Proceedings of 8th European Assembly on telework (Telework2001)

1675 ConclusionsMalone and Laubacher, the fathers <strong>of</strong> the concept <strong>of</strong> ‘e-lancing’, have contributed greatly to publicdebate by outlining a future that stands in striking contrast to the present status quo. The scenariothey developed is in line with anecdotal evidence about how the world is changing which almosteverybody hears about in his or her daily life. Indeed, as our case study research in the multimediaspecialist sector showed, more and more freelancers regard the Internet as their most importanttool to get in contact with clients and collaborators, execute work tasks and deliver work products.The main difference between the behaviour <strong>of</strong> these workers at the forefront <strong>of</strong> the DigitalRevolution and the theoretical concept <strong>of</strong> eLancers is that real-life freelancers strive for longstandingrelationships with clients and business partners and do not rely on open marketplacesfor contracts and resources. Many self-employed multimedia specialists create network structuresaround them which resemble traditional organisations, in particular with regard to the role <strong>of</strong>trust between participants, but which also allow for a high degree <strong>of</strong> flexibility to adapt tovolatile environments. Another important difference to the scenario <strong>of</strong> Laubacher and Malonelays in the degree <strong>of</strong> control that is exerted even in so-called virtual organisations: Mostly, ‘leadoperators’ exist that pick eLancers to work for them. Self-management <strong>of</strong> eLancers inside <strong>of</strong> virtualorganisations is extremely rare.Online work exchanges have started to exploit the potentials <strong>of</strong> the Internet technology, but theyare largely confined to the rough matching stage where they increase the efficiency <strong>of</strong> job-seekingand recruiting processes. Only very few existent work exchanges are capable <strong>of</strong> supporting virtuallabour market transactions including not only the rough matching, but also the negotiation, workperformance and work delivery/remuneration stage <strong>of</strong> the labour market transaction process. Theseare targeted at very specialised niches, such as translating, website and other design, certainprogramming, routine consultancy etc. It is especially the need to define and describe the workproduct in detail beforehand that limits, for the time being, the applicability <strong>of</strong> truly virtual labourmarkets to small parts <strong>of</strong> the labour market.Looking into general trends towards increases in flexibility on the labour market we found that alot <strong>of</strong> the change that takes place does so inside <strong>of</strong> permanent employment relationships. The morethe EU workforce is moving into more knowledge-intensive activities requiring higher levels <strong>of</strong>qualification (a likely result from the demographic trends that lead to decreasing numbers <strong>of</strong> labourforce participants), the more companies need to bind workers to them by <strong>of</strong>fering job place safetyand long-term prospects for life-long learning and fostering employability. Less skilled workersmay be pushed into the ‘contingency workforce’ made up <strong>of</strong> temporary and part-time workersand also the ‘seemingly self-employed’, but these hardly represent a precursor <strong>of</strong> eLancing sincecontingency workers are <strong>of</strong>ten subject to strong control by the organisations that hire them.More research efforts should concentrate on the way companies reorganise internal labour marketsto increase the flexibility <strong>of</strong> labour deployment without having to resort to external flexibilitymeasures (such as hiring freelancers). Research and policy recommendations that originate in theUSA cannot be directly applied to the EU context as many EU governments (and citizens) stillregard permanent employment relationships, albeit less strictly defined than it has been in the past,as the main way <strong>of</strong> how work should be organised. There is only little evidence that permanentemployment relationships are opposed to the requirements <strong>of</strong> companies in present day’s market