes and organisation can be summarised as (Biser, 2002):

Flexitime and part-time working models, as ICT has gradually lessened dependence on routine communication and workflow in organisations using face-to-face interaction and, by implication, fixed and universal working times.
Decreases in transaction costs, such as those caused by the application of ICT, tend to result in the increasing importance of self-employment compared to working for an employer, for example, through outsourcing, ie the transfer of activities formerly undertaken in-house to the free market.
The increasing number of innovative business models (especially for small companies) based on ICT, and the falling barriers of entry to sectors that have traditionally been protected by requirements for major capital investment and by heavy state regulation, again attributed in part to the application of ICT.
The ‘distance-bridging’ potential of ICT which increase the ‘spatial flexibility’ of companies as well as workers. This makes it possible to choose locations for work processes more freely, thus enabling companies to become more adaptable to changes in their environment.

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