INDUSTRIAL RESTRUCTURING AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
João Amato Neto
University of São Paulo, Brazil
E-mail: amato@usp.br
Rita de Cassia Fucci Amato
University of São Paulo, Brazil
E-mail: fucciamato@terra.com.br
Submission: 08/01/2014
Revision: 30/01/2014
Accept: 14/03/2014
ABSTRACT
Among the most complex subjects that affect modern society in this early
millennium, the problem of relationships between the educational patterns and
the work organization seems to be one of the most important and full of
uncertainties. Specially, this problem acquires greater relevance when one
thinks of the impacts of the techno-scientific revolution in the work world, as
well as in the educational system. In this sense, the present work researches
some elements regarding the new educational patterns and qualification
requirements in face of the new industrial paradigm and discusses the
transformations accomplished by the techno-scientific revolution and its
implications on the new lean and flexible production paradigm and on the
(re)organization of work in the modern industry. The methodological approach is
based on a bibliographic revision with a quantitative approach.
Keywords: Work organization, industrial
restructuring, techno-scientific revolution, qualification requirements.
1.
INTRODUCTION
The
globalization movement in course in the current economy has imposed new
concepts and new ways of thinking the productive organization for the policy
makers, specially in the nearly developed countries. These concepts are mainly
related to the microeconomic level, such as: new types of organizational
structures based on leaner and more flexible structures and supported by new
technologies based on microelectronics; new work organizational principles and
arrangements in the work organization, prioritizing multifunctional
professionals group work; new productive arrangement models, besides other
concepts and applications.
The
transition from the mass production paradigm (Taylorist/ Fordist) to the flexible
specialization one (WOMACK; JONES; ROOS, 1992; GOLDMAN; NAGEL; PREISS, 1995; GORANSON, 1995) has been provoking a series
of new demands in terms of re-organizational structure, managerial behavior and
new forms of operational work organization. Particularly, the emergence of new
technologies based on microelectronics (the third industrial revolution) has
represented a great potential for wide and deep transformations in the modern
society. In fact, this transition represents a marked change in technological
paradigm with deep social, economic and cultural impacts.
The
impacts of those new productive configurations in the (re)organization of the
work in the contemporary industry constitutes an aspect of great relevance for
the understanding of the worker's new roles and the impacts of the new
microelectronic equipment on the productive system.
In
that way, the present article intends to understand those transformations
historically occurring in the productive system, also aiming at its
deficiencies and some answers to the questions posed before the contemporary
production model.
Particularly,
the new tendencies of the modern economic systems imply enhancing the
incorporation of innovations deriving from techno-science. However, this
phenomenon should be understood within the scientific magnitude referred to by
Braverman (1981, p. 146):
The technical-scientific revolution, for that reason,
cannot be understood in terms of specific innovations - as in the case of the
Industrial Revolution, which can be correctly characterized by a handful of
basic inventions -, but it should be understood more in its totality as a
production way in which science and exhaustive engineering investigations are
integrated as part of a normal operation. The key innovation is not to be found
in Chemistry, in Electronics, in automatic machinery, in aeronautics, in
Nuclear Physics, or in any of the products of those scientific technologies,
but mostly in the transformation of science itself into capital.
Therefore,
under the perspective of finding out new elements that can serve as references
for a new work organization, the recent innovations from the Scientific and
Technological environment are to be considered. Such innovations represent many
challenges to overcome the deep gap between the current school formation and
the techno-scientific development. This paper tries to identify the main
aspects involved in this issue.
One
of these aspects refers to the contradictions between the growing work
qualification needs and, on the other hand, to the growing disqualification
rhythm caused by this techno-scientific revolution itself, as well said by
Enguita (1989, p. 230):
The process of capitalist production presents
contradictory perspectives concerning the qualification of the work force. On
the one hand, it tends to its disqualification, since this decreases its cost
and it sets the bases for its best control; on the other hand, it requires a
multilateral formation that allows the worker to change tasks and work position
either without additional costs or minimizing them.
2.
INDUSTRIAL RESTRUCTURING
The
transition from the feudal production system to the capitalism originated fast
economic growth. With the economic division of the work, productivity was
intensely increased and, in an even more intense way, with the incorporation of
the technological innovations brought about by the industrial revolution,
during the 18th. century and up to first third of the 19th.
century.
