The on-going global economic difficulties and the subsequent increases in unemployment have led the UK government to look at innovative ways of reintegrating unemployed people back into work. Nowhere is this more critical than in the area of youth unemployment, which in the UK is steadily rising for young people aged 16-24 years who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). As part of this strategy work-integration social enterprises (WISEs) have become providers of employment enhancement programmes (EEPs) that aim to improve the employability of NEETs, in part due to the 'added value' that WISEs are seen to bring to such programmes. However, this perception, along with the requirements of public funding contracts, creates a pressure on WISEs to demonstrate such 'added value' through rigorous evaluation procedures. However, there is little academic research that both attempts to measure WISE performance in relation to 'outcomes' and to understand how organisational type and structure affects this. This research study takes a comparative, multi-case study approach to study three separate work-integration organisations delivering EEPs to NEETs. Two of these organisations are WISEs and the other organisation is a 'for-profit' private company utilised in this study as a comparison group. In order to provide a rigorous measure of outcome, all participants completed three different self-efficacy scales and engaged in individual semi-structured interviews with researchers before and after engagement in their respective programmes (Time 1 & Time 2). Results from the qualitative analysis of the interviews and the statistical analysis of the questionnaire data are triangulated to evaluate the outcome from all three programmes, providing the participant perspective alongside changes in self-efficacy. In addition, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were held with the owners and staff at the organisations respectively, in order to elicit understanding of how the differing aims, values and structures present at each organisation impacted upon the delivery of the programmes and hence upon the outcome benefits experienced by the NEETs. The results of the research provide an opportunity to compare and contrast programmes delivered by social enterprises with that of a 'for-profit' company in order to give an insight into programme and outcome differences based upon the orientation of the delivery organisation. Results revealed no significant difference between the outcome benefits experienced by the NEETs at the WISEs and those NEETs present at the for-profit comparison group. However, analysis of the effect of the organisational aims, values and structures upon the delivery of EEPs, suggests that the 'added value' offered by WISEs, whilst not immediately evident in the outcome data, came from the induction policies that they operated and their willingness to work with more socially excluded individuals.

Os leitores desta pesquisa encontrarão nas páginas seguintes o resultado de uma combinação de métodos e abordagens investigativas dedicados à contextualização e aferição sobre o modo como os profissionais de TI dos quadros médios da cidade de São Paulo compreendem e mobilizam seus vínculos de trabalho ao longo de suas trajetórias profissionais. Partimos de análises e pesquisas realizadas por estudiosos das relações de trabalho, emprego e empreendedorismo, de dados dos Censos de 1960 a 2010 e de informações de outros institutos de pesquisa para esquadrinhar um universo de pesquisa que proporcionasse uma amostra modesta, mas representativa, de profissionais de TI de diferentes gerações, diferentes experiências de trabalho e vínculos, e que atendesse à variedade mínima de outros marcadores sociais como raça ou cor, sexo e origem social. Com esse contexto definido, entrevistamos um conjunto de profissionais composto por quarenta participantes. Estes profissionais concederam entrevistas, preencheram formulários e responderam questões por meio de diversas outras formas de contato de modo a não só fornecer os dados dos marcadores levantados neste estudo, mas, principalmente, para apresentar suas experiências e pontos de vista sobre os tipos de vínculos de trabalho que experimentaram ou pretendem experimentar em suas carreiras. A observação das variações e similaridades relativas aos tipos de vínculos mobilizados por profissionais de diferentes gerações constitui a dimensão importante deste estudo que pretende contribuir com uma apresentação detalhada sobre o modo como os profissionais que atendem ao perfil do recorte de pesquisa compreendem os tipos de vínculos disponíveis a eles, buscando superar as limitações de abordagens que tratam o tema de modo demasiado frio orientadas somente pelos métodos quantitativos. A escuta dos profissionais de TI, os principais afetados pelas mudanças nas possibilidades de vínculos, é elemento fundamental deste estudo que visa também analisar, de modo mediado pela teoria sociológica que abrange as questões aqui mobilizadas, as visões e concepções obtidas dos próprios profissionais a respeito de modelos, propostas e teorias advindas ora do mundo acadêmico, ora do mundo corporativo. Embora, por vezes, estes mundos propositivos convivam com as percepções e interpretações dos profissionais entrevistados, através da leitura deste estudo pode-se observar que as experiências e percepções dos profissionais demonstram ser mais complexas do que modelos polarizados tendem a postular. / Readers of this research will find on the following pages the result of a combination of methods and investigative approaches dedicated to the contextualization and measurement of how IT professionals in the city of São Paulo understand and mobilize their labour ties throughout their professional paths. We started