This article examines companies’ and public sector organisations’ external restructuring processes, with consideration of emerging or lengthening value chains and network relationships in the service sector. Focusing on two business functions — software development in the IT industry and IT services for public sector organisations — the article describes the types of inter-organisational relations that emerge and analyses the impact of restructuring on employment conditions and work organisation. The business functions clearly differ according to the form that restructuring takes and with regard to the impact of restructuring on work and employment. Common trends include increased insecurity, growing flexibility demands and higher levels of standardisation and formalisation of work.

The predictive value and the reliability of evaluations made in immersive projection environments are limited when compared to the real world. As in other applications of numerical simulations, the acceptance of such techniques does not only depend on the stability of the methods, but also on the quality and credibility of the results obtained. In this paper, we investigate the predictive value of virtual reality and virtual environments when used for engineering assessment tasks. We examine the ergonomics evaluation of a vehicle interior, which is a complex activity relying heavily on know-how gained from personal experience, and compare performance in a VE with performance in the real world. If one assumes that within complex engineering processes certain types of work will be performed by more or less the same personnel, one can infer that a fairly consistent base of experience-based knowledge exists. Under such premises and if evaluations are conducted as comparisons within the VE, we believe that the reliability of the assessments is suitable for conceptual design work. Despite a number of unanswered questions at this time we believe this study leads to a better understanding of what determines the reliability of results obtained in virtual environments, thus making it useful for optimizing virtual prototyping processes and better utilization of the potential of VR and VEs in company work processes.

It is widely assumed that the development of enhanced skills appropriate to advanced technologies is an important means of increasing the employability of the socially excluded. This article tests this assumption through case studies in the food industry in Austria, Germany and Britain. The findings indicate that organizational restructuring, technological change and redeployment of labour have very different consequences for women and for men. In all three countries the restructuring of work and skills increased the marginalization of women, reinforcing gender cleavage.Skills and qualifications have become important topics in both the literature and the political discussion on labour market issues. Skill enhancement is becoming the central focus of labour market concerns and is commonly perceived as a panacea for the social exclusion of disadvantaged groups. It is also stressed that the existence of a certain level of skills makes those forms of work Organization possible that are necessary for enhanced competition on the global marketplace.Research in this genre often examines training Systems as a manifestation of institutional arrangements in a particular country or region and then studies their effects on organizational form and economic success. A number of European comparisons have revealed differences in both organizational efficiency and levels of productivity and quality as a result of skill levels and categories (Maurice et al., 1986;Mason and Wagner, 1994). Recently both Soskice (1990) and Regini (1995) have found a relationship between patterns of human resource utilization and organizational strategies, or, as Regini calls them, product market strategies that predominate in various countries and regions.These approaches have had a pronounced influence on the current debate on the competitiveness of European industries and the future 0959-6801 [1998/03]4:1 ;7-34;003467

Purpose Is the rise of the Indian software industry simply another Asian state-dominated industrial growth story or is India distinctive, an economy where small technology entrepreneurs also find niches for development and can be drivers of innovation? Research has focused on the large integrated Indian and international service providers. This study examines the opportunity for growth among smaller innovative technology entrepreneurial firms. Two areas of inquiry are: What factors have been responsible for spurring growth in the Indian IT industry? What type of work is being carried out at Indian firms and is this profile changing? This paper aims to examine the emergence of technology entrepreneurs, particularly in terms of their links to multinational firms and their role and position in global value chains. The paper takes a multi-level approach to understanding development trajectories in the IT sector in India: a global value chain approach to the extent that company processes are seen in their larger networked context across organizations and an institutional approach in terms of state policies that influence the creation of infrastructure that, in turn, shapes organizational development trajectories. Additionally, it examines the role of the various actors within IT sector organizations – the workers, the managers and, in the case of the small companies in our sample, the owners – on the outcome of growth trajectories in the Indian IT sector. We find that the various levels of change and policy all contribute to the outcome in company trajectories: the dominance of multinational enterprises on the market, the entrepreneurial vision and survival strategies of returned technology expatriates, and the changing policies of the government in promoting indigenous business. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative research interviews; comparative case study; literature review; multi-tier analysis. Findings The technology entrepreneurial development in India appears to represent quite a distinctive path in terms of both firm development and broader economic development. It is focused on the IT sector, in which high skill “knowledge work” is carried out and which has been able to develop despite lack of basic infrastructure (roads and reliable electricity). Research limitations/implications After the opening up of the business environment to large Western multinational enterprises (MNEs), it was difficult for indigenous Indian entrepreneurs to compete in innovative product development markets. Developing such companies depended on individual risk taking, as no specific infrastructure existed for niche production. However, the knowledge base and innovation clusters did offer opportunities for obtaining contracts. The Indian entrepreneurs did have to make a lot of compromises about defining their business and the tasks they could undertake. More research is needed on the paths and development opportunities for these smaller Indian-owned firms. Practical implications Unique opportunities are emergent and defy easy policy prescriptions, other than precluding change that does not foreclose emergent possibilities (e.g. such as strong state controlled business development). Social implications Indian-owned innovative companies, although having difficulties competing with large Indian and Western MNEs, do put pressure on these MNEs to move work up the value chain, thereby providing more interesting and challenging opportunities for Indian knowledge workers. Originality/value This paper provides a unique company-level perspective about entrepreneurialism in the Indian software sector from the perspective of different actors in the process. It then links this company-level perspective to a larger context both in terms of trajectories of development at the macro level, as well as the role that the company’s place in multinational value chains has in its development perspectives. It gives a special insight into the motivations and obstacles facing entrepreneurs in India’s dynamic software sector.

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