The leading theme of the ITW’2008 Workshop is ICT-supported collaboration and flexible working perceived as vehicles for stimulating local development, supporting entrepreneurship and building a fully inclusive Information Society.

The constantly re-shaping employment market (with a whole range of related expectations as well as negative consequences), changing principles of local governance, and technological innovation and networked economy (both causing enormously increased opportunities for small entrepreneurs); all these factors influence the way we live, work and interact with each other. Participation in on-line communities has become part of our social and professional behaviours, virtual networks facilitate more effective collaboration and achieving faster and better results; we buy from a distance, we learn from a distance, we even make friends from a distance, let alone – work from a distance. Feeling less and less constrained by imperfect technologies, we are slowly changing the traditional dimensions: diminishing physical extents and increasing the importance of the fourth dimension – time.

All these factors, on the one hand, allow companies and organisations to be more flexible and thus – more effective; they bring down the usual barriers related to the firm’s size and their limited ability to compete on a global scale; they also enable people to be more independent in their choices concerning personal lives and professional careers. On the other hand, they force enterprises and institutions to change their previous ‘safe’ methods and approaches; they may as well push individuals towards a situation where things indeed get to be done faster, but, strangely, people themselves seem to have less time… 

There is no longer telework, since many of us (much more than the official statistics show) do actually undertake some professional activities while away from the office. It has become a norm. There is no longer e-work, as even more of us use computers or PDAs for delivering everyday results. It has become a norm. A major challenge today is, though, to find the way how we can merge distance or multi-location work not only with appropriate information and communications technologies, but also with the right methods that do not negatively influence other spheres of our lives, so as to build truly flexible working models. The models which encompass flexibility in terms of time and place of work, contractual agreements, or collaborative principles. The models that do not constrain individuals’ opportunities for self-realisation and employers’ strategies, and which, at the same time, do guarantee social security, entrepreneurial freedom, and sustainable development of local communities. The models which, last but not least, leverage human capital to collaboratively and smartly work towards better results.

The ITW’2008 Workshop will look specifically at these models and challenges, focusing on practical implementations of the research done so far. It is especially important due to the fact that the event is going to be held in Poland, a country being one of the so called European Union’s New Member States. It has to be said that, over the years, when employment markets of the “old” Member States have undergone transformations, tried different approaches and gained, learning by their own mistakes, precious experience, the NMS have been lagging behind. Today, they eagerly open themselves to the necessary knowledge, hoping to leapfrog the costly evolutional period. The Workshop will, therefore, aim also at raising the level of awareness and real-life applicability of flexible working models in the New Member States, and at establishing new valuable partnerships between researchers and practitioners from these countries and their more experienced colleagues from around the world. The expected broad attendance of organisations and individuals from NMS will surely greatly increase the value of the event itself, participants’ satisfaction, and will let initiate new interesting undertakings. 

Looking forward to seeing you in Kraków,

Organisers