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PUBLISHED in: Salavisa Lança, Isabel & Ana Cláudia Valente (Eds.), Tchnological Innovation and Employment: the Portuguese case. Lisbon: Dinâmia, 2006 (pp.101-124). TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION & EMPLOYMENT – SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY ELÍSIO ESTANQUE Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Estudos Sociais – www.ces.uc.pt 1 – Introduction Inventive capacity and technological refinement have always been cornerstones of societies’ development. However, while the social transformations that followed the Industrial Revolution meant extraordinary progress for mankind, they also generated a whole gamut of perplexing issues for society to deal with, and continue to do so even today. During the last century, cinema and literature produced many works 1 that reflected concerns associated with technological progress in western societies. The so-called technological revolution has never been regarded as an undisputed asset to humanity, and the innovators’ standpoint is far from being uncontroversial. Indeed, although technical advances over the past two hundred years have been awe-inspiring and have heralded liberation and well-being, they have resulted in countless destructive side effects and new forms of oppression and social injustice. The XIX century began an era in which technologies drew western societies’ attention towards the idea of labour and production, while, nowadays, the focus is increasingly on consumption and market forces. Although it is in the world of labour, rather than in the field of consumption, that people are more directly 1 Such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Chaplin’s Modern Times, and Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World.

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Page 1: T16 technol innnovation ee

PUBLISHED in: Salavisa Lança, Isabel & Ana Cláudia Valente (Eds.),

Tchnological Innovation and Employment: the Portuguese case. Lisbon: Dinâmia, 2006 (pp.101-124).

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION & EMPLOYMENT – SOCIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY

ELÍSIO ESTANQUE

Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Estudos Sociais – www.ces.uc.pt

1 – Introduction

Inventive capacity and technological refinement have always been

cornerstones of societies’ development. However, while the social transformations

that followed the Industrial Revolution meant extraordinary progress for mankind,

they also generated a whole gamut of perplexing issues for society to deal with,

and continue to do so even today. During the last century, cinema and literature

produced many works1 that reflected concerns associated with technological

progress in western societies. The so-called technological revolution has never

been regarded as an undisputed asset to humanity, and the innovators’ standpoint

is far from being uncontroversial. Indeed, although technical advances over the

past two hundred years have been awe-inspiring and have heralded liberation and

well-being, they have resulted in countless destructive side effects and new forms

of oppression and social injustice.

The XIX century began an era in which technologies drew western societies’

attention towards the idea of labour and production, while, nowadays, the focus is

increasingly on consumption and market forces. Although it is in the world of

labour, rather than in the field of consumption, that people are more directly

1 Such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Chaplin’s Modern Times, and Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New

World.

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confronted with technics, greater exposure to the latter tends to subordinate what

happens to the former. It was, largely, for this reason that, in spite of the known

alienating effects of technics on the worker – that Marx so astutely denounced –

the Taylorist approach to production spread throughout the western world, making

the worker a mere appendage to the machine.

Over the past one hundred and fifty years, working class attitudes towards

technologies have been ambiguous: while regarding them a source of potential

threat to jobs, technological innovation has relieved workers from many arduous

tasks and, until recently, served to consolidate the trade union movement. The

corollary of this ambivalent perspective is that, in the latter half of the XX century,

the forebodings of job shedding caused by the introduction of new technologies2

were accompanied by idyllic visions of a happy world in which mechanisation

would replace most physical labour, and where space for creativity and leisure

would abound, shaping what Ivan Illich (1979) termed the right to useful

unemployment. Of course, both these scenarios were amply idealised within the

framework of (opposing) ideologies, and, in time, disproved by historical evolution,

since the effects of new technologies, because they fall within social logic itself,

have always been eminently contradictory.

The issue of technology and its implications for employment and social life

has been a recurrent theme in economic and social theory, especially since the

post-war period. Textbooks on labour sociology back in the 1970s were already

warning of the dangers of “technological determinism”, and stressing the fact that

the machine “is never a pure means or a pure end of social activity”, that is to say,

technical invention is always a response to “a pre-existing need that it is better able

to satisfy than previous technics” (Naville & Rolle, 1973: 401). To understand the

social impacts and implications of technological innovation it must be remembered

that they touch on several spheres and levels of analysis, and thus lead us into a

diversity of dimensions of the social landscape.

Reference should first be made, therefore, to the socio-economic and cultural

2 The Luddite movement in the XIX century, Portuguese workers’ struggles at the turn of the XIX century and

early XX century, and the trade union struggles during the post-war era until the 1970s spring to mind.

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conditions that either foster or hinder technological development, whether in the

organisational and business setting or in society at large. It is preferable to use the

notion of “implication”, mentioned above, rather than “impact”, if we are to avoid

regarding technology as something arriving from outside, which is self-determining,

and which then makes a certain impact on social life. Once appropriated or

marked by human presence and culturalised, technologies, just as all material

artefacts – goods, utensils, resources, technics or even natural elements – take on

new symbolism and significance. Their social effects also entail this kind of

dimension. The question of technology, i.e. the presence or absence of new

technologies, is always intertwined with social implications, before, during and after

their practical application.

This text seeks to look at such problems, and examine associations between

current trends in technological innovation and more general social phenomena.

While our main focus is, naturally, the Portuguese reality, we endeavour to place it

in the global and European context. We try to link empirical information, gathered

from various existing studies on this topic, to sociological perspectives from other

approaches and theoretical frameworks. We have divided the work into three

parts: the first begins by contextualising this reflection in the light of recent

economic globalisation trends and their impacts on industry, and refers to some

industrial organisation models and proposals for the European context formulated

by different authors. The second outlines an assessment of the situation and

considers the underlying reasons for the current state of the art. The results of

various studies are synthesised and empirical information is included on policies

and programmes designed to promote technological innovation in Portugal – from

scientific research to education policies, and the programmes and initiatives

devised to support business modernisation. The third and final part discusses the

social effects of technological innovation, both at macro-social and organisational

levels. The productive sector and society are considered in terms of their

interconnection in different spheres, in which there is a real or potential incidence

of new technologies. Finally, we attempt to draw some conclusions regarding

business and industry, and Portuguese society in general.

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2 – Globalisation, industrial recomposition and technological

innovation: brief contextualisation

When embarking on the question of a given country’s or region’s

technological resources, account must be taken of the social and cultural

dimensions that support it, domestically and internationally. First of all, the

country/region’s position in relation to more general social transformation and

economic development processes should be identified, in order to pinpoint any

trends in change, difficulties and barriers, potentialities and advantages. Secondly,

it is essential not to lose sight of the multiple complex repercussions from current

or recent economic cycles, productive models, and institutional and political

contexts, national and international

The recomposition of productive processes over the past few decades has

been intimately linked to the opening of borders and rapid globalisation of trade, in

which the technological component unquestionably plays a major role3. It is in this

context that issues such as labour – namely industrial labour and the changes

currently affecting it –, the effects of technological innovation, new opportunities

and inequalities, fragmentation trends, mobility, flexibilisation, etc. – all need to be

discussed.

2.1 – Globalisation and social inequalities

From the outset, it should be said that the impacts of current global processes

are far from promoting uniformisation and equal opportunities. Nowadays, just as

in the past, the global economy is generating many inequalities, not only between

core and peripheral countries, but also within each context, where contradictory

dynamics are created, and inclusion and exclusion logics coexist side by side. The

gulf between development poles and disadvantaged run down areas is often more

shocking in countries that have enjoyed rapid economic growth. In such cases, the

3 In the wake of the welfare state crisis, some authors in the 1980s predicted the “end of organised capitalism”

followed by a new “disorganised capitalism” era, or shift from Fordist to post-Fordist accumulation regimes

(Offe, 1985; Lash & Urry, 1987; Esping-Andersen, 1996).