In
the late 19th. century, with the techno-scientific revolution, these
production units (manufactures) became factories and, after that, the great
seriate industry, where productivity started to be extremely incremented, even
in its developed phase and live work became more and more subordinate to the
great capital (BRAVERMAN, 1981, p. 140).
In
the beginning of the modern industry, some characteristics of the production
systems were very outstanding: the operations were done in small scale and, as
a consequence, the processes were easily supervised and controlled; there were
little routine tasks, a lot of improvisation and, in consequence of this whole
set, there were ample conditions for the accomplishment of innovations, even
through the trial-and-error process.
With
the growing expansion of the seriate production industry and already under the
Taylorist-Fordist production paradigm, the production units started to present
other characteristics: the growing need for generating scale economy imposed
the tendency of great heavy industries and the increase in the rationalization
and specialization of work, according to the precepts of the ‘scientific
administration’ proposed by the engineer Frederic Taylor in the beginning of
the 20th century. The standardization of products and component
parts of the products formed an alliance with Henry Ford’s assembly line
conception, complementing the mass production paradigm. Such paradigm prevailed
practically along more than half of last century.
In
that context, the great productive organizations were confronted with the need
of establishing a group of norms, regulations and procedures, in order to
better coordinate their activities, also creating departments and/ or sections
specialized in that coordination. This is when a group of principles and of
administrative functions that would compose the so-called “
The
productive organization of the beginning of mass industrialization underwent
the bureaucratization phase, which in the conception of Weber (1981) is based
on the existence of three elements that define the “ideal type of bureaucracy“:
formality, impersonality and professionalism. A bureaucratic organization, in
the Weberian sense, should be
understood as a structured organization, in terms of well documented
regulations and procedures, in that the personal relationships are marked by
the impersonality and professionalism (WEBER, 1981). Besides, bureaucracy is
placed in a phase or stage of apprenticeship of the very development process of
the industrial organizations.
Starting
from the 1970s, a group of structural transformations can be verified in the
capitalist production systems, that is particularly manifested by the new
technological base of the productive units through automation, robotics and of
the most different applications of the microelectronic revolution, with
significant implications in the relationships and in the forms of work
organization.
Under
the perspective of Piore and Sabel (1984), a new production paradigm appears,
flexible specialization, known “as a new productive form that it articulates,
on the one hand, a significant technological development and, on the other
hand, a productive decentralization based on medium-sized and small companies,
craftwork' ones” (ANTUNES, 1997, p. 17).
In
the industrial production organization, the largest impacts were caused by the toyotism, or the Japanese model, that
operationalized a technical revolution in the Japanese industry. Coriat
(mentioned by ANTUNES, 1997, p. 23-24), points out four phases that determined
the advent of toyotism:
First: the introduction, in the Japanese automotive
industry, of the experience in the textile sector, given by the worker's need
to simultaneously operate several machines. Second: the need of the company to
answer to the financial crisis, increasing production without increasing the
number of workers. Third: the import of management techniques from the
As
from the third industrial revolution in the postwar and with the advent of the
microelectronics technological paradigm and the flexible production systems,
deriving from the experience in the Japanese industry (Toyotism), the productive
organizations, after having reached a certain size and presenting certain
complexity in their operations in the peak of the mass production paradigm ,
started to be confronted with the need of readapting to flexibility, and of
recovering their innovative capacity. This is when the most flexible productive
and organizational systems gain relevance, presenting lean production and agile
manufacturing.
In
that great transformations context in the productive structure, another
important issue from the work point of view relates to the so-called
”polyvalent" Japanese worker, which can be identified with the
individual's capacity to operate several machines, combining several simple
tasks.
Under
this perspective of versatile worker and flexible productive system, Gorz (apud ANTUNES, 1997) presented the
example of Volvo (Uddevalla, Sweden), where workers of that industry are
organized in teams, taking the entire responsibility for the vehicle production
process (from assembly to finishing). The members of that team, detaining the
knowledge of the different techniques used, in spite of playing an important
role in the productive process, do not play the main role, which belongs to the
robotized production means.
Concerning
the relationship between capital and work, Frank Annunziato, mentioned by
Antunes (1997, p. 37), makes a critical evaluation of the Japanese model: “The
Japanese capitalist, as a re-incarnation of the feudal lord, guarantees
employment stability, obtaining, in turn, the feudal servant re-incarnation of
loyalty and obedience from the workers”.
