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culture". Even the case of celibacy with respect to new technologies can be described as "technological practice". The term in particular does not restrict itself to the formal organisational structure of the firm, also extending to the formal and informal structures of the world of work, thus, for instance, adequately addressing the special issue of new forms of social exclusion in connection with the new technologies.The SOWING-Project deals with various empirical research instruments: firm survey, regional profile study, and case studies of enterprises. In the first step of the project, each of the national research groups had to prepare a literature report giving an overview of the national discourses on the information society. These National Literature Reports were synthesized into the first Interim Report of the project. Furthermore, the national state of the art reports became the basis for the final version of the theoretical framework of the SOWING Project. The present report is based on the National Reports and is part of the Interim Report. * The aim of the Interim Report is to further develop the conceptual framework for the project. Therefore, those parts of the National Literature Reports were taken into account which could particularly contribute to this objective. With the selection of parts of the Interim Report given here the authors want to present the conceptual discussion in the project. Therefore the published text is a work in progress. The second contribution "'Standortdebatte' und 'Neue Armut': Bundesdeutsche Illustrationen zum EU-Projekt SOWING" deals with the special historical aspects influencing the development of the Information Society in Germany in the light of SOWING. Vice versa, this results also in an informative illustration of the topics of SOWING in the light of German experiences. German developments like the former "Modell Deutschland" and the recent "Standortdebatte" give the opportunity to demonstrate the comprehensiveness and actuality of this EU project.

The main assumption of evolutionary economics is that techno-economic change is path dependent, suggesting some kind of gradual development. Referring to Finland, one can demonstrate, however, that countries can undergo fundamental transformation processes within a relatively short period of time. Naturally this has major implications for research on techno-economic change, because the concept of path dependency in which the dominant feedback loops are selfreinforcing cannot be applied to the Finnish case. To understand the transformation process of the Finnish economy, research needs to focus more on processes of path creation. The aim of the article is to contribute to such reframing of research on economic change and to give empirical evidence of path creation processes referring to Finland as a case in point.

An analysis is made of the impact that the emerging learning economy may have on the processes of social exclusion with the focus on the sphere of work, since employment is seen as the core of the social tie that links individuals within society. The first section of the chapter discusses globalization and the learning economy. Next, the changing patterns of (un)employment (flexible employment, as exemplified by part‐time work, temporary work, home‐working, and self employment) and career structure are addressed that are caused by global competition, moves towards a learning economy, individualization of work in the labour process, and restructuring. The next two sections address first, regional exclusion, and second, social exclusion arising directly from the learning economy as the result of the formation of a new underclass of workers whose knowledge can be codified and automated, so that they become unnecessary. The last three sections address the policy implications of social security, and individual‐targeted and general strategies for combating social exclusion.

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