WORKS - Work Organisation and Restructuring in the Knowledge Society - is a pan-European research project which aims at improving our understanding of the major changes in work. Taking account of the global forces and of the regional diversity within Europe, the project will investigate the evolving division of labour within and between organisations and the related changes at the workplace.

updated: 23 August 2007

Captive sourcing
See Offshore outsourcing
Captive (out) sourcing implies a shift in intra-firm supplies to an affiliated firm. This term is used by the WTO.

Captive outsourcing can be either 'onshore' (in the home economy) or offshore (located abroad). In the case of captive onshore outsourcing, the OECD speaks about 'Internal domestic supply'. The OECD uses the term ' insourcing ' to refer to a similar arrangement, but only if the work is carried out inside the firm (an intra-firm arrangement), not when a separate firm is involved in supplying this service.

The distinction between supply by an internal company department or by a separate affiliated firm may be very minor if the affiliated firm is entirely dependent on a single customer.

Care rationality
The term 'care rationality' was coined as a development of Weber's typology of rationalities. It made women's paid work with children, elderly and sick people visible in a new way as well as unpaid care work.
See the Norwegian researchers Björg Aase Sörensen (1982), Hildur Ve (1989 and 1990) and Kari Waerness (1980 and 1984)
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Codification of knowledge
Hansen et al (2000) describe the codification process as knowledge being 'extracted from the person who developed it, then made independent of that person, and reused for various purposes.' Codification is the process that creates knowledge storehouses (knowledge databases).
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Codified knowledge
This term refers to the outcome of the process whereby tacit knowledge is transformed into explicit knowledge and recorded so that it can be shared more generally, often in the form of a knowledge database. This process is often associated with standardisation and with deskilling.

Collective actors
Although traditionally the term was applied to the participants in all types of collective action, the term 'collective actors' is usually understood as workers and employees who are formally organised in institutions of interest representation such as trade unions or works councils. In corporatist systems, collective actors can also include the employers who are organised in employers' associations.
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Collective agreement
A collective agreement is an agreement reached through collective bargaining between an employer and the trade unions, or between employers' associations and trade union confederations, in some countries constitutionally guaranteed by law. The agreement may cover, company, industry or sector wide or national levels.
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Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining refers to the process of negotiation between collective actors which results in collective agreements or in the resolution of industrial disputes.

Colonialism
See Globalisation

Commitment
Commitment refers to the relative strength of a job holder's identification with and involvement in an organisation and/or his or her work. Research tends to differentiate between two types of commitment by employees: to the organisation and to the work.
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Commodification
A term used to describe the process whereby a product or service becomes standardised so that its sale will generate profits which increase relatively in proportion to the scale of production.
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Company level negotiation
In addition to sector level agreements, works councils or worker representatives often negotiate special agreements for their own specific company.
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Company network
See Industrial cluster

Complex work
See Skilled work

Continuous vocational training (CVT)
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Contractual affiliation to work
The term 'contractual affiliation' refers to the contractual arrangement under which work is undertaken.
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Contractual segregation
See Labour market segregation

Core workers
See Core/ periphery model

Core/ periphery model
Developed by Atkinson during the 1980s (John Atkinson. Flexibility, Uncertainty and Manpower Management, Institute of Manpower Studies, Brighton, 1984), the 'core periphery model' divides the workforce into 'core' workers and 'peripheral' workers.
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Corporatism
The term 'corporatism' refers to the more or less institutionalised coordination of socio-economic policy in nation states by the central government, the labour unions and employers' associations.
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Crowding out
See Replacement in the labour market

Cultural capital
Cultural capital can be described as symbolic capital, i.e., skill, education, 'taste', and, more generally, knowledge of social and cultural habits and objects.
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Customer interaction
As a result of our move into a service-oriented society and a Post-Fordist phase, customers' roles are put into focus in the work processes as well as in their role in the value chain.
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