3.
THE IMPACTS THE NEW MICROELECTRONIC-BASE
EQUIPMENT AND THE (RE)ORGANIZATION OF WORK
It is
possible to say that the new microelectronic paradigm can be understood, from
an eminently technical point of view, as the solution to the problems of
capturing, negotiating, transmitting and receiving information, using
integrated circuits (ERBER, 1977).
Thus,
this new technical base, for constituting a revolutionary innovation, opens
unique perspectives for the modern society and specially for the economy.
Freeman (1987) emphasizes this revolutionary aspect of the microelectronics
because this technology increases the appearance of new products and services,
besides the fact that there is an enormous possibility of “pervasiveness” of
this new technology for several economic sectors, implying significant
alterations in the costs and input structures, as well as production and
distribution conditions of goods and services.
Analyzing
the main characteristics of this new technical-economic paradigm, based on
microelectronics, Perez (1985) points out a series of advantages that this
productive configuration facilitates, especially at the level of production
systems of the information-intensive type, whose companies act, as a rule, in
the most modern and dynamic economic sectors. It is possible to detach the
following advantages among others:
·
The minimization of energy and materials consumption
in the different production processes;
·
The obtainment of high precision levels and,
consequently, the possibility to produce with narrow tolerance margins;
·
Larger control of stocks and inventories;
·
Better quality control in line, which consequently
allows a significant reduction in wastes and refuse indexes and of
reworks;
·
Finally, and as a direct consequence of the other
items, the new paradigm facilitates a considerable increase in resource
productivity.
As
suggested by Coriat (1988), the microelectronic equipment can be classified in
four different categories, in agreement with its functions in the productive
process:
1) Operation means: machines
endowed with tools and that execute a production program, which is translated
into a sequence of operations, as, for example, milling, welding, painting,
manipulating and transporting pieces, etc. In this category one can already
find the well-known industrial robots, machine-tool with computerized numerical
command and the milling centers;
2) Materials manipulation and feeding means: machines that just transfer pieces from a
work post to another one, executing tasks such as piling up, storing and
packing. As an example, the "automated" trolley can be
mentioned.
3) Programmable computing and control means for equipment:
machines used in the production flow, for information reception and control.
They are properly represented by computers (mainframe, mini and personal
computer), numerical command, logical-programmable controllers etc.
4) Project aid means: equipment that
allows for fast and simple obtention of a three-dimensional design of the parts
to be manufactured. The most widely known example is “CAP” - Computer Aided
Project”, which can also be coupled to the operation means to form “CAM-CAP” -
and Computer Aided Manufacture and Project“.
Under
the essentially technological point of view, the great novelty of these pieces
of equipment is that they can be quickly scheduled and re-scheduled, since the
computerized controllers of the equipment make its operations by means of
sensors, and they are capable of activating the operation program corresponding
to the part to be automatically produced. The different models of equipment can
be used in a combined way or separately, in the context of
"arrangements", integrated by multiple equipment and relationships
among them, as commented by Coriat (1988).
Besides,
these pieces of equipment are compatible with information and communication
systems and subsystems, which makes their application potential practically
limitless in the process of industrial production. The coming of the global
nets of telecommunication (Internet, especially), under the support of the
so-called digital economy, in a general way has largely influenced the
companies’ strategies and those of manufacturing in particular, also pointing
to the organizations and virtual companies concept (SCHUH, MILLARG and
GORANSSON, 1998), understood as dynamic nets of inter-organizational
cooperation, that strengthen the generation of a series of new business
opportunities for the partners belonging to a specific value net.
In
this sense, all of the operations referring to production, marketing,
logistics, product project, research and development, material supply,
engineering, etc., can be strongly increased through the intensive use of the
new information and communication technologies - ICTs.
As
from what it was previously analyzed, the development of microelectronics
technology and of computer science is made clear, represented by the computer
and other "intelligent components”, which allow for a new reality for the
work world, as verified by Lyon (1992, p. 73):
three popularized images of work in the ´information
era´: The first is that of robotized assembly line [...] The second image is the one of the new industrial
relationships. [...] Going to the third image, one comes across the implicit
promise of renewed relationships, now in the "electronic dwelling place”.
