Journal Article

Purpose - Analysts predict that disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, will have a monumental impact on the world of work in the coming decades, exacerbating existing skills gaps faster than education systems can adapt. This paper aims to review research on the forecasted impact of technology on labour markets and skill demands over the near term. Furthermore, it outlines how social innovations and inclusion can be leveraged as strategies to mitigate the predicted impact of disruptive technologies. Design/methodology/approach - The paper engages in an overview of relevant academic literature, policy and industry reports focussing on disruptive technologies, labour market “skills gaps” and training to identify ongoing trends and prospective solutions.Findings- This paper identifies an array of predictions, made in studies and reports, about the impact of disruptive technologies on labour markets. It outlines that even conservative estimates can be expected to considerably exacerbate existing skills gaps. In turn, it identifies work-integrated learning and technology-enabled talent matching platforms as tools, which could be used to mitigate the effects of disruptive technologies on labour markets. It argues that there is a need for rigorous evaluation of innovative programmes being piloted across jurisdictions. Research limitations/implications - This paper focusses on these dynamics primarily as they are playing out in Canada and similar Western countries. However, our review and conclusions are not generalizable to other regions and economies at different stages of development. Further work is needed to ascertain how disruptive technologies will affect alternative jurisdictions. Social implications - While “future of work” debates typically focus on technology and deterministic narratives; this paper points out that social innovations in training and inclusive technologies could prove useful in helping societies cope with the labour market effects of disruptive technologies. Originality/value - This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the existing literature on the labour market effects of novel technologies. It contributes original insights into the future of work debates by outlining how social innovation and inclusion can be used as tools to address looming skills mismatches over the short to medium term.

Digital platforms have the potential to create benefits for their suppliers or workers as well as their customers, yet there is a heated debate about the character of this work and whether the platforms should be more heavily regulated. Beyond the high-profile global platforms, the technology is contributing to changing patterns of work. Yet the existing framework of employment legislation and public policy more broadly – from minimum wages to benefits and pensions – is structured around the concept of ‘the firm’ as the agent of policy delivery. To reshape policies in order to protect the interests of people as workers as well as consumers, it is important to understand why digital innovators make the choices they do, and therefore how labour market policies can improve working conditions without constraining the productivity and consumer benefits enabled by digital business models.

The implementation of cyber-physical and similar systems depends on prevailing social and economic conditions. It is here argued that, if the effect of these technologies is to be benign, the current neo-liberal economy must change to a radically more cooperative model. In this paper, economy change means a thorough change to a qualitatively different kind of economy. It is contrasted with economic change, which is the kind of minor change usually considered in mainstream discourse. The importance of language is emphasised, including that of techno-optimism and that of economic conservatism. Problems of injustice, strife, and ecological overload cannot be solved by conventional growth together with technical efficiency gains. Rather, a change is advocated from economics-as-usual to a broader concept, oikonomia (root-household management), which takes into account all that contributes to a good life, including what cannot be represented quantitatively. Some elements of such a broader economy (work; basic income; asset and income limits) are discussed. It is argued that the benefits of technology can be enhanced, and the ills reduced in such an economy. This is discussed in the case of cyber-physical systems under the headings employment, security, standards and oligopoly, and energy efficiency. The paper concludes that such systems, and similar technological developments, cannot resolve the problems of sustainability within an economy-as-usual model. If, however, there is the will to create a cooperative and sustainable economy, technology can contribute significantly to the resolution of present problems.

From a critical analysis of traditional psychological research on the expertise we have here aims to address this concept in terms of competence. We propose a model (MADDEC) and through examples from recent work, we try to raise the interest to reflect the processes involved in the mobilization and construction of individual and collective skills. Finally, using another model (MADIC), derived from the first, we ask questions of management and articulation of both types of skills. [googletranslate_en]

Information is the glue that holds together organizations and their industries. Thus, understanding the information ecosystems and their infrastructures is essential if we are to appreciate how companies, government agencies, and entire industries function. Yet the role of information in companies and industries remains understudied. This article defines concepts historians should understand, discusses challenges faced in the study of business information, and suggests approaches.

Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning‐making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to transcend the everyday lifeworlds of users and permeate the workplace and its practices. However, given the emergent nature of this area, the literature on the use of social and mobile technologies in workplace practices is still small. Indeed, social media are increasingly being accessed via mobile devices. Our main focus, therefore, here is on the question of what, if any, potential there is for the use of social media in informal, professional, work‐based learning. The paper provides a critical overview of key issues from the literature on work‐based learning, face‐to‐face and technology‐supported, as well as social (mobile) networking services, with particular attention being paid to people tagging. It then introduces an initial typology of informal workplace learning in order to provide a frame for understanding social (mobile) network(ing) services in work‐based learning. Finally, a case study (taken from the literature) of People Tagging tool use in digital social networks in the European Commission‐funded MATURE project is used to illustrate aspects of our typology.

It is hardly news that we are in the midst of rapid economic change. The advances in information and communication technology (ICT), in the life and other sciences and their profusion of innovative products from the newest electronic devices to the latest drugs and treatments are ample evidence. Equally pervasive are new business models in services (big box retail, online banking, on-demand media) and the explosion in social networking and new business practices ushered in by the Internet (telework, virtual meetings, job boards). Given the magnitude of the changes brought on by these innovations, it is useful to step back and ask: What does economic analysis have to say about the sources and mechanisms of these shifts and revolutions, and what economic metrics are available to measure their overall size and impact? The received theory of economic growth is the natural candidate for this job. It came of age in the 1950s and 1960s with the neoclassical models and emergence of aggregate growth accounting. The latter has become the workhorse of empirical macroeconomic growth analysis and the basis for official productivity statistics put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) since 1983. A technological revolution appears, in this framework, as an increase in the fruits of innovation, as measured by the shift in an aggregate production function (termed multifactor

This theorizes a continuing understanding of just employment and the according of importance to working conditions rooted in the expectations of industrial citizenship, albeit without the power to enforce its standards of workforce voice and economic security. [...]the transition from industrial to post-industrial society continues to be mediated by cultural norms, values, and expectations with origins in the industrial era.11 These considerations are developed through examining, first, how miners and former miners have responded to economic restructuring and changes in their labour market position and, second, the extent to which the legacy of occupational culture continues to provide a frame of reference and understanding. First came a gradual divestment of non-business interests such as community housing and development work; then a divestment of many daily aspects of operations; and finally, outsourcing of skilled trades. Unionized Inco workers at this time numbered approximately 4,000.57 The total number of directly employed mineworkers stood around 6,500 – a far cry from the height of employment in the 1970s (Figure 2). [...]as in Lanarkshire, the restructuring of the sector was dependent on the offering of economic rewards to individual workers in return for breaching previously accepted norms of joint regulation and collectivism. [...]a positive assertion of resistance and collective identity, outside of the existing mining industry itself in Lanarkshire, also persists in a weakened form. [...]Aronowitz's conclusions are partially visible in terms of the loss of the resources that had sustained past class struggles, but less so in a total absorption into the values of market citizenship that were only partially internalized.86 The narratives of workers from Sudbury and Lanarkshire indicate the centrality of workplace control and elements of codetermination in management to the structures of industrial citizenship in mining regions.

"The company released in question HRD must position! "Was the title of a recent article in a professional journal. [7] Praised by some and criticized by others, the companies described as "liberated" raise a minimum of curiosity and challenge the present and the future of HRM.  To believe its sponsors or supporters, this type of business would represent a new performance model: this would be achieved by the release of energy and employee involvement, through organizational methods and practices HRM characteristics. In particular, two beneficial effects would be sought in this model, and are the cause of the claimed performance: first, the development of the ability to innovate; secondly, improving the quality of life at work.  Beyond the speeches, what can we say in practice? Companies that are displayed as "liberated" they actually generate more innovation and well-being at work? This article, after laying the foundation for a genealogy of model released enterprises, discusses the impacts on an exploratory case, that of a company of digital services. [googletranslate_en]