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introduction of new technologies has exacerbated, rather than reduced, social

segmentation and inequalities. Technological innovation and computerisation are,

unquestionably, powerful media that have provided new opportunities for achieving

well-being and empowerment. At the same time, however, they have contributed

to increasing employment deregulation and precariousness, as has been observed

since the early 1980s in Europe (with the emergence of so-called disorganised

capitalism). Indeed, the end of the Fordist salary relationship led to a noticeable

decline in the influence of industrial labour in advanced societies (especially in

Europe), and this has accentuated trends towards heterogeneity and

destandardisation of traditional forms of employment (Beck, 1992 and 2000;

Hyman, 1994; Regini, 1994; Ruysseveldt & Visser, 1996; Costa, 2000).

Tertiarisation and the rapid spread of new information technologies tend, in fact, to

conceal the perverse effects these have on other segments, which are forced into

situations of greater dependency and degradation – as has occurred in EU

economies that are regarded as being among the most dynamic – Ireland being a

case in point (O’Hearn, 2000).

So, the idyllic, neutral and fictitious notion of a homogenising and harmonising

globalisation – an image largely manufactured by neo-liberalist ideologues and the

mass media at the service of hegemonic powers – needs to be dismantled. Global

neo-liberalism quickly entered a vertiginous dynamic, and today its impacts on

labour relations can be felt in all regions of the world. This means that

globalisation does not exist outside time and space, and neither does it impend on

the political, economic and institutional powers that govern the world system – on

the contrary, it is the States, mainly the most powerful States among the core

countries, which are promoting global neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism is, to a large

degree, based on the technological potential of developed countries. For this

reason, the global effects of these processes should be understood in a

polymorphic sense, given that the multiple interactions and impacts they give rise

to acquire highly diverse specificities and configurations, according to different

regional, spatial and social contexts – in other words, “globalisation” processes

bring in their wake new forms of “localisation” (Boyer and Hollingsworth, 1997;

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Santos, 1995 and 2000).

Any consideration of the Portuguese case should, therefore, take into account

the fact that it is a society of intermediate development, and that only over the past

two decades has Portugal begun to implement socio-economic modernisation

policies within the framework of its democratic consolidation process. In view of the

growing influence of the abovementioned global processes, and their impacts on

national societies in all domains of social and economic life, it is worthwhile

mentioning some aspects of the discussion underway on industrial regulation

regimes. The importance for Portugal of the development models that served as a

basis for the core countries – particularly in the European setting – and the failure

of some of those models, can only be understood in the light of the historic events

and rapid social transformation processes that have taken place in our country

since the 1970s. Two events were key turning points for Portuguese society and

were to be decisive milestones in the country’s modernisation efforts: the 25 April

1974 revolution that heralded deep socio-political transformations and Portugal’s

membership of the European Community in 1986.

2.2 – New and old productive models

In recent years, several authors have discussed whether the failure of the

Fordist model and its inability to respond to the new demands of global markets will

give rise to a new and better model, or whether the response to new demands

might more effectively be provided by a combination of various models. The

emergence of flexible modes of production is based on both productive

organisation and consumer markets, and it is a response to the decline of the old

logic of mass production for stable markets. However, it is not a case of a shift

from an industry focused economy to a services focused economy, but rather the

case of the end of Fordism in a post-industrial economy context, in which industry

and services are converging more and more towards a complex productive system,

intensive in human resources, geared to flexibility and quality. The Fordist model

continues to have an important space in certain activity sectors, regions and

countries, which stick to its principles because product diversification is

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accompanied by large-scale standardisation of processes, sub-groups and/or

components (Kovács & Castillo, 1998).

For analysts like Kovács and Castillo, who subscribe to increasing

implantation of lean production in more advanced economies, this model should be

compared with what they call the anthropocentric model, so that the pros and cons

of each may be assessed. The former maintains some of the traditional forms of

production inherited from Taylorism, but incorporates more emphasis on aspects

such as: stock and staff reduction, greater mobility and organisational flexibility,

product quality, team work, multi-skilling, employee participation, management

through organizational culture, etc. However, it is still marred by the inherent

defects of a kind of interiorised Taylorism, which contributes to degradation of

working conditions and marginalisation of the less skilled, in a Japanisation logic

that is unlikely to succeed in western societies. The anthropocentric model

emphasises technology tailored to suit internal skills, and seeks flexibility through a

qualified, multi-skilled, participative workforce, that is capable of maximising the

advantages of new technological equipment. The underlying idea is that the new

resources made available by the information society should be complemented by

human capacities, such as autonomy, creativity, participation and cooperation, and

that competitive performance should go hand in hand with good quality of life.

Uptake of this model in Europe, however, is slow, and faces barriers such as

the focus on the technological component in research, the persistence of Taylorist

principles and mass production, the lack of organisational dynamics and dialogue

mechanisms in labour relations. Kovács and Castillo put forward possible

alternative future scenarios: 1) a dualist neo-Taylorism based on unrestricted

development of neo-liberalism, which would tend to entrench social and labour

inequalities further, to a backdrop of deregulation, weakened trade unions and

precarious employment for the less skilled; 2) a moderate neo-Taylorism, with

mitigation of some of Taylorism’s negative consequences by the effects of State

redistribution actions, informal negotiation, vocational training and the

strengthening of some sectors of the workforce, whose bargaining power would

increase; 3) a hyper-competitive lean production scenario, with increased

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economic rationality, subordination of trade unions, and individual bargaining and

participation at enterprise level, which is detrimental to collective bargaining,

marginalizes the most vulnerable of the workforce, co-opts the more highly skilled

workers, and thus exacerbates inequalities and unemployment; and finally, 4), an

anthropocentric model, only to emerge in the medium to long term as a result of

the social consequences (the intensification of social conflicts) caused by the

tendencies that are, apparently, on their way. It should be directed towards

reconciliation of social with economic objectives, encompass fuller democratisation

of social life and humanisation of work, and adapt technological innovation so that

it is in keeping with social, ecological and organisational objectives, on a basis of

participation and bargaining strategies by employers and unions (Kovács &

Castillo, 1998).

Reference to these scenarios serves to position our reflection between the

economic and social domains. Apart from their economic objectives, business

activity and innovative capacity have a major impact on organisational and socio-

cultural spheres. At the same time, in spite of growing transnationalisation of

business activity, national societies still play an important part in terms of

productive conditions and conquest of markets, even for internationalised

enterprises. As most studies have found, it would be wrong to conclude that the

most competitive business and organisational strategies are simply a direct

consequence of technological change. While major social transformations are

being highly intensified by the rapid spread of new information technologies (NIT),

it may be said that organisational innovation occurs independently of technological

innovation (Castells, 2000).

3 – Technological progress in Portugal: achievements and barriers

The transformation process undergone by Portugal’s productive sector in

recent decades has been shaped by a series of factors – economic, political,

social, institutional, etc. – which, in turn, have been intertwined with internal and

external aspects. These include Portugal’s entry to the European Community, and

the subsequent array of initiatives designed to boost technological innovation in the

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business sector: scientific and technological research support programmes, and

the resulting increase in highly skilled human resources; education policies - their

achievements and failings -, and the difficulties encountered in articulating

structural investment in research and educational domains with business practices.

We refer to these aspects in particular because of their implications for the

productive sector and society at large.

In spite of the recognised difficulties Portugal still faces in this respect, at least

since the mid-1980s there have been solid indicators that the technological

development process – as far as availability of specialised technical services and

computerisation are concerned – is showing some signs of progress in certain

areas. For example, according to surveys carried out in 1988-1989, most

Portuguese businesses had, by that time, computerised their accounts

departments, around half had altered their personnel management methods and

10% of these were using specialised technical services (either in-house or

external), and had computerised their production management and process (Silva,

1990). This, however, is far from constituting significant progress in technological

innovation, especially in business.