This sentence, popularized by Alvin Toffler, marks a phenomenon that is
effectively confronting a growth fostered by technology: work at home.
An
aspect very discussed as from this new reality refers to the fact that the new
microelectronic technologies (in their different application spheres within a
company) are work-saving. In fact, the introduction of these technologies,
associated to the new forms of work organization in production, destroys jobs
at an increasingly growing pace. This fact is highlighted in the different
authors' vision: for
For
Peña Castro (1994), however, the confluence of these new technologies with the
new methods of managerial administration brings negative consequences for most
of the workers, because it is a labor-saving technology that destroys jobs and
it reinforces the submission of work in relation to capital.
The
computer science and the telecommunications revolution allowed for a new model
of distribution of the industrial facilities and, consequently, of the size of
the industrial grouping. In this context, the change of technological paradigm
propitiated by the development of microelectronics started to create a new
productive strategy, through the substitution of conventional, specialized
machines and dedicated to a single operation, for programmable machines of
multiple objectives. In this sense, the production of goods and services
started to acquire a new sense: instead of the old production style of great
volumes and limited variety of standardized products, we verified a new
reality: the production of a wide variety of small lots of differentiated
products.
Consequently,
the whole change in process of the production paradigm also brought significant
implications for the work issue (organization forms, relationships with
capital, work conditions, etc.), as well as having widely influenced the
managerial style in the companies, which now value more participative forms and
work organization in more autonomous teams.
From
the work point of view, its nature and its organization in the company, new
concepts and proposals are already presented as an irreversible tendency. This
way, the narrow conception of work based in the so-called scientific administration
of Taylor (who emphasized specific training and narrow worker's qualification,
clear separation between conception and execution of routine tasks) has given
way to the emergence of new work organization arrangements, where there is a
quest to conjugate integration values between work conception and execution,
broad qualification and training, cooperation in team work, larger autonomy in
decision-taking, among other values despised by that current of administrative
thought from the beginning of the 20th
century.
Finally,
another series of institutional changes accompanies those introduced in the
productive system, fundamentally implying a deep revision of the very nature of
the State and of its functions. This whole set of transformations points to the
establishment of a new conception in the production of goods and services.
4.
THE NEW INDUSTRIAL PARADIGM AND WORK
ORGANIZATION
The
signs of the new patterns in the modern industry (or of a new industrial
production paradigm) can already be detected as from the postwar period and,
specially, as from the 1970s, when the world economy and the industrial
production systems came across a new configuration, represented by the Japanese
production system as the most dynamic model. Such configuration implied deep
changes in the traditional forms of industrial organization based on three
basic elements, according to Hoffman and Kaplinsky (1988):
·
New forms of work organization;
·
Technological revolution with the emergence of new
microelectronics-based technologies;
·
New pattern of inter-relationship among
companies.
Especially
concerning the new forms of work organization that emerged as from the advent
of the new paradigm of flexible and lean production, one particularly stands
out as predominant within the most dynamic sections in the world economy. In
this type of new work organization forms, already developed in the Japanese
automotive and electronic companies for the last two or three decades, the
basic objective is to promote a larger workers' involvement and commitment in
the productive process.
5.
THE ISSUE OF PROFESSIONAL
(RE)QUALIFICATION
In
this context of productive re-configuration resulting from the new industrial
paradigm, the workers that remain employed after all the technical and organizational
transformations get more demands concerning their abilities and qualifications.
However, the issue of work qualification should be well posed from the very
start.
For
Peña Castro (1997), there has been a lot of debate on this dilemma
(disqualification or re-qualification), without, however, reaching clearer
conclusions regarding this subject. The same author points out, on the other
hand, the need for a larger understanding regarding the very work qualification
concept: “Actually, work qualification, far from being an evident datum, is a
problematic, multicasual relationship whose study involves technical-economic,
political and cultural dimensions” (PEÑA CASTRO, 1997, p. 1).
Referring
to the problem that involves the qualification concept, sociology, willing to
investigate the transformation occurring in the new technical-economic
paradigm, finds fundamental methodological difficulties in the exercise of its
investigations. For Monteiro Leite (1996), three methodological possibilities
are posed to deal with the theme:
·
The occupational
analysis approach, dominant in the 1960s.
·
The studies on
work process , typical of the 1970s.
·
The thesis on
the social construction of competence, starting as from 1980.
