Full-time teleworking as a part of the ongoing digital transofrmation is still a foreign concept to many, writes SWiPE researcher Mervi Hasu in a blog post for the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (in Finnish). “For more and more people work is no longer a place – that change is not new and has some … Continued
In the spring of 2016 the research programme of the Strategic Research Council tasked researchers to consider, and look for in their funding applications, answers and responses to rapid changes in work, skills and working life. Each project selected to join the research programme needed also to respond to questions concerning education and immigration. The … Continued
Agile achievers are smart workers in the platform economy age. They have many followers on social media and are asked to impart the secrets of their success. They have tied their own skills and capital to digital marketplaces. Take for example the Finnish mother who invented a new type of baby mattress; an innovation that … Continued
The sharing economy is a hot topic today because firms like Uber and Airbnb have captured the attention of the markets, headlines and the banner of heroic entrepreneurship. The sharing economy means that individuals sell services that are related to underutilised resources. In other words, people may have unused goods, time or skills, which that … Continued
”The vast majority of mundane activities constituting human life aredriven by one’s entrepreneurial spirit to create new social or material value, compete and cooperate, transform and develop […] entrepreneurship has been reacaste [sic.] as a major social force, and method of living and learning […] nowadays entrepreneurial competences are becoming as important as literacy, and … Continued
Platform economy work can be looked at from many perspectives (see e.g. Kenney & Zysman 2016, The Rise of the Platform Economy, Science and Technology, XXXII/3). For the occasional service provider Uber or Airbnb enables the conversion of idle time and underutilised capital – a car or a spare bedroom – to money. Buying the … Continued
It’s a Friday afternoon in November. I’m sitting in a train from Tampere and the Nordic Working Life Conference towards Turku and home. I’m playing Kuningasidea when their lyrics “I’m balanced when I’m unbalanced enough…” (Orig: “Oon balanssis kun mull o sopivasti epätasapainoo…”) have me recall the days’ conversations about the uncertainty of working life … Continued
SWiPE Researchers Laura Seppänen from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health writes abour crowdsourcing and unconventional work in her Unelmahautomo -blogpost (in Finnish): “Mitä yhteistä on Suomen vaeltavilla ammattilaisilla ja Brasilian köyhillä kotiäideillä”.
Things didn’t quite go to plan recently as I was opening a seminar; I began by asking “who here is an employee – would you raise your hands? Then, I asked who here imagines themselves to be developers or managers?” What I got in return to this was a befuddled silence… a moment later a … Continued
From time of Schumpeter, continuing innovation activity has been accepted as one of the foundation stones of economic growth and societal wellbeing. Technological development streamlines our practices and creates new products, services and experiences that improve our quality of life. According to Matti Pohjola, progress in information and communications technology in the 2000’s alone accounts … Continued