3.1 – Organisational change and innovation in R&D

In the early 1980s, increasing attention was turned to policies regulating

scientific and technological activity, to improve its ties with industrial development

by securing closer international relations with the OECD and UNESCO (Moura &

Caraça, 1993). However, the conjunctural and, to an extent, defensive nature of

politics at that time, was reflected in, among other aspects, the markedly

lukewarmness of these initiatives. The consolidation of new business groups

alongside traditional but hardly internationalised industrial sectors did not result in

any significant progress in terms of efforts being made to overhaul the country’s

scientific and technological system. For example, with regard enterprise

innovation, studies have revealed that during the first half of the 1980s there was a

clear drop in R&D spending (Gago, 1990; Gonçalves & Caraça, 1986), although,

subsequently, spending rose significantly (Teixeira, 1996).

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As mentioned above, the new institutional conditions that came into being as

a result of Portugal’s entry to the European Community marked a turning point that

would lead to the application of new instruments designed to boost technological

development. Efforts to establish a scientific policy framework resulted in the

reinforcement of the role of the JNICT (Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e

Tecnológica), and, with the adoption of Law 91/88, new policy measures

supporting cooperation between scientific institutions and enterprises, both

nationally and internationally. This concern with technological innovation and

international openness was to find reflection in the Framework-Programmes, the

Science Programme and the STRIDE-Portugal Programme4, as well as in PEDIP I

and PEDIP II, co-funded by the ERDF and ESF (Tolda, 2000: 123). There was a

marked increase in infrastructures supporting scientific and technological activity

following the PEDIP programmes: after 1988, 46 new units (institutes, centres,

laboratories and/or technological schools) were opened, while before that date only

16 were in existence. This fact is a good illustration of the importance of state

policies that stimulate innovation, especially those that are more directly focused

on cooperation between research and productive activity. However, in spite of the

Portuguese state’s support to industrial innovation, we still find ourselves facing a

business landscape that, in the main, is weakly competitive when it comes to

technological innovation. When, as is the case, the improvement of competitive

conditions occurs precisely at the same time as the opening of borders and

coincides with more emphasis being placed on internationalisation, then the

sectors concerned become exposed and vulnerable to more aggressive

international competition. This gives rise to new difficulties and can even neutralise

the economic success of the initiatives.

During the latter half of the 1990s, R&D spending increased substantially – in

fact, it registered one of the largest increases in the OECD, especially in state

incentives –, nonetheless, spending is still low: in the 1995-1997 period, R&D

spending was in the region of 0,68% of GDP, which is 37% of the average for EU

countries and about 31% of the average among OECD countries (Godinho, 1999).

4 Science and Technology for Regional Innovation and Development in Europe.

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Portugal is one of the least innovative countries in terms of the processing industry,

while the chemical, paper and metal products industries are the most

representative industrial sectors in R&D spending, and employ the most qualified

human resources. In contrast, the traditional sectors such as textiles, clothing and

footwear, in spite of having also benefited substantially from the incentives

available under the PEDIPs (I and II), still have much lower technological potential.

The impacts of the recent incentives policy have, however, contributed to reducing

the structural immobility and polarisation of traditional sectors in our industry.

(Salavisa, 2001).

In any case, the positive developments that have taken place during the past

few decades, particularly in relation to scientific research that, as we know, is a key

factor in innovative potentiality, are worth mentioning. The number of doctorates

awarded in Portugal each year is presently about ten times higher than in the early

1970s. Furthermore, nowadays, over 80% of these doctorates are granted by

national universities, while, before the 1980s, most doctorates were obtained from

institutions abroad. Nonetheless, according to a recent study by Mira Godinho

(1999), figures relating to the distribution of highly qualified human resources

(Masters and Doctors) reveal that their presence in private enterprise is almost

insignificant: of the total number of employees with higher level academic

qualifications in private enterprise, only 2.4% have doctorates, and 3.4% have

master degrees. The most qualified human resources working in R&D are to be

found, above all, in the higher education system and related institutions (non-profit

making research units): in 1997, 28,8% of them were working for the state, 47,9%

in higher education institutions, 11% in enterprise, and 12,3% in non-profit making

institutions (Godinho, 1999: 124). So, the positive signs of progress in this respect

relate to the enormous increase in doctorates and equivalents in the 1990s, the

substantial increase in people associated with R&D work (from just 4,000 in 1964

to over 18,000 in 1997), and a marked increase in Portuguese scientific production

referred to internationally. However, the human resources in question still tend to

be drawn to the academic domain, the increase in numbers of researchers has not

been balanced with increased numbers of technical and auxiliary research staff,

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and the human resources in R&D in enterprises are extremely few (Godinho, 1999:

130).

While it is true to say that the main change processes, in the technical and

organisational spheres, were closely associated with the institutional incentives

available, their success and real effects on business always depend on the social

resources and conditions that can be mobilised from within. In this respect, the new

entrepreneurial dynamic that began in the latter half of the 1980s, with the increase

in competition and expansion of markets, has brought about some changes in

terms of productivity and better product quality, and the consequences of this will

undoubtedly be felt in innovation and vocational training (Freire, 1998).

Nevertheless, if business mentality began, early on, to show signs of some

appetite for and confidence in competitive advantage based on technological

innovation, the same cannot be said for organisational change. This has to do with

a traditionalist approach that is still embedded in Portugal’s business fabric and

continues to be the main barrier to innovation and to its effective practical results.

As some studies have revealed, business mentality still has strong reservations

about the need for changes in organisational structure and labour systems.

“Receptiveness to social innovation is quite limited. Firms’ innovative activity is

based primarily on the acquisition of technical-scientific expertise from outside and

on the purchase of capital assets and intermediate assets from other firms. The

role of research and development (R&D) activities inside firms is very limited”

(Kovács, 1992: 288).

Until the early 1990s particularly, increases in Portuguese industrial output

were largely due to investment in new productive equipment, that is to say, efforts

to change and innovate were primarily motivated by the desire to cut production

costs by investing in machinery and material equipment. Furthermore, in spite of

Portugal’s economic recovery during the 1980s, labour rights inherited from the

latter half of the preceding decade basically remained in force, and this, combined

with the considerable negotiating capacity of important trade union sectors and a

certain awareness of employers’ impotence to challenge it, contributed to delaying

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technological innovation efforts in many firms and vital sectors of Portuguese

industry.

Studies carried out in the 1990s found that reliance on information

technologies was on the increase but, at the same time, they discovered that firms

were shying away from investing in immaterial elements, and that centralising

approaches and lack strategy in management were persisting (CISEP/GEPIE,

1992; Simões, 1996). The panorama in terms of technological innovation in

Portuguese enterprises may be summed up as follows: barriers to innovation have

less to do with resources’ capacity and are more a result of lack of strategy; the

attitudes of entrepreneurs and senior management are a key determinant for

innovation initiatives; the traditional model of centralised management constitutes

the biggest obstacle to innovation; the shortage of technicians and human

resources is cited by SMEs as a major stumbling block; technological change is

frequently regarded as exogenous to business activity; more open styles of

leadership that encourage team work are found in most innovative firms; there is

no obvious correlation between the size of an enterprise and its attitude towards

innovation; there is growing awareness of the need to use new technologies, in

terms of both design and production areas, as well as in communication networks

and database sharing; there is a link between the age (youthfulness) of a firm and

its receptiveness towards innovation (Simões, 1996).