In
the first approach, the qualification defined essentially as human capital is
adopted under the focus of occupational analysis (neoclassical extraction),
being the worker mobilized in the work process, including theoretical and
practical abilities, formal and informal knowledge. Qualification, in that
sense, can be analyzed through the decomposition of the work position into a
group of tasks, with possibilities to accomplish mensuration’s and precise
descriptions.
The
second approach focuses on studies on work process and the qualification
requirement is presented in two aspects: worker’s knowledge and worker's
autonomy. In that perspective, the focus of attention is
"disqualification" and not qualification; therefore, technology is
part of that process of production relationships, within the capitalist
company, aiming to disqualify to control.
Under that approach, the polarization of qualifications is also posed,
resulting in small portion of super-qualified workers in opposition to an
enormous mass of disqualified ones.
The
thesis about the social construction of competence presents a new relative
reading related to qualification, emphasizing concrete historical-social
situations (product of the dialectical relationship capital-work). This trend
understands the qualification as an articulation or relationship between
heterogeneous domains. A new proposal is being defined in the amplification of
the three focuses mentioned previously, establishing a new relationship between
work and communication and, therefore, a new qualification conception as
competence: it “is not so much the volume of knowledge that matters, but the
domain capacity or conduction of unexpected situations - 'events' - and the
recognition of that capacity” (MONTEIRO LEITE, 1996, p. 59).
Confronting
the different elements of work and of the qualification demands, characteristic
of the "old mass production paradigm", with the one of the “new
flexible paradigm“ or lean production paradigm, Monteiro Leite (1996) presents
synthetic Table 1 as follows.
Table
1: Work and Qualification |
||
|
MASS PRODUCTION |
FLEXIBLE PARADIGM |
Economy |
In expansion |
Crisis |
Market |
Stable |
Unstable |
Competence |
Local |
World competence |
Salesperson |
“The company has the upper hand” |
“The customer is the king” |
Products |
Standard |
Diversified |
Product cycle of life |
Long |
Short |
Production system |
Mass production |
Small lots / Customer order |
Technological base |
dedicated machine (electro-mechanical base) |
Multipurpose machines (microelectronic base) |
Management structure |
Hierarchical organization (centralized: “The boss is always right”) |
Horizontal structures (participative management: “Everybody is
responsible“) |
Work tasks
(operational process) |
Divided / prescribed / specialized |
Integrated / aleatory / versatile |
Work control |
Hetero-controlled |
Self-management |
Qualification
requirements |
To know (how to do) |
To learn |
Other work
requirements |
Discipline / obedience / memorization / observance of norms / reaction
/ |
Initiative / administration of the aleatory / reasoning / pro-action |
Other features of
work organization |
Individual behavior / |
Collective behavior |
Source: Adapted from Monteiro Leite (1996, p. 69).
Actually,
the demands for a larger level of professional qualification consist of a
strong differentiation between the new productive paradigm and the Taylorist /
Fordist one. In the current productive configuration, several abilities and
competences are demanded; nowadays the worker has to think, to decide, to have
initiative and responsibility, to manufacture and to repair, to manage
production and the administration of the productive process, as pointed out by
Hirata (1994).
Yet,
in Torres (1995), the production reaches its apex when several aspects, such as
a fair remuneration, the appropriate qualification and a strong motivational
policy, interact in favor of the worker. Neves (mentioned by FRIGOTTO, 1995a)
states that entrepreneurs are becoming aware that the low level of workers'
qualification constitutes an obstacle before the new demands posed by the
current pattern of production. On the other hand, Castro says (1994, p.
43):
To face the “technological vulnerability“, capital
rediscovered the work humanity of the worker that was ignored by Taylorism.
Forced by the vulnerability and complexity of its techno-organizational base,
capital got interested in the appropriation of the collective worker's
socio-psychological qualities through the so called socio-technical team work
systems, of the quality circles etc. These are new forms of managing the work
force aiming to guarantee the integration of the worker with the company’s
goals.
In
that new productive configuration, the versatile worker's privileged position
stands out, that is to say, that of the ones capable of accomplishing multiple
tasks. It is the case, for example, of a worker in a metallurgical sector
company, who, having fundamental knowledge on milling, starts to operate
different types of machines, such as lathes, milling machines, drills,
overhaulers, etc. The idea of a versatile worker breaks, at least partly, with
the old Taylorist conception of specialized work.
