Proceedings of 8th European Assembly on telework (Telework2001)

185Since technological reason in generalised version is on the decline, focus is shifting towardsspecific success as the main source <strong>of</strong> legitimacy to organise. Legitimacy has to be built on concretecircumstances and can generally be built up only within the framework <strong>of</strong> specific organisations,processes or movements.This creates, on the other hand, a challenge. While there is, on the one hand, a drift towardsthe concrete and contextual in the generation <strong>of</strong> legitimacy to organise, there is an obvious needto organise “larger systems”. In a globalized economy with long and complex value chains,with clusters, networks, industrial districts and regions as core units <strong>of</strong> development, numerousrelationships <strong>of</strong> organisation cross the boundaries <strong>of</strong> the individual enterprise. There is a growingneed for actors in the terrain between the enterprises and there is an associated need for new forms<strong>of</strong> legitimacy.The need for legitimacy emerging on this in-between level cannot automatically be supplied byactors whose success have emerged within the framework <strong>of</strong> one single organisation since thechallenge is, after all, to organise relationships between organisations. What can not be provided byindividual enterprises is <strong>of</strong>ten thought to be provided by the nation state. The classical argumentis that the nation state is “superior” to everybody else and hence able to organise not only itself butalso everybody “below”. Even the actors <strong>of</strong> the nation state are, however, facing problems:For “the nation state” to hold the legitimacy to organise it must, itself, act in a reasonablyconsistent way. The traditionalist, but stable, nation state is, however, replaced by the theme<strong>of</strong> the month, the face <strong>of</strong> the week, the winner <strong>of</strong> this evening`s TV contest. The nation stateinitiates a vast number <strong>of</strong> efforts, in numerous spheres, through a large number <strong>of</strong> channelsand mediating bodies. When a continuous stream <strong>of</strong> new policies are to be implemented, theimplementation apparatus grows, however, more and more fragmented. The number <strong>of</strong> scenes fromwhich public representatives can express views on organisation is numerous and there is practicallyno integration between them. The source <strong>of</strong> legitimacy is no longer the nation state as such but thehistorical success or presumed abilities <strong>of</strong> those who are called on to act on behalf <strong>of</strong> the nationstate. In this way, the legitimacy to act on behalf <strong>of</strong> the nation state becomes, like technologicalreason, contextualised and is no longer a universal characteristic <strong>of</strong> the nation state.In organising “large systems” we face, to sum up, a triple challenge:• To create legitimacy to organise the terrain between the enterprises• under conditions where concrete success is a main basis for legitimacy• at the same time as there is a need for co-operation between many different actors.What do the different societies do about this issue <strong>of</strong> links, ties and new forms <strong>of</strong> entrepreneurship?What initiatives are emerging for the purpose <strong>of</strong> forging together the various elements in, forinstance, “innovation systems”?This is the point where such efforts as workplace development programs enter the scene. Adevelopment program is taken to mean a formalised co-operation around the task <strong>of</strong> creatingdevelopment and innovation in workplaces and enterprises and with a configuration <strong>of</strong> actorsgenerally including private as well as public ones and from several different organisations and types<strong>of</strong> organisations. A program can be seen as corresponding to the notion <strong>of</strong> “innovation system”