RISULTATI RICERCA

A research carried out in eight European countries on the employment dynamics The article presents some findings of a research carried out in eight European countries on the employment dynamics, work experiences and learning opportunities of women working in the so-called ‘information society’. The research examined the features of female employment in large-scale retail organizations and in financial services, two sectors which in recent years have undergone profound organizational changes and significant technological innovations, and which are characterized by increasing levels of female employment. Referring to the outcomes from several case studies and from a longitudinal study in both sectors, we emphasize some criticalities of the impact of new technologies introduction on the women’s work prospects and learning opportunities and we identify some factors generating new forms of inequality or consolidating the already existing ones.

The study of telemedicine from a social perspective The term telemedicine refers to the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the health care sector. It is used both to describe the telecommunication systems which allow practitioners to work together in time and space and, more broadly, the use of ICT in health care activities. Although the use of ICTs in the health industry is hardly a new phenomenon, the technological innovations of the last decade produced a significant increase in their adoption and utilization. While such phenomenon has attracted the interest of both the technologists and health professionals, it has gone almost completely unnoticed within the social science community. The present paper constitutes a first attempt to fill this gap. On the basis of a two year research programme, it focuses on some of the continuities which, within the so called new economy, connect ICTs and everyday health care practices. The paper discusses the reciprocal interactions between technology and health activities, emphasising that telemedicine constitutes a significant occasion for the renegotiation of professional identities and boundaries. It also explores some of the implications that this may have for the organization of health care systems and their future changes.

New economy and old organizations. An introduction to the Advantages and Paradoxes brought by ICTs to the Italian Civil Courts System So called new economy seems to have a bearing on old organisations too. This paper describes an Italian E-Government Program aimed at implementing Information and Communication Technologies within a typical old organisation, the Court, and discusses some of the organisational issues raised by this innovation dynamic. Thus, the concept of Isomorphic Paradox and the flexibility/control dialectic are introduced and tested against a body of field data gathered in a set of Italian Civil Courts. The provided insights, it is stated, might prove useful in accounting for the conflicts which often arise from the implementation of E-Government policies.

New economy and higher education. Changes in the universities of the Milan metropolitan area. The concept of new economy is a new one: it is unclear if it will resist, and become a part of the conceptual toolbox of economic sociology, or disappear as many others fad concepts have done in the recent past. This paper builds on a recent research about the evolution of Milan’s university system, and tries to investigate if the concept can be useful in addressing this object. Its empirical section describes quantitatively, with data purposively collected, the evolution of Milan university system during the Nineties, and finds that it has expanded, mostly in the postgraduate and vocationally oriented area; and become more segmented. Then some causes of this change are investigated: the labour market; the demographic structure; the institutional framework, where there has been a major reform which propelled university participation. The final section speculates about these results, asking if the new economy concept is useful to describe them: the conclusion is that it can be used as a general, sensitizing concept, but one which has to be empirically determined and measured.

New economy and job market transformations: some evidences This paper looks at some effects of new economy diffusion on job market present transformations. It focuses on the diffusion of new forms of non-standard jobs, on processes of institutionalisation of new professions and on the redefinition of the traditional ones. On one side it argues that the utilisation of digital technologies modifies the skills of some professions and it allows the diffusion of non-standard job forms. This is illustrated by the Archivists case study. On the other side the non-standard job forms sometimes promote the new professions processes of institutionalisation in the new economy. This is illustraded by the Blobbists case study.

Transitional Employments in IT occupations: Opportunities or Risks for Women’s Career? This paper presents some results drawn from a case study of an Italian mediumlarge IT firm focusing on transitional employments of women IT professionals and the impact on their careers. It concludes that transitional labour markets played a marginal role in supporting transitional employments partly because they are still defined on standard employment of a male-breadwinner-worker as the ideal worker and partly because they are not sufficiently shaped for the specific needs of a knowledge-based-organisation. Instead a good capacity in creating new intellectual capital inside the organisation and a dual career/dual breadwinner model family, enhanced women IT professionals career’s opportunities after the transition from one employment status to another.

Work in internet companies in the Milan province Do internet companies represent an experimental lab for the analysis of work transformation? Which kind of relationship does exist between the state of technological shares on the stock exchange and the introduction of innovating processes both in the organization and regulation of work? This article deals with these questions comparing the results of an analysis of the organization of work in internet companies located in the Milan province with some recent theories concerning the future of work. This analysis is completed by a survey of the transformations in the work of internet companies following the fluctuation of economic-financial cycles of recent years. The final consideration takes into account the possibility of using the analysis of work in internet companies also for the activities that in future will attend to the distribution of products and services connected with new technologies.

What future for new economy? The contribution concerns with thesis that the new economic phase, started with the new economy financial boom, does not regard only internet per se, but, first of all, the fading of material needs and the achievement of immaterial needs. The new great transformation outlines a transition to an informational economy or, better, to a knowledge economy. A transition loaded of uncertainty and insecurity and which opens new challenges on privatisation of knowledge use and on the mechanisms of risks socialisation.

Society and new economy The paper describes the crisis of new economy beginning on the 2000 and the coming out from the crisis, that spatially redesign the restarting of the cognitive capitalism at the world’s level. New balances linked to the world’s cognitive capitalism are pointed out, with the inversion of abroad investment’s flows, the precariousness of cognitive workers in the developed countries and the multiplication of new Silicon-Valley-like models in the economically emerging countries.

Birth and decline of the global village myth The paper examines some crucial aspects about Internet developing, focussing in particular on the reappearing risks of technological determinism and of the technological devolution. Discussing the myth of the global village, the thesis ICT will not result in cancelling the organisational structures and in converting reality into a virtual reality, rather in a growing capacities of treating the processes at distance, in a context of new balance between the global and the local is strongly stressed.

When Europe-wide protest arose against agbiotech in the late 1990s, opponents linked its risks with globalisation, which symbolised the neoliberal policy framework. Sustainable agriculture was invoked in divergent ways by proponents and critics of agbiotech. By the late 1990s a legitimacy crisis led to a regulatory impasse. Some analyses diagnosed deficits in regulatory procedures and stakeholder relations, thus needing a remedy in risk governance. Eventually policymakers defined a common problem: how to restore public and market confidence. Regulatory changes began to accommodate criticisms from mainstream consumer groups and environmental conservation agencies. By contrast, environmentalist groups still sought to undermine public confidence in safety claims. In mediating the conflicts, various governance roles operate as sources of further tension. Risk regulation will continue to bear the burden of legitimacy problems unless R&D agendas are opened up for debate and change.