On
the debate concerning the worker's formation, Machado (1994b) points to a
versatile and polytechnic qualification conception. Versatile qualification
allows a certain administration of time by the individual, not necessarily
resulting in a qualitative change in the productive process. In that
conception, what really stands out it is the empiric knowledge on the empirical
ways of operating production. “As polytechnics is understood the mastery of a
technique at an intellectual level and the possibility of flexible work with
the re-composition of tasks at a creative level” (MACHADO, 1994b, p. 19). In
that conception, what is sought is a worker with greater autonomy, who can
develop by himself in the organization of his tasks.
In
that sense, Salerno (1994a, 1994b) warns that one should distinguish between
the “multifunctional“ and the “multi-qualified“ worker, who would be, strictly
speaking, the versatile one. “Multifunctional” would be the industrial worker
capable of dealing with more than one machine with similar characteristics and
of accomplishing routine tasks of inspection and/ or maintenance, which would
not be little in terms of professional progress. Nevertheless, the
“multi-qualified“ worker goes beyond, developing and incorporating different
abilities and professional repertoires, including the planning of his own
work.
The
whole operations strategy in the companies, within this new paradigm of
flexible production, has been guided by the permanent search for quality excellence by the whole company
and of the “zero defects production” and “zero stocks”. In this sense, programs
like the “Circles of Quality Control – CQCs”, “Total Quality Control - TQC“
(JURAN; GRYNA 1988; ISHIKAWA, 1986); “Just-in-time/ KANBAN” (SCHONBERGUER,
1986), the quality committees within the companies and the quality prizes (such
as Deming in Japan, Malcom Baldridge in the United States and the National
Quality Prize in Brazil) became symbols of a fake modernization of the productive systems
(AMATO NETO; FUCCI AMATO, 2004). Relating the quality systems to worker's
education, Guedes (1999) states that the Total Quality Control (TQC) programs,
in the perspective of the individual's re-qualification, is translated into a
pedagogical project of the company, with courses for qualifying and
re-qualifying, faced with the innovations of the productive process and the
administration patterns it has adopted.
It is
worth pointing out that this whole form of work organization can be largely
enhanced with the use of automatic equipment of microelectronic base, both in
the operation and in the transportation of parts from one post to the next,
although the use of that equipment does not constitute a pre-requisite for the
implementation of those organizational changes.
6.
WORKER'S FORMS OF LEARNING
Analyzing
the qualification aspects relative to the teaching/ learning process in the
late industrialized countries Fleury and Fleury (1995) present a typology of
the different learning forms and technological capacitation from a revision of
the recent literature on this subject.
The
first category presented concerns learning
by operating or learning by doing
in which learning occurs at the same time as there are feedback processes from the very production activities. The second
category approaches learning by changing,
when the worker adapts to the operational changes that occur systematically
within a given organization. System
performance feedback, in turn, consists in situations in which learning
depends on the existence of institutionalized mechanisms to generate, register,
analyze and interpret pieces of information on the production performance. The
possibility of accessing the organizational performance indicators would make
such learning form viable.
Another
category presented by the authors is called learning
through training, which consists in formal training, both in the technical
and managerial aspects, commonly applied in great companies.
On
the other hand, learning by hiring
refers to the appropriation of knowledge and abilities by means of hiring
professionals that transfer their expertise to the hiring work environment.
Last but not least, learning by searching
concern the learning forms deriving from technology transfer. It is worth
stressing that, at the present development stage of information technology,
this learning category emerges remarkably, once the learning process, both
formal and informal goes on, develops with great possibilities for updating
information and knowledge, mainly in the virtual communities.
For
Machado (1994a), the knowledge of the operation methods, the capacity to adapt
to innovations, to identify tendencies, to analyze and to solve problems, added
to (oral, written and visual) communication abilities and to other experiences
of an individual, to help in his performance in the productive process and in
his continued learning, either by training or autonomously.
