Abstract

The MEADOW project is designed to set out Guidelines for collecting and interpreting harmonised data at the European level on organisational change and its economic and social impacts. The Guidelines will provide a framework within which existing European surveys on organisational change and work restructuring could evolve towards comparability, as well as providing norms for the construction of new survey instruments in the field. It will provide an instrument for improving the empirical basis of research and policy on the relation between organisational change and key economic and social indicators in the knowledge-based economy, including productivity growth and innovative performance, and sustainable social equality in terms of access to jobs, work environments, and influence at the workplace. The project responds directly to the objectives of Topic 8.2.2 of Priority 7 by promoting and supporting comparative research through the development and diffusion of tools, methodologies and research designs for the development of large-scale and harmonised data sets of wide applicability for comparative research and across disciplines. The project promotes the main objective of Research Area 8 by contributing the development of the European Research Area (ERA) in the social sciences and humanities and their contribution to the knowledge-based society in Europe.

Such a project requires a diverse range of competences and the 14 partners, from 9 European countries, have been selected for their specific areas of expertise in relation to the project’s goals. The project integrates the perspectives of both producers and users by including research teams that have designed and implemented national survey instruments for measuring organisational change and innovation at the employer level and work restructuring at the employee level, as well as experienced users of such surveys. The conceptual framework draws on internationally recognised scholars with proven track records in the study of the micro-level processes of creating, implementing and diffusing new organisational practices within and between firms or establishments, the way such micro dynamics are linked to corporate structure and governance, and the way company-level processes are shaped by the wider sectoral and institutional contexts. The project also includes partners that have been directly involved both in the development of the Oslo guidelines for measuring product and process innovation and in carrying out national CIS surveys

The project’s Coordination activities are composed of 7 interrelated Workpackages that will be carried out over a 3-year period.