3.2 – Knowledge, education and human resources

The situation described above illustrates that the necessary structural and

cultural conditions are not yet favourable enough for implementing flexible

organisational models, which can promote articulation between individual and

collective incentives, i.e. models that are geared to a balanced combination of the

technical and human factors. So, the signals are contradictory and reflect

tendencies towards both stagnation and renewal. The current wave of micro

enterprise creation (up to 10 employees), many of which are headed by young

entrepreneurs, and the increasing implementation of new programmes designed to

encourage modernisation – such as the POE (Programa Operacional da Economia

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/ Operational Economy Program), aimed to promote information technologies in the

so called traditional sectors, enhance forms of organisation and management, and

upgrade workforce skills, and the SIPIE – (Sistema de Pequenas Iniciativas

Empresariais / Small Business Initiatives System) –, are encouraging signs that

Portuguese enterprise could still manage to recover lost ground in technology

incorporation and innovation capability. A recent government backed scheme

specifically focusing innovation, Proinov (Programa Integrado de Apoio à Inovação

/ Innovation Support Programme) is endeavouring to reassess and give fresh

impetus to identifying the clusters proposed by Michael Porter in the 1980s, and to

develop new initiatives for each cluster, coordinating the involvement of the

different stakeholders: enterprises, technology centres, training centres,

polytechnics and R&D establishments. Although the “Porter Report” rightly

contained an important warning that, as Proinov Coordinator Maria João Rodrigues

acknowledged, has been heeded by the main economic agents, it failed to put

enough emphasis on the importance of new information technologies and their

potential impact on Portugal’s most vital economic sectors (car, footwear, knitted

garments, wood products, tourism and wine). Proinov’s Coordinator believes that it

is imperative now to establish a high degree of “articulation between public,

technology, enterprise support and R&D policies, promote partnerships in civil

society, and identify more rigorous criteria for awarding incentives” (Público,

11/05/01).

Statistics published in the UNDP’s latest Human Development Report (2001)

shed further light on the most recent evolutions concerning Portugal’s technological

potential. Figures (relating to 2000) for average years schooling among the

general population (over 15 years of age) rank Portugal, with 5,9, below countries

like Slovenia (7,1), Barbados (8,7), Czech Republic (9,5), Croatia (6,3), Uruguay

(7,6), and Chile (7,6), which are just a few of the countries with lower ranking than

Portugal in the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDR/UNDP, 2001: 52).

According to the Report, Portugal ranks 28th in terms of Human Development and

27th on the new Technological Achievement Index5 contained in the report.

5 This index was based on criteria such as: number of patents per capita (newly created and royalties’

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Curiously, however, when it comes to some of the most important elements in the

building of global communication networks – and key factors in advancing

innovation –, such as telephones (fixed and mobile) and Internet, Portugal had

made remarkable progress. The number of fixed telephone subscribers rose

between 1990 and 1999 from 243 to 424 per 1,000 people. In the same period the

number of mobile telephone users rocketed from 1 to 468 per 1,000 people, while

Internet users went up from 1.3 to 17.7 per 1,000 people.

These general trends reflect a degree of structural change in the country and

reflect how the technological component is both a cause and effect of complex

patterns of social practices. If, as we stated at the beginning of this chapter,

technologies are not self-determining, but are result of multiple causalities –

institutional, socio-economic and cultural –, education is unquestionably a key

element in social development and technological innovation processes. It is

important to realise that, in spite of impressive developments in the Portuguese

education system in recent decades, the visible results of its progress are still

relatively few when brought to an international level. According to the OECD

(1998), Portugal still occupies penultimate place in terms of population percentage

with at least secondary education, i.e. just 20% of the population between 25 and

64 years have completed that level of education, which is close to one third of the

average (60%) for OECD countries. However, it should be remembered that

numbers in higher education in Portugal have risen sharply since the 1970s: in

1970-1971 higher education students numbered around 49,000, in 1980-1981 the

figure had risen to 84,000, in 1990-1991 it was 186,000, and in 1999-2000 it had

reached around 370,000. Nonetheless, the percentage of Portugal’s population

with higher education is still in the region of 8 to 9%, which is well below both the

European and OECD averages (15%). Only 26% of all higher education students

graduate in exact sciences and technologies (Natural Sciences, Mathematics and

income); spread of old (telephone and electricity), and recent (internet) innovation; export of medium and

high technology products, and human resources qualifications (years of schooling and sciences and

technology graduates) (cf. HDR – Human Development Report / UNDP – United Nations Development

Program, 2001: 46).

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Computing, Engineering, Medical Sciences and Architecture), which puts Portugal

in last place and well behind other European Union countries6 (Barreto, 2000: 46).

3.3 – Endogenisation and spatial context

Clearly, policies designed to stimulate enterprise innovation and R&D activity

or education policies cannot, alone, resolve existing deficiencies, especially at

enterprise level, but they can make a decisive impact on the potential for scientific

innovation, and galvanise mechanisms that will narrow the present divide and bring

scientific research and the productive sector into closer contact. It should be

stressed, therefore, that, more than the existence of coherent state policies and

incentives, it is endogenous factors that can most decisively promote technological

innovation based and framed by orientations and change strategies adjusted to suit

the country’s own specificities and needs.

Improving the potential and resources structurally linked to business activity in

different productive sectors cannot, therefore, be separated from the capabilities

generated within enterprises or the technical-cultural conditioning factors of the

environments and spaces in which they operate. Indeed, even in a context of

increasing globalisation of markets and competitiveness, local productive systems

and the range of synergies they generate are key elements in that respect. This

means that innovative capacities, even where international competitiveness is

concerned, essentially depend on sectoral and local dynamics, and these remain

spatially linked to regions, cultures and networks (formal and informal) endowed

with different conditions to “promote endogenous innovation dynamics and,

therefore, to become centres for bringing about socio-economic changes” (Reis et

al, 1999: 127). Local cooperation networks have already proved that they can be

factors in advancing technology, even during the Fordist model era, even though,

in these cases, generally supported by a high degree of specialisation, crisis

situations increased (Heidenreich & Krauss, 1998). In fact, it is above all in the

contexts and regions, where the diversity of local, formal and implicit expertise and

6 Figures for other EU countries are: Denmark, 37%; Germany 48%; Spain, 32%; France, 37%, Ireland, 39%;

Italy, 33%; Holland, 31%; Austria, 33%; Finland, 60%; Sweden, 47%; UK, 36% (Barreto, 2000: 46).

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skills combines with efforts to open up to the outside and turn towards global

markets, that the highest levels of effectiveness in responding to crisis situations

has been found (Cooke, 1998). Clearly, the wealth of knowledge, skills and

resources acquired by a given sector or located in a particular region, albeit

accumulated in an already outdated framework of regulation models, is still

potentially decisive in the face of new challenges, as long as it can be capitalised

on and reapplied in the emerging conditions. This endogenisation and

incorporation of new skills, in the sense of applying them in today’s global markets

and networks, has hardly achieved any substantial results in Portugal.

Relevant to this approach is the notion of “industrial district”, that is,

territorially structured concentrations of mainly small firms, which have developed

complex networks of mutual trust and cooperation on a basis of interdependent

systems, in which the regional division of labour configures particular conditions

that can improve competitiveness in a sustained way. In these contexts, which are

well identified in Italy (Becattini, 1994), a prominent role is played by the collective,

skilled and well-paid worker, who is, at the same time, involved in business

management strategies and policies, and is a key factor in the process of

maximising performance and innovative potentialities. Such examples also

illustrate how technical innovation and the social dimension are, or should be,

inseparable components. In an atmosphere of stability, in which social dialogue is

fostered, and economic, social and political institutions work together to devise

innovation strategies, the ideal conditions for boosting technological innovation

may be found (Castillo, 1998; Kovács & Castillo, 1998).

4 – Social transformation, technological innovation and organisational change

At this point, we shall consider the impacts of new technologies in terms of

macro-structural change trends, on one hand, and organisational and labour

dynamics at micro level, on the other. Firstly, it should be underlined that the

productive industries sector and labour market in general continue to be the

fundamental basis from which the main currents of socio-economic transformation

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of today’s societies flow. As we saw in the previous point, creativity, technical

capacity and scientific productivity are worth little if they do not find reflection in the

labour system and while they continue to be divorced from business activity.

