SOWING-Conference "Regional Paths in the European Information Society"
November 2-3, 2000 in Karlsruhe, Germany

Introduction

The conference is being staged by ITAS within the framework of the EU project "Information Society, Work and New Forms of Social Exclusion (SOWING)". The project has been supported in the framework of the TSER Programme (Targeted Socio-Economic Research) since January 1998.

The SOWING project unites research groups from Belgium, Germany, England, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Austria and Portugal. Its aim is to describe the informatisation of firms in the manufacturing and service industries in selected regions of these countries from a comparable perspective with respect to prevailing technological practices. Benefits of the project are expected with respect to scientific, technological and political goals. From the scientific point of view it represents an approach to investigating the information society which unites previously largely independent approaches, mainly of technological, economic or sociological origin. Research findings are expected which could be fundamental for region specific decisions and support measures to enhance the global competitiveness of firms in the Member States, but also meeting the needs of job creation and integration policy.

The conference has the dual aims of presenting the first results from this research and of at the same time discussing the various paths to a European Information Society.

The centrepiece of the event is the advancing informatisation of industrial and public organisations and their related work procedures.

Informatisation does not primarily mean the introduction and application of new technologies, but the penetration of all processes of organisation and work by activities dealing with information. The introduction of new information and communication technologies is regarded as a strategy to completely overhaul industries, administrations and working processes with the aim of adapting them to the conditions of an increasingly globalised society.

ICTs are more and more used to rationalise, accelerate, and support information and communication activities.

There is no deterministic relationship between modern ICTs and organisation forms; instead, they mutually influence each other. ICTs create new organisation forms, and new organisation forms in turn provide new opportunities for technology design. Modern ICTs offer 'occasions' for manipulating the technology and the organisation structure according to other drivers of change. As ICT applications and organisation forms always express a specific organisational culture, we can also assume cultural changes to take place in the emerging information economy.

At the conference, this approach will be discussed in three sections, each addressing an aspect of societal change on the way to the information society:

• Social Exclusion and the Changing Nature of Work
• Organizational Change in the Information Society
• Information Technology and the Reconstruction of Government

Conference Programme