Proceedings of FSWKS_06 conference abstracts

Foresight methodologies to understand changes in the labour process. Experience from Portugal

Title:

"Foresight methodologies to understand changes in the labour process. Experience from Portugal"


Author:

António Brandão Moniz
(IET, FCTUNL, Monte de Caparica, Portugal)




The foresight and scenario building methods can be an interesting reference for social sciences, specially 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 an useful tool for policy-makers to grasp problems clearly and comprehensively, and to better pin-point 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, specially focused on the fisheries sector, on information society and employment, on tele-working, or the automotive sector (most of them with the support of the Ministry of Labour).
Also some reflexions 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 the futures of work configurations, and on the work design methods for new  management structures of virtual organisations.


Key-words:

Foresight methods, labour process analysis, scenarios, Portugal, knowledge society, virtual organisations.