The future of work: organizational and international perspectives

This paper provides a background context for the further symposium contributions in this issue. It argues that any debate on changes in the workplace must be rooted in specific organizational contexts. The contexts are being altered by changes in technology (telecommunications and information) and heightened competitive pressures brought about by internationalization. However, this does not necessarily mean that traditional forms of work (particularly mass production) have been eradicated. Rather, they have been increasingly dispersed to less-developed economies (LDCs) and newly industrialized economies (NIEs). This process is again set within an organizational context, as multinational corporations have been at the core of such spatial restructuring. Moreover, information technology has been facilitative of such changes. Finally, the paper notes that much of the empirical data, particularly large-scale macro-data, does not point to the transformational change that is described and predicted in some of the more polemic accounts of the future of work. Rather, more incremental changes are indicated. Indeed, a more measured approach to accounts of change is called for, based on rigorous and robust empirical research