Technological evolution and social transformation have always been closely linked,

mainly because new skills generated by society aim to achieve new objectives and

satisfy new demands, whether these are institutional or political, material or

symbolic, individual or collective. Their purpose is a practical application that fulfils

society’s expectations, and, at the same time, generates transforming effects on

people’s lives, and causes changes, to a greater or lesser degree, at macro-social

level. The relationship between technological development and its impacts on

labour relations, however, has always been contradictory. Ever since the Industrial

Revolution, the economic sphere and production relations have been modern

societies’ main infrastructure. Since the productive sphere is such a key dimension

in the structuration of our societies’ social divisions and classes, the introduction of

new technologies has always been a contentious issue in social relations at work,

a world itself already marked by constant conflict. What are the most important

changes we ought to consider in that respect in order to understand social

transformation? Which new trends should be identified in order to understand the

changes occurring on the threshold of the new millennium?

4.1 – Technological innovation and structural change

During the latter half of the last century in particular, the social impacts of

technology were studied, in the context of the new political and institutional

conditions of the post-war period, as the central element in the recomposition of

the workforce and social classes in general. Ralf Dharendorf (1982) considered

technological innovation and the professionalisation of business management

structures as being responsible for the major transformations of industrial societies.

Different authors based their analyses of the growth of the middle classes and the

social mobility phenomenon on similar assumptions (Lockwood, 1966; Goldthorpe,

1969; Giddens, 1975).

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The reason it is worth referring to such structural phenomena is not just

because crucial periods of change, caused in the main by the introduction of new

technologies in the business sector, need to be identified, but also because

although many of these processes have been occurring in industrial societies for

decades, their repercussions on Portuguese society have only very recently begun

to be felt, given our country’s relative economic and technological backwardness.

The main social effects caused by such processes may be summarised as

follows: 1) new divisions among salaried employees – between manual and non-

manual workers, between technocrats and bureaucrats – that are a result of

mechanisation and professionalisation of management, have led to major changes

in the productive structure; 2) market and individual competitiveness to achieve

more rewarding positions has encouraged individualism among skilled sectors of

the workforce, and fostered the emergence of a “new middle class” of salaried

employees, tending to be identified with liberal ideology and the principle of

meritocracy; 3) growing internal differentiation among these intermediate segments

of the working class gave rise to further tensions and divisions, reflecting side-

effects of the overall labour market restructuring process: as new occupations

emerged, categories in decline created new self-defence logics, while new

qualified categories generated new social climbing opportunities; 4) growing

individualism in certain sectors was accompanied by more active trade unionism in

other sectors of the middle class, revealing that mobility phenomena themselves

also cause social conflict; 5) in spite of these incongruities, the integrating

consequences of increasing social mobility, allied with the new social policies of

the Welfare State, led some authors to identify these intermediate levels of the

working class as a new service class7; 6) new patterns of class formation and new

post-Fordist and post-industrial type polarisation, namely the appearance of new 7 The concept of the service class was formulated as follows: “Employees render service to their employing

organization in return for ‘compensation’, which takes the form not only of reward for work done, through a

salary and various perquisites, but also comprises important prospective elements – for example, salary

increments on an established scale, assurances of security both in employment and, through pensions rights,

after retirement, and, above all, well-defined career opportunities” (Erikson e Goldthorpe, 1992: 41-42).

According to the same authors, in spite of the constant growth of new sectors of professional workers and

qualified salaried employees, the general trends point to an increase in heterogeneity in these sectors, while in

the upper levels of the non-propertied middle class homogeneity in the last decade seems to be growing

(Goldthorpe, 1995).

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proletarian segments in the service sector; 7) the emergence of new forms of class

struggle and new social movements that distanced themselves from both Marxism

and pure individualism, giving rise to a new middle class radicalism (Parkin, 1978;

Eder, 1993; Erikson & Goldthorpe, 1992; Esping-Anderson, 1993).

4.2 –Labour market and recomposition of the class structure in Portugal

A study that we undertook recently on social classes in Portuguese society

(Estanque, 1997; Estanque & Mendes, 1998), systematically revealed how some

of the tendencies we referred to above are configured in our country. The data

collected provide us with a better understanding of the workforce’s composition,

skills and employment conditions, its influence in decision-making, its authority,

and its educational qualifications. It provides important insight into the extent to

which technology has been incorporated in enterprise, and into differences

between the public and private sectors’ absorption of workforce categories. The

comparison of the study’s results with figures for other countries (US, Sweden and

Spain) revealed that Portugal has the highest class location percentage – 46.5% –

of what we term “proletarians” (workers with no significant qualifications, and no

authority or autonomy at work). This high figure is not just due to the unskilled,

declining industrial workforce, but also to a labour market that is structuring various

sectors of precarious, low skilled employment in both industry and services.

However, for the purposes of this text, the most important findings relate to the

distribution of the different middle class categories, i.e., the arrangement of

different skills levels and degrees of authority on the employment market. In

comparison with our Spanish neighbours, apart from the similarity in the

prominence of a traditional petit bourgeoisie, the percentage of skilled workers in

Spain is substantially higher than in Portugal (18.5 and 5.8% respectively), a

reflection of the fact that Spain is more capital intensive and its enterprises are

more technologically advanced. In other words, given that it is usually large

enterprises that invest more heavily in modern technology, and that more of the

Spanish workforce has been absorbed by big firms, the results for Spain show

larger numbers of higher skilled and better qualified workers.

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The fragility and small scale of Portugal’s business fabric is also reflected in

the results of the study: over 60% of the workforce is employed in firms of less than

50 salaried employees, while the higher skilled categories are mostly to be found

working in the public sector. Unsurprisingly, Portugal’s middle class locations are,

on the whole, less significant than in other core countries (US and Sweden), and

clearly inferior to Spain’s.

There is, however, an interesting distinction that should be clarified. We are

referring to distinctions between positions that have both authority and educational

resources (categories referred to as skilled or semi-skilled “managers” or

“supervisors”) and those for which hierarchical authority is not based on significant

academic qualifications (non-skilled “managers” or “supervisors”). With regards the

former, the Portuguese class structure appears to be considerably lacking in these

positions in comparison with developed countries, while with regard to the latter,

Portugal’s percentage is higher than that found in the other countries. Clear signs

also emerged of growth in some of the more skilled positions (from categories with

more authority to those that, although better qualified, do not yet have any

authority), which are being absorbed into the labour market and now to be found in

a reasonable number of medium and even small enterprises. Underlying this

scenario, there is, on one hand, the effects of rapid growth in the number of

graduates in Portugal, and some modernisation in certain labour market sectors,

which are starting to absorb those graduates, and on the other hand, the

persistence of structural weaknesses in our productive fabric. The fact that

traditional industries are relatively sizeable and composed mainly of small firms

means that there are large sectors that recoil from incorporating skilled labour. At

the same time, new and better skilled generations entering the labour market

appear, on the whole, not to be involved in firms’ decision-making processes. This

suggests that, when reinforcing staff, many firms now using modern technologies

tend to give preference to those with long experience and loyalty to the established

hierarchies rather than promote their more qualified employees. This is clearly a

problem in enterprises, and it tends to pervade the dynamic of organisations

generally. In fact, societies and enterprises are permanently faced with this

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predicament, which could be regarded as a corollary of the dilemma between

promotion of meritocracy and perpetuation of existing power structures. New

technologies, and competitiveness imperatives that technologies seek to address,

compound the complexity of the situation for both the social level and the

organisational domain.

