Are societal changes new? Questions or trends and future perceptions on knowledge-based economy

Margarida Paulos () and António Moniz

No 02/2009, IET Working Papers Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, IET/CICS.NOVA-Interdisciplinary Centre on Social Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology

Abstract: With the emergence of a global division of labour, the internationalisation of markets and cultures, the growing power of supranational organisations and the spread of new information technologies to every field of life, it starts to appear a different kind of society, different from the industrial society, and called by many as ‘the knowledge-based economy’, emphasizing the importance of information and knowledge in many areas of work and organisation of societies. Despite the common trends of evolution, these transformations do not necessarily produce a convergence of national and regional social and economic structures, but a diversity of realities emerging from the relations between economic and political context on one hand and the companies and their strategies on the other. In this sense, which future can we expect to the knowledge economy? How can we measure it and why is it important? This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the future visions and possible future trends in different countries, sectors and industries, given empirical evidences of the case studies applied in several European countries, underling the importance of foresight exercises to design policies, prevent uncontrolled risks and anticipate alternatives, leading to different ‘knowledge economies’ and not to the ‘knowledge economy’.

Keywords: Knowledge-based economy; Future trends; Work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O14 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2009-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse and nep-knm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ieu:wpaper:11

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