updated: 8 February 2008

Contacts

Lead partner: Monique Ramioul - HIVA-K.U.Leuven
Second: Malcolm Brynin - UESSEX

Research activities

Feasibility study and benchmarking of the national and European statistical system in respect of the quantitative analysis of changes in work, including the development of a roadmap and related initiatives for more convergence of instruments to measure changes in work in the KBS at the European level

Both organisation/establishment surveys and individual/household surveys are well-developed and established in Europe. The quantitative analyses aimed at in WORKS make full use of these existing statistics and instruments in Europe to measure changes in work. The first aim is to organise a state-of-the-art overview of the existing statistical sources in the different European countries and at the European level. The analysis will focus on the extent to which these sources and data bases make it possible to monitor changes of work quantitatively, both at the level of organisations as with individuals. Major objective of this research phase is the systematic mapping of European organisations and individual/household surveys that are relevant to measure changes in work. This will lead to the identification of indicators for further use in the project.
For the research part on organisation surveys, a digital questionnaire data base will be updated and put on the WORKS website and a peer review workshop will be organised on how concepts on changes in work organisations are translated into indicators and questions. Next, a 'roadmap' for more European convergence of organisation survey practices will be developed.
Timing: August 2005 - May 2006

Comparative analysis of organisation surveys in Europe

This second activity related to 'Quantitative analysis - organisations' involves the organisation of a Workshop to train researchers to do comparative analysis on existing data sets from different organisation surveys in order to allow for international comparative research. Subject to the availability and comparability of the best practice indicators (as identified in the previous project period), the output will allow to examine the distribution of new forms of work organisation throughout Europe as identified in the different organisation surveys and to compare both the antecedents and the impact on organisational strategies and HRM-related issues. This outcome will envisage to guide the 'Qualitative research' (in terms of selection of businesses and occupations), to complement the findings of the qualitative data collection (case study research) and provide a quantitative input into the thematical papers developed in the frame of 'Theories and concepts' .
Timing: August 2006 - May 2007

Analysis of existing data bases of individual/household data sets

	occupational mobility, the distribution of earnings, and gender equality of changes in work in Europe;
	analysis of the relation of these to changes in access to specific work technologies and to distributions of achieved qualifications;
	analysis of the variation across Europe and over time in job tenure and labour turnover;
	assessment of welfare implication through looking at job segregation by gender, and the distribution of pay across social class, ethnic group (where feasible), and gender;
	measures of eWork;
	analysis of comparative differences in time use.

Quantitative analysis: integration of findings and linking with the other project results

The main aim of the quantitative analysis in this third project phase is to integrate the findings of the secondary analysis of both the organisational data and the individual and household data. These results will be an important input for the thematical reporting of 'Theories and concepts'
Timing: August 2007 - March 2008

Publications and events

2nd WORKS Workshop on 'Measuring changes in work by organisation surveys', Leuven - Belgium, 19-20 March 2007

Organised by the Higher Institute of Labour Studies (HIVA) of the Catholic University of Leuven, with core funding from the 6th Framework Programme of the European Community, Thematic Priority 7, Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society

The main objective of the WORKS project is to improve the understanding of changes in work in the knowledge-based society. One aim of the project is to improve the collection of data on changes in work in a quantitative and comparable way through organisation surveys.

To this end the second WORKS workshop will focus on future challenges for organisation surveys. Three challenges will be discussed:

	International organisation surveys: Engaging in international organisation surveys is a way to assure better comparability. Experiences from and future prospects for organisation surveys by international organisations will be presented by Eurostat (CIS, ICT-Usage & E-commerce) and the European Foundation (ESWT).
	Linked employer-employee surveys: Linking data from the organisation with additional information from its employees delivers richer data for understanding changes in work. Users of survey data present the added value of linked survey designs in France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
	Measuring inter-organisational changes: What is the continuing relevance of the ‘organisation’ as observation unit? How can surveys measure inter-organisational changes as outsourcing, networks and changes in the value chain? Research will be presented on the use of surveys to analyse inter-organisational relationships in France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

The results of the workshop will feed into the European MEADOW project (Measuring the Dynamics of Organisations and Work) in which 14 research organisations with experience of carrying out organisation surveys will establish a set of guidelines for collecting and interpreting harmonised data on organisational change as a first step towards implementing a harmonised European survey instrument.

The workshop is aimed at those involved in designing and executing organisation surveys as well as those who use survey results for research and policy purposes.

Programme and more information.

For further information please contact
Sandra Volders (phone +32 16 32 33 15).

WORKS expert workshop 'Catching the butterflies'. A workshop on innovative methodologies for measuring employment effects of value chain restructuring, organised in Leuven - Belgium on 13-14 March 2008

Organised by the Higher Institute of Labour Studies (HIVA) of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, with core funding from the 6th Framework Programme of the European Community, Thematic Priority 7, Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society

The expert workshop will bring together international experts from different backgrounds who are developing new methodologies for measuring employment effects of globalisation. Innovating approaches based on firm level data and macro-economic data sources will be presented, as well as the first results of large scale European and North American surveys. The aim of the workshop is to offer a forum for discussion on methods, techniques, and data sources, and to allow participants to discover common ground in their approaches and methodological problems.

Programme and more information.

For the workshop summary, PowerPoint presentations and background documents, click here.

For further information please contact
Sandra Volders (phone +32 16 32 33 15).