This shows that there is a replacement of the demand
for professional formation directed to learning by doing by another formation
that allows learning to learn. It is a new way of processing information, a new
matrix to guide the efficiency and competence criteria and, therefore, the very
qualification policy. (MACHADO, 1994a, p. 183)
Adapting
to innovation demands the individual's intellectual development, allowing him
to elaborate critical thinking and thus to more actively participate in the
productive process. Under that perspective, the interdisciplinary is a
distinguished factor in the worker's formation; the philosophical, scientific
and historical knowledge allows a new view of the world and a wider application
of the trinomial S,T&I (Science, Technology and Innovation) to our
day-to-day. Thus, the search for new knowledge allows a re-updating of the worker
at all levels of society, reaching the ideal of citizenship (MACHADO, 1995;
GENTILI, 1995). For Frigotto (1991, p. 12): “At the educational and technical
qualification level, different studies point to training exhaustion and
professional formation disconnected from basic formation”.
According
to Fartes (2000), as a counterpart to an ever increasing attempt to normalize
work organization in the companies, there is a tendency to diversify formative
spaces: generally the social environments (family, community, etc), the company
(by means of courses and training), education and the experience attained along
professional life are combined in the worker’s formation.
Under
the larger qualification perspective, here understood in its professionals'
technological and managerial capacitation trend, the use of the several
learning categories should be part of a consistent body of strategies ensuring
a real competitiveness for the companies in the globalized markets, mainly in
the cases of those operating in late industrialization economies.
Certainly
this whole form of work organization can be widely enhanced with the use of
automatic microelectronic equipment, both in the operation and in the
transportation of parts from one post to the next, although the use of that
equipment does not constitute a
pre-requisite for the implementation
of those organizational changes.
7.
PERSPECTIVES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A
COMPARISON BETWEEN SOUTH KOREA AND BRAZIL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
One
of the greatest challenges imposed to the late industrialization countries,
concerning their self-sustainable development projects, refer to the new
educational demands caused by the intense globalization process and productive
restructuring, occurring more intensely in the last three decades. In this
context, a brief historical-economic comparative analysis of
The
Korean industrial structure followed the format of great conglomerates of
national capital – the chaebols (as
the keiretsu in Japan) - which,
supported by governmental banks integrating a governmental industrialization
project, allowed a set of high profitability productive enterprises. Such
conglomerates tried and motivated technologies transfer by means of Japanese
companies and a structural change in the industrial base, using qualified labor
and more intensive technology products. Such strategy allowed to the Korean
companies to incorporate higher value-added to their products, facilitating
their introduction in more demanding markets.
On
the other hand, the Brazilian industry accomplished few technological
progresses along this period (1970/ 2000), being the small incursions in
electronic technology restricted to transnational companies or majority
partnerships. The insertion of
Regarding
the professional qualification aspect, Korea accomplished an outstanding
effort, concentrating high investments on the educational area (inspired by the
Japanese model). This country introduces one of the highest education levels
today among the nations of late industrialization; this fact decisively
contributed to its strategy of entering the most sophisticated and intensive
technology segments of the modern industry.
It
should be pointed out that up to 1960, Brazil and South Korea were part of a
group of nations going through their first phases of industrial development and
presented a much lower socio-economic development than that of industrialized
countries. The illiteracy rate in both countries was around 35%; nevertheless,
It
can be verified that Korea achieved a process of substantial economic
development along the last 40 years, tripling the size of its economy every
decade. Along this period, this Asian country practically eradicated illiteracy,
while in
Table
2: Educational policies: a comparison |
|
Brazil |
South Korea |
Lack of consistent public
policies |
Governmental
Project |
Lack of public investments (Fiscal Government crisis) |
Japanese
investments |
Commitment in paying foreign
debts |
Foreing
debt reduction |
Social
gap |
Better
income distribution |
Deep
educational needs |
Large
investments in education |
Source: The authors’,
based on Posthuma (1996).
Observing
another aspect, it can also be verified that Brazil invests less than 1% of its
GDP in Science, Technology and Innovation (S,T&I) activities, far less than
the industrialized countries’ average and that of South Korea, which invests
about 2.5% of its GDP. In terms of intellectual property, about 30 times less
patents are registered in
Logically,
the cultural differences among the two countries are to be noted, which
requires a certain relativity degree in such comparisons. However, still
considering such differences, it is possible to learn some lessons from the
Korean experience, in order to reflect the challenges posed to the Brazilian
development in the near future (VEJA, 2005).
