Globalisation and new collaborative working environments
The European Commission has published a call for tenders for a study on globalisation and new collaborative working environments. The study will focus on how globalisation affects the way companies are operating, and how they can respond to it in a beneficial way by establishing new collaborative working environments driven by strong technological integration, uptake and usage of information and communications technologies (ICT), thereby extending European business possibilities even for very small companies. The focus should be on opportunities in the global knowledge-based service economy, for example, how European companies can reap wide positive competitive benefits by having a strong human-centric ICT technology uptake and wide usage that can drive their business forward and lead to more innovation, productive and better high skilled jobs in Europe. The study will: 1) explore and analyse further the key links between ICT rich collaborative working environments, which have a strong focus on employee's users and human capital usage, and development as drivers for constant high productivity gains and more research and innovation activities in Europe; 2) identify, analyse and select numerous, high profile best practice cases and their key characteristics in Europe, the US and Asia, in particular China, India and South Africa in key industrial and service sectors and raise awareness strongly by disseminating widely throughout Europe both the lessons learned and the ways in which European companies take advantage of them; 3) identify and analyse in depth the main drivers for the realisation of more effective human user-centred, ICT-intensive, new collaborative working environments in Europe and increase awareness on how they can be replicated more widely in Europe; 4) identify and analyse in depth the key opportunities for European-based companies for wider implementation and cultivation of such environments capable of coping with the pressures of globalisation and for raising wide awareness in Europe as to how those opportunities can be better exploited.For further information, please contact: European Commission J-54 0/4 B-1049 Brussels Attn: Mr Oluf Nielsen/Mrs Patricia Heindryckx. Tel. +32-2 296 81 31 Fax (32-2) 296 83 65 E-mail: patricia.heindryckx@ec.europa.eu http://www.amiatwork.com(opens in new window) To see the full details of the call, please consult the following web address: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp6/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.FP6DetailsCallPage&call_id=291(opens in new window)