4.3 – Between macro and micro

Even though the issues referred to above are more directly connected with

Portuguese society’s macro-structural level, our intent is not to focus on society as

a whole and subordinate the micro or organisation level approach. Much less is it

our intention to consider the two levels of analysis separately. Structure, according

to Giddens, can be regarded as a “virtual order” that establishes the conditions for

the “structuration” of social life, both individual and collective (Giddens, 1989). The

effects of structure’s capacity on the microworld and on individual life entail the

creation of profound “illusions”, which become “real” for all intents. If this distinction

is maintained, it only makes sense if we position ourselves at a point where these

two levels cut across each other to reach a multifaceted and complex knowledge of

the wider social world. (Fine, 1991).

It is important, therefore, not to forget that society’s structural configurations,

while conditioning individual and organisational life, constantly undergo the

moulding pressure that individuals, organisations, associations, state institutions,

etc. – in short, the social actors – bring to bear in real life. It is true that the

structuring effects of these actions can mobilise multiple resources and lead to very

varied consequences for organisations and society generally. For example,

technological development policies and organisational change and transformation

initiatives are part of the social structuration processes, and distinction can even be

made between immediate structuration logics, when a new technological system is

introduced in a given sector or firm, and mediate structuration logics, when the

effects of economic, education or scientific policies start to make an impact on the

recomposition of the productive fabric or the class structure of a given society

(Giddens, 1989).

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It is important to bear in mind that the organisational level of the analysis

cannot be approached separately from the social and systemic structures of which

firms and organisations are part. The tree must be seen in the context of the forest

that conditions its development, but it is important that the view of the forest does

not prevent us from seeing each tree in detail.

4.4 – Organisational culture and fragmentation of labour

For decades organisational theories prioritised microanalysis and, voluntarily

or not, followed a functionalist conception that tended to regard the organisation’s

social world either as merely the result of external impacts or as systems with their

own coherence but detached from the wider social world. Meanwhile, and

especially since the advent of the Welfare State, in a context of growing

tertiarisation of economies and institutionalisation of trade unionism, bureaucratic

systems expanded and labour markets stabilised, supported by more effective

welfare policies and better security guarantees in employment. While markets and

international competition continued to function on the basis of traditional customs

constraints, with relatively closed borders, and domestic markets regulated by

stability, particularly in the framework of a global balance marked by the “cold war”,

functional and rationalist management tendencies continued to hold sway in major

industries. In this setting, technological development was, for a long time, marked

by the Taylorist model, which led to the growth of mechanised systems that were

lacking in organisational flexibility.

However, following the economic crisis of the 1970s and, above all, when

confronted by the aggressive competition of Asian economies in the 1980s,

enterprises in the West, particularly leading US corporations, began revamping

their management strategies and promoting organisational cultures geared towards

flexibilisation and more efficient utilisation of human resources. From the late

1980s onwards, the situation changed dramatically, especially in the wake of the

collapse of the Soviet bloc, and in view of the complete liberalisation of world trade.

There was a change of scale in the economic world. We entered global markets

era. In this whole process, technological innovation played a decisive role and it

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was mainly the technologically advanced enterprises that became the drivers

behind more participative and informal business cultures, and, borrowing from the

Japanese example, promoted a new sense of ethics among employees, new

rituals, symbols and heroes, which tended to strengthen identification with the

“company spirit” and, thus, enhanced competitive performance. However, while the

model made a considerable impact in the US, the outcome in Europe was different

due to the influence of trade unionism and more structured resistance cultures.

In recent years, the impacts of technological development on Portugal’s

productive industries sector have been meeting with resistance from a

conservative business mentality, that pays all too much heed to status and power

hierarchies – attitudes that are still very much entrenched in our society (and to

which we shall refer further on). The changes being introduced are, on the whole,

barely perceptible in the large organisations. In bigger enterprises, flexible

management policies are only found, by and large, at senior executive and high

grade professional level. Nonetheless, the employment market is absorbing new

educational skills: the quota of employment with middle-level qualifications, for

example, grew between 1985 and 1997 from 10.7% to 14.6%, while the quota with

higher levels (degrees and baccalaureates) rose from 3% to 6.1% (Figueiredo,

1999: 73).

The impacts of increasing flexibilisation and recomposition in the productive

sector have led to new segmentations in which clear differences are appearing in

the enterprise geometry, but where there is still considerable difficulty in renewal.

Sometimes, familiarisation with new technologies fosters insecurity and creates

new divisions among the workforce. For example, when vocational training

programmes involve the use of computers, people with poor educational

backgrounds and older trainees sometimes more difficulties. Foremost competitive

capacity is, on the whole, still to be found among the traditional sectors that chiefly

stick to largely labour intensive, low wage cost Taylorist organisational models. It

was in these sectors primarily that employment grew most, but their innovative

effort in terms of technologies has been negligible, and innovation that was

introduced was mainly incremental.

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Considering that generational renewal and the impact of younger, better

qualified resources entering the labour market is proceeding at a very slow pace, it

is understandable that within organisations there are contradictory logics, which

lead to incongruous approaches that often cancel each other out, and foster

stagnation and routine in organisations. Although new technological means and

computerised systems are gradually changing this state of affairs, alterations are

taking place in a context of growing fragmentation of production processes, giving

rise to a perverse conjugation of different forms of employment relationship, where

precarious employment and fixed-term contracts abound, in addition to outsourcing

and various types of subcontraction and fragmentation of firms.

So, problems of business mentality and organisational culture have to be

regarded in the light of wider labour and social transformations that, since the

1970s, have been occurring in Portuguese society, which, in barely two decades,

has undergone multiple change processes that have heightened contrasts in all

aspects of its social and economic life. Divisions deepened between the coastal

and interior regions, between rural and urban areas, between different productive

industries, between generations, between agriculture and industry, between social

sectors in decline and new emerging sectors. The traditionalist logics of a semi-

rural society have clashed with new consumer habits and modern life styles. The

industrial plott of some of the most important sectors of the Portuguese economy is

dispersed in highly rural areas, where a range of economic activities and solidarity

networks – the so-called “welfare society” – sometimes function to complement

workers’ incomes. On the other hand, the rapid growth of the public and state

enterprise sector, whose expansion occurred in at a time of considerable trade

union sway and activity, had, in our view, very important consequences in that it

led to unanimist cultures and resistance to change among vast sectors of the

workforce, especially in traditional industry and the public administration. The

establishment of intensely bureaucratic systems or even the expansion of

corporativist-type cultures generally constitutes powerful forces that can tend to

resist or thwart efforts to innovate and modernise firms and institutions.

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4.5 – New skills and new organisational models

How can these tendencies be framed in a setting in which the knowledge

economy and ITs play an increasingly decisive role? In addition to the differences

between various sectors and labour segments, it seems clear that the growing

(albeit as yet insubstantial) presence of advanced technologies leads to new

patterns of opportunities and careers for the more qualified professionals, while, at

the same time, segregates groups that are harder to recycle because of new

training requirements. Just as has occurred internationally, Portugal has also

witnessed new segmentation tendencies among large companies and small firms

(Andrieu, 1999, Wareham, 1999). There is a growing bipolarisation of, on one

hand, the typical leadership logics of large economic groups, in which there are

mergers and strategic alliances functioning on the basis of vertical integration

processes, against, on the other, the innumerable small firms emerging, which

have been stimulated by the lack of need for personnel and cumbersome

bureaucratic structures, and by the availability and usability of new technologies

(Almeida, 2000: 13).

