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

Metamorphic networks
The term 'metamorphic network' was coined to describe the informality mechanisms which characteristically developed in the post-communist countries during the transition to a market economy.
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Micro-enterprise
A micro-enterprise is an enterprise fewer than employees.
See also SME

Mobility
This term is used to define an individual or group's passage from one social class to another, whether it is higher or lower.
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Modularisation
Modularisation of tasks, skills and business processes involves breaking them down into increasingly standardised, and therefore interchangeable units. Modularisation plays a key role in facilitating the elaboration of value chains. Once processes have been broken down into these standard modules it becomes easy to configure, and reconfigure them in a variety of different ways, both spatially and contractually.
See also value chain, and standardisation.
Source: Ursula Huws

Moving up the value chain
This phrase is used to describe the process whereby outsourced companies previously carrying out low value-added work at or near the bottom of a value chain successfully manage to persuade their customers to give them more and more highly skilled and high value-added business, thus bringing them nearer to the ultimate customer. In some cases this is accompanied by shedding more routine tasks and in turn subcontracting them to an even cheaper supplier. Several striking examples of moving up the value chain can be found in the Indian software industry.
Source: Ursula Huws

Multinational corporation
See Global corporation

Multi-skilling
Multi-skilling refers to the broadening of the range of skills possessed by the workforce, including technological, communicational and problem-solving skills. Companies may invest in multi-skilling to enhance their capacity to adapt the functions performed by their workforce to changing market needs or to enhance inter-departmental communications. Multi-skilling forms a basis of functional flexibility .

Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking refers to the enrichment of a job by adding several distinct tasks to the set of responsibilities that define it. It is a central aspect of job enrichment and an application of multi-skilling .