Fragmentation? The future of work in Europe in a global economy Rome, 9 October 2008

1. Fragmentation? The future of work in Europe in a global economyRome, 9 October 2008 Changing careers and trajectoriesHow individuals cope with organisational change and restructuring Dr Gérard ValenducFTU - Fondation Travail-Université (Namur)Invited professor at FUNDP Namur and UCL Louvain-la-Neuve Work Organisation and Restructuring in the Knowledge SocietyFP6 integrated project, funded by the European Commission

2. Contents • Context of the study • Objectives and methodology • Selected occupational groups • Changes in careers and occupational identities • Evolution of job contents and skills mix • Diversification of career patterns • Changes in identities at work • Conclusions

3. Objectives and methodology (I) • Overarching hypothesis: global value chain restructuring is a driving force in changes in work Institutionsand policies At the labour market level: quantitative data analysis Careers, trajectories Changesin work Global value chainrestructuring At the organisational level: case studies of business functions Knowledge-basedeconomy At the individual level: case studies of occupational groups

4. Objectives and methodology (II) • Methodology for occupational case studies • In-depth interviews concerning the individual experience of organisational and occupational changes, including a biographical dimension • Focus on: career construction and choices; occupational identities; quality of work; learning and skills development; work life balance • Reporting process (15 countries): 246 individual interviews  30 case study reports  6 monographs of occupational groups: dress designers, ICT researchers, software professionals, manufacturing workers, logistics commercial workers, front-office employees in (formerly) public services  comparative analysis

5. Occupational groups (I) • Knowledge-based creative occupations • 3 occupational groups: dress designers + ICT researchers + software professionals • 113 interviews, 14 case study reports, 11 countries • Main forms of restructuring: global markets, mergers, commoditisation of knowledge, new division of labour, speeding-up processes along the value chain • Service occupations • 2 occupational groups: front office employees in (formerly) public services (administration, post or railway); clerical commercial workers and managers in logistics • 81 interviews, 10 case study reports, 9 countries • Main forms of restructuring: outsourcing, market dependency, priority to customer orientation, privatisation or "subsidiarisation" or externalisation of former internal resources

6. Occupational groups (II) • Manufacturing occupations • 1 occupational group: production workers in food or clothing • 52 interviews, 6 case study reports, 6 countries • Main forms of restructuring: global markets, delocalisation of production units, new international division of labour, decrease (clothing) or stagnation (food) of employment • Three clusters: • KB: knowledge-based creative occupations • LCS: logistics service and customer service occupations • CFM: clothing and food manufacturing occupations

7. Evolution of job contents and skills mix (I) • Trends in KB occupations • Job contents transformed by speeding-up processes (shorter deadlines, continuous renewal, worldwide synchronisation) • Increasing tensions between creativity and continuous market feedback • Broadening of the skills portfolio beyond the core professional skills • Communication, economics, technology, project management • Internal dynamics of the profession is perceived as more determinant than "external" restructuring processes

8. Evolution of job contents and skills mix (II) • Trends in LCS occupations • Wide variety in educational and training background, often not directly linked to the occupation • Service relationship as main common component of the skills mix • Job contents linked to a role in an organisation • Trends in CFM occupations • Ongoing "networked automation", but permanence of work routines • Both trends in increasing need for specialised (mid-level) technical skills and disappearing of traditional manual skills. Mainly on-the-job learning.

9. Diversification of career patterns (I) • Trends in KB occupations: organisational versus boundaryless careers • Diversification of organisational careers: hierarchical patterns, technical patterns (expertise), multi-organisational patterns. • Persistence of glass ceiling for women in organisational careers • Boundaryless (or nomadic) careers: not so frequent and not so long; trapped in a core / periphery model ? • Fragmented careers, due to chronic flexibility (constrained choices) • "Competence-based" labour market (dress designers and software professionals) versus "professional" labour market (researchers)

10. Diversification of career patterns (II) • Trends in LCS occupations • Increasing segmentation between organisational careers and fragmented careers (mainly in outsourced CS) • Rigid career models (back-office model) challenged by fewer-levels career paths (front-office model) and "sideways" mobility • Gendered representation of "service work"(entailing feminisation of some male occupations) • Trends in CFM occupations • Fragmented work biographies, often marked by chronic flexibility • In the clothing sector: organisational career = evolving qualification through on-the-job training and experience. • Insecurity about the future: career progression understood as gaining security

11. Changes in identities at work (I) • Trends in KB occupations • High personal involvement in work; expressive relation to work; motivation for lifelong learning • Identification to a profession rather than to an organisation (except in some big national laboratories) • Changing role of technology in identity (weakening of stereotypes) • Common values • Growing importance of the quality of human relationships at work (in small groups) • Motivation for international / cosmopolite culture • Passions: aesthetics or science or problem solving • Predominance of "professional" or "entrepreneurial" or "mobility/network" models (cf. Sainsaulieu / Dubar)

12. Changes in identities at work (II) • Trends in LCS occupations • Organisational identities > occupational identities • Surviving (but threatened) in restructured organisations (e.g. after privatisation) • Service work itself does not yet define an occupational identity… • … although this trend is now emerging (mainly among new entrants) • Peripheral workers can neither develop organisational nor occupational identities • Trends in CFM occupations • Strong decline of the identity of manufacturing worker • The "fusion" identity model is threatened by fragmentation (breaking down into a "communities" model) (cf. Sainsaulieu / Dubar) • No occupational group presents a single model of identity at work

13. Conclusions (I) • Comparison between occupational groups • Similar driving forces have different effects on KB, CS and manufacturing jobs • The concept of career has different meanings for different occupational groups. • Managing job security / insecurity (notably regarding the future) is a key element in the variety of career trajectories • Strong occupational identities (KB) versus weak (CS) or threatened (CFM) occupational identities • Strong occupational identities help to cope with restructuring

14. Conclusions (II) • Restructuring and careers • No direct causal link between value chain restructuring (VRC) and occupational changes. • The concept of VCR has to be disaggregated into various patterns of restructuring, leading to differentiated impacts on different occupational groups. • In "strong" occupational groups, restructuring processes appear as less determinant than the internal dynamics of the profession. • Effects of restructuring are also mediated by institutional settings • Importance of the sectoral level (more than the national level): organisation of segmented labour markets, provisions for lifelong learning, negotiations about job security and transfer of personnel, etc.

15. References to WORKS research reports • Valenduc G., Vendramin P., Pedaci M., Piersanti M., Changing careers and trajectories - How individuals cope with organisational change and restructuringWORKS Report D12.4 (draft, 2008) • Valenduc G., Vendramin P., Krings B.-J., Nierling L., Occupational case studies - Synthesis report and comparative analysis,WORKS Report D11 (2007)