Least
but not least, we should notice that the patterns of economic development and
their links to educational strategies have special contexts and effects that
make uneasy to design conclusive comparisons. Considering the possibilities of
generalization and comparison of the Brazilian ‘model’ of development, Celso
Furtado (1973, p. 77) wrote: “
8.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Within
the context of the techno-scientific revolution and with the transition of the
industrial restructuring process, the new quality and productivity concepts,
the professional competence, as well as the workers' and companies' learning
capacity in general constitute one of the main factors that will differentiate
the organizations in the inter-capitalist competition process in the globalized
world.
The
recovery of qualification, here understood as the transcendence and
valorization of the workers' professional competence, also encompasses a
dimension of citizen's rights, going beyond the very company walls: to read, to
interpret reality, to verbally and in written express and to manipulate
abstract scientific and mathematical concepts, to work in group for solving
specific problems of a sector or workplace, among other aspects, are posed as
fundamental requirements for living in modern society.
All
those angles approached demand the recovery of education in its
technical-pedagogical and organizational dimensions. A new association is
imposed onto the different social agents: Governments, companies, workers,
schools. In this sense, education particularly has a decisive role in this
intense and deep changes process, a role that demands urgent (re)definition in
order to provide subsidies so that, in these first years of the third
millennium, mankind finds a new logic in the understanding of concepts about
itself, about the world and about the what mankind’s role is in the world.
Undoubtedly,
the trinomial Science, Technology and Innovation (ST&I), in its more
visible perspective, that is, that of industrialization, will innovate human
activities in all the sectors and, more and more, only through Education can
the ethical questionings of the ST&I development process be approached and
of their imbricate infiltrations. Only by Education will life quality, the
quest for citizenship, for the leveling of social inequalities, for dignity and
for human happiness be preserved and prioritized.
Specifically,
in the case of Brazil, there is, on the one hand, a series of restrictions to
sustainable development, added to a huge socio-economic and cultural debt
historically accumulated all along its lifetime. Besides the
political-institutional hindrances, that still stall a better agility by the
Brazilian Government in taking decisions concerning the several reform fronts
(fiscal, administrative, welfare, agrarian, etc), there are also - even as a
consequence of the previous ones - more specific hindrances concerning, for
example, the precariousness and the obsolescence of the transportation and
telecommunication infrastructures, directly affecting the operational
performance of the companies. The impacts of this scenario on the work world
have been severely worrying. Added to circumstantial chronic unemployment in
the Brazilian economy, there is also a structural unemployment component
(technological one), more intensely manifested in the more modern sectors of
economy, where the third industrial revolution has penetrated more intensely:
the automotive industry, the electro-electronic industry and the banking
sector, for instance.
On
the other hand, many other opportunities open up for the Brazilian economy, for
its being an emergent economy, with a great potential for a consumer market of
approximately 180 million inhabitants and with many consumption lacks in all
aspects. The expectations of new direct investments on the part of great
transnational groups, added to the expectations of a wide reform of the
Brazilian Governmental structure and consequent public investments in the
improvement of transportation and telecommunication infrastructure should
provide a new scenario for new enterprises.
In
the point of view of educational requirements for work, it has to be considered
that, under the new industrial paradigm marked by the techno-scientific
revolution, the demands for quickly disseminating up-to-date knowledge in a
continuous way becomes a sine qua non
condition for any sustainable development project, following what is already
done by other recently industrialized countries.
It is
also worth mentioning the new possibilities provided by information
technologies, which can contribute to reorganizing the industrial production
and for a new relationship with the market and with the workers (CHESNAIS,
1995). Within this context, opportunities generated by the virtual
organizations and, mainly, by digital inclusion and telework (through the internet, for example). These are themes that
deserve specific room for greater deepening and discussion, which can cause the
elaboration of new investigations.
Within
the context of techno-scientific revolution and industrial restructuring
process, the quality and of productivity concepts, the professional competence
quality and the workers' and the companies’ learning capacity in general
constitute one of the main factors that will differentiate the organizations in
the process of inter-capitalist competition in the globalized world.
All
those angles approached demand the recovery of education in its
technical-pedagogical and organizational dimensions. A new association is
imposed on the different social agents: Governments, companies, workers,
schools. In this sense, education particularly has a decisive role in this
process of intense and deep change, a role that urgently needs (re)definition,
in order to provide subsidies so that, in this early third millennium, mankind
finds a new logic for understanding concepts about itself, about the world and
about the role played by mankind in the world.
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