Portugal’s inadequacies in terms of innovation knowledge calls for greater

investment in creating flexible structures and cooperation strategies on the basis of

networks for disseminating and absorbing that knowledge, supported by incentives

for investment in innovation and in people. Better utilisation of skills requires

environments that foster interaction between the internal and external environment

that galvanises mutually beneficial learning processes. Competitiveness and

innovation initiatives will have to address improved articulation between the

education system, skills learned in employment, vocational training and career

progression policies, and greater flexibility, rotation and participation to maximise

the knowledge resources potential that is so often underutilised. This means that

boosting innovation necessitates creating conditions for wider participation and

involvement by collaborators, and this is particularly viable in some SMEs, where

qualified human resources and new technologies predominate. Attitudes that are

more open to innovation tend to be those that attach more importance to

immaterial rather than material factors, i.e. a focus on areas such as vocational

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training, organisational development, information systems, cooperation, design and

R&D activities is more compatible with the creation of new assets and distinctive

skills (Moreno & Nunes, 2000: 48- 49).

It may be said, therefore, that the potentialities in the organisational sphere

are confronted with the contradictions to which we have referred above. Given the

recognised difficulties of applying in Portugal (and in European societies generally)

models inspired in neo-corporativist cultures, like those that dominate in large US

and Japanese multinationals (Peters & Waterman, 1987; Reto & Lopes, 1989), the

implementation of organisational strategies that are able to address new

competitive and technological need to be adapted to suit not only sectoral

specificities and particular endogenisation potentialities, but also the more general

characteristics of Portugal’s productive fabric.

In short, the different sectors of our economic activity reflect a wide variety of

organisational orientations and cultures: in the more traditional industrial sectors,

there are 1) small firms, with simple management structures, characterised by

paternalism and by short-term objectives, 2) medium enterprises, where

authoritarian and centralist styles persist, and the overriding motivation is to make

easy profit, 3) predominantly bureaucratic-mechanisist systems or divisionalised

structures, in large tertiary sector enterprises and public administration, and 4) in

the most competitive and innovative enterprises, a logic of initiative based on

individual incentives persists, which is complemented by recourse to semi-

autonomous teams of specialised professionals like, sometimes, to external

consultancy, and a technocentric culture tends to prevail (Mintzberg, 1995).

The effects of increasing market competitiveness and institutional initiatives

have, as we have said, generated quite considerable changes in various

segments, but future challenges and falls in economic growth expose abundant

shortcomings. It is, therefore, imperative that new ways of dealing with the existing

problems are found. Some solutions proposed cover aspects such as: 1) the

restructuring of scientific activity and creation of mechanisms that will ensure that

the knowledge created in universities is disseminated in society and enterprise,

i.e., greater institutional efficiency and greater interconnection between knowledge

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producing centres and organisational and social reality, which could take the form

of 2) organising intensive, short courses at universities that would provide an

alternative to young people with secondary education, and be geared to

specialisation in different occupational areas; or, 3) organisation of post-graduate

specialised or transdisciplinary courses, devised in conjunction with industrial

associations and other economic agents; 4) greater incentives to associativism

supported by locally based networking, which interconnect education system

resources and existing social capital, are oriented by entrepreneurship, and involve

different social actors and promote cooperation between the social economy, the

third sector and business initiative; 5) new and more consistent business networks

and strategies geared to innovation, in an institutional frame of reference that is

better suited to an economy in transition, like Portugal’s, in order to combat the

pessimism that is entrenched in the business sector; 6) creation of alternative

forms of financing innovation, by promoting compensation supported by existing

resources and expertise, so as to increase new forms of cooperation among

traditional firms and new technology based enterprises, creating multipolar

interdisciplinary networks; 7) greater efforts in vocational training, in liaison with

educational establishments and the different social actors and development

agents, so as to not only implant new skills and qualifications, but to rearticulate old

skills and qualifications acquired through practical experience with new

technologies and scientific know-how (cf. Boyer, et. al., 2000; Lopes, 2001; Kovács

& Castillo, 1998; Conceição & Heitor, 2001; Tavares, 2000).

4.6 – Power structures and participation

The introduction of new technologies and gradual absorption of larger

numbers of skilled professionals tends to encourage more efficient communication

systems and greater flexibilisation of personnel management methods. It is then

that profound organisational restructuring processes generally meet with resistance

rooted in inertia and embedded power logics. In Portugal, power structures have

certain specificities in social and organisational life, both in their material results

and the symbolic effects they generate.

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There is a very deeply rooted tendency in Portugal to sanctify power – in its

institutional and political forms, as well as at socio-cultural levels. A certain

symbolism is generally attached to people in positions of authority that unleashes

complex webs of representations, behaviours and alliance games. The power

distance inscribed in the mental programme of the Portuguese (referred to by

Hofstede, 1980) reflects the high tolerance on the part of subordinates to the

exercise of authority by their hierarchical superiors. Now this, combined with the

low levels of individuality – and, therefore, initiative in the dispute for influence in

decision-making – and strong personal loyalties, characteristic of a society of

intermediate development, cultivates atmospheres that facilitate abuses of

authority. On one hand, those in prominent positions and leadership roles,

generally expect and demand limitless dedication from their subordinates and, on

the other, subordinates themselves generally contribute – willingly or even

fawningly –, to augmenting their superiors’ power resources.

These characteristics also reflect the profound inequalities and divisions

prevalent in Portuguese social culture, not just in the socio-economic sphere and

cultural and educational resources, but also in terms of subjective attitudes and

class cultures that are marked by resentment, which are aspects that are at the

root of mistrust, often with manichaistic undertones, which lead to rejection of

change and innovation projects (Assunção & Bilhim, 1998)8. When confronted with

recent labour market restructuring processes, and risks and threats, such as

unemployment, are in the air, then it is easy to foresee negative consequences and

pessimist attitudes towards innovation programmes. Moreover, when, as generally

happens, such innovation and organisational change programmes are not

accompanied by internal negotiations involving the workforce, that distrust and

resistance can take even more serious forms. The recent phenomena of

psychological violence or moral harassment (Hirrigoyen, 1999), with its

pathological consequences, is just one form that growing pressure for individual

8 Resistance from less skilled segments identified by these analysts in a case study focusing the

communications sector.

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competitiveness can take, and has occurred among poorly skilled workers as well

as highly qualified professionals.

An important area to be mentioned has to do with the question of social

partners’ and workers’ participation in the organisational change and technological

innovation processes. We have already referred to the idea, emphasised in

various studies, that innovation strategies are more suited to flexible and

participative management models. We also mentioned the influence of trade union

intervention in inhibiting innovation. Indeed, for a very long time Portuguese trade

unions clung on to strategies of resistance and defence of privileges gained by

workers following 25 April 1974. Until the 1990s, the main industry trade unions –

especially those affiliated to the CGTP – doggedly refused to accept restructuring

programmes and focused their efforts mainly on defending jobs and acquired

rights.

In many processes involving company restructuring, bankruptcy and

fragmentation, trade unions have been overtaken by circumstances and lost their

protagonism, both in the negotiating processes and in terms of their own

membership. Besides, as we know, involvement of workers and their

representatives in restructuring programmes has not been given enough attention

from the agents of change. What existing studies reveal is that, in most cases,

enterprise modernisation processes are carried out without the involvement of the

people, or, when they are involved, it happens “just at the implementation stages

and in less developed forms (information and consultation) (...), there is no

involvement whatsoever of those affected by the change in the planning stage”

(Kovács & Castillo, 1998: 127-128). The outcome of this type of procedure is that,

in many instances, those who are potentially major driving forces behind

organisational change simply abide by decisions taken by others and become

disgruntled workers because they have been made to feel inferior and/or

marginalised. They are unlikely, therefore, to mobilise in support of a company

project that has not involved them. A parcipative culture naturally works better with

higher skilled sectors that incorporate more knowledge, more social capital and are

better rewarded at work. Thus, technological innovation can contribute to greater

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participation since it tends to favour workforce renewal and, on the other hand, if it

is accompanied by increasing endogenisation of human resources and knowledge

by enterprises, it will necessarily lead to more open and flexible management

models.

However, the effects of neo-liberal globalisation, with growing fragmentation

of labour and more precarious industrial relations, have become factors that put

trade union structures under enormous pressure and that generally prevent any

kind of organised intervention by workers in decision-making processes. As a

result, we have witnessed trade union activity (and that of enterprise-level Workers’

Committees) progressively weaken. This has led trade union leaderships to turn

their sights towards seeking new responses and rethinking forms of union

intervention and participation. Trade unions’ range of concerns has widened to

encompass transnational issues and to embrace more diverse social and

economic problems, including areas that are not directly employment-related. For

that reason trade unionism will, unquestionably, have to play a decisive role in

technological innovation, economic development and modernisation policies. As a

matter of fact, there are already clear signs of progress being made in that

direction (Hyman, 1997; Costa, 2000; Ferreira, 1996; Silva, 2000; Estanque, 2001).

It is our view, therefore, that the proposals and programmes devoted to

spreading anthropocentric production systems (to which we referred at the start of

this chapter) seem particularly appropriate to the pursuit of innovation strategies

negotiated with the social partners. Although experiments carried out in some

European countries have so far produced few palpable results, and institutional

support for their continuation has dwindled (Kovács & Castillo, 1998), their viability

in Portugal should not be dismissed. To be successful in our country, such

strategies would have to take the form of social dialogue policies that ensure

effective interconnection between macro-concertation/ dialogue, collective

bargaining and enterprise-level negotiation. Even though, so far, there have only

been attempts – not always successful and with scant results – to transpose

negotiation of concertation agreements (and collective bargaining) to enterprise

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level (Ferreira, 2001), technological innovation policies will, necessarily, mean a

more active trade union role in enterprise restructuring processes.

Furthermore, in view of Portugal’s low pay levels and the poor educational

resources of most of its workforce, it is just unrealistic to devise productivity

boosting schemes and to expect workers to become more motivated and identified

with a “company culture”. This reinforces the argument that for the social

dimension to adjust to successful technological innovation programmes it means

first implementing a whole range of procedures and policies, in which the

participation, negotiation and involvement of all the social actors involved in the

organisational life, are vital components.

5 – Conclusion

Before outlining the type of organisational model that we believe to be most

suitable for our enterprises, it is worth pointing out a few more signs of Portuguese

workers’ and consumers’ openness towards new technologies. In a survey

undertaken in 1997, involving Portugal and various other European countries

(Cabral et al., 2000), our country revealed very similar attitudes to those in others

in terms of views on the effects of new technologies on employment and working

conditions. Of those interviewed in Portugal, 83% were concerned about job

shedding (as compared to 80% in Spain, 77% in Sweden, 87% in Germany, and

74% in Hungary). In response to questions about the effects of new technologies

on job content/interest, 71% of the Portuguese thought that new technology would

make jobs somewhat or quite a lot more interesting – a much higher percentage

than found in the other countries studied (Spain, 35%; Sweden, 52%; Germany,

55%; and Hungary, 54%). The same survey also revealed that farm workers and

assembly workers were the occupational categories that regarded the impacts of

new technologies on jobs most negatively, while students and scientific and

technical professionals were those who most minimised negative impacts on jobs.

Administrative workers were those who most thought that new technologies would

have positive impacts on occupational tasks. Amid the pessimism with regards

employment and a clear optimism about greater job satisfaction, the Portuguese on

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the whole revealed a relatively open attitude towards the impact of new

technologies on working conditions (Cabral, et al., 2000: 33-34).

While this is an important aspect that reflects Portuguese feelings about

technology in relation to employment, the ease with which the individual consumer

in Portugal has adapted and taken to new technologies is well known. Intense

interest in NITs, massive receptiveness to mobiles phones, increasing use of the

Internet and digital appliances (TVs, cameras, video cameras, etc.) and clearly

receptive attitudes towards new and ever-increasing computer artefacts and

means – from software to hardware – reveal a level of enthusiasm for new

technologies that would suggest in a fairly technologically advanced country,

although, in that respect, Portugal is still lags behind her European partners9.

In short, workers and society as a whole do appear relatively willing to

integrate more daring technological innovation projects. However, for such projects

to be successfully implemented, careful attention must be given to all the tensions

and divisions that pervade society and that are reflected in our firms and

organisations. In addition to the crucially important mechanisms for social dialogue

and concertation already in place – that, obviously, make even more sense in the

framework of the European social model –, even from the organisational

standpoint, the most suitable models for the Portuguese reality cannot, for the

reasons given above, be based on pure individualist logic or on a uniformising

new-corporativism, along the lines of the so-called American management school –

which tends to ignore the conflicts that exist in enterprises –, particularly if we think

about the industrial sector. In this respect, the approaches closest to the

socio-political paradigm, developed by various authors of the French school

(Crozier & Friedberg, 1977; Crozier, 1989; Bernoux, 1998; Sainsaulieu & Segrestin

1987), as well as being more in tune with the anthropocentric system referred to

above, enable better adaptation to suit our country, since organisational culture

9 While in mobile phone usage, Portugal is among the leaders in Europe, a relatively recent study showed that

only around 26% of people between the ages of 15 and 24 regularly use the Internet, in contrast to other

countries, such as Holland where the figure for that age group is 76%. Young people in Portugal are also

trailing behind the rest of Europe in terms of computers, with only 50% using pcs, while the figure for other

countries (except Greece) is far higher – over 80% (EC commissioned study, presented in Brussels on

8.11.01, quoted by RFM).

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conceived of in this way provides more space for diversity and the conjugation of

sub-cultures and different interests, by proposing a more dynamic vision of

company culture, based on informal negotiation mechanisms, and on the

expressivity and initiative of the social actors. In this respect, it is important to

ensure that conditions for worker involvement in company innovation projects are

in place. This means that organisational restructuring initiatives geared to

innovation should contemplate not just training courses and adequate bargaining

processes – that ensure the needs of the most precarious sectors and hardest to

reframe in the modernising dynamic are taken care of –, but a vocational training

policy that is able to conjugate new and “old” skills, i.e. to get the most out of both

the new skills incorporated by new generations of workers and qualified

professionals, and the implicit knowledge, skills and abilities that many workers

acquire over the course of their working lives, which is so often underutilised. While

it may not always be possible to achieve a perfect balance between the

competitive dynamic and social justice, there are still plenty of opportunities for

expending more consistent efforts to make these two logics more compatible, since

the first one does not ends in itself and only achieve true meaning if remaining

connected to the second.

As someone suggested, in our country there is an imaginary-central-state, i.e.

a state that, in spite of being peripheral or semi-peripheral, tends to regard it self as

being central (Santos, 1993), and which reflects the profoundly contrasting

tendencies that have been repeatedly associated with Portuguese culture and

society. Different intellectuals have referred to “Portuguese man” as having an

ambivalent mind-set that alternates between an inferiority complex in relation to

foreigners and “mythical hypertrophy” that gives rise to megalomaniacal delusions,

and thus enables a dynamic and lasting coexistence of pre-modern, modern and

post-modern logics. (Santos, 1994: 60-61). Perhaps this can help us to understand

some of the contradictions that exist in our society and the relationship with

technological innovation that we have referred to in this text.

Portugal seems to encompass an empire of potentialities in terms of

intentions, imagination and capacity for subjective adaptation to new realities and

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situations. At the same time, however, it continues to reveal tremendous difficulty

and incapacity when it comes to realisation. The organisational difficulties in

advancing programmes based on change geared to innovation and endogenisation

of new technologies are, therefore, a fundamental problem that needs to be

tackled. Labour will, unquestionably, continue to be the central focus of developed

societies in the XXI century, in their efforts to build better patterns of life and social

justice. In this context, the recognised creativity of the Portuguese, their sense of

solidarity, and their capacity to adapt to advanced organisational structures –

demonstrated by our emigrants in core countries – can become decisive trump

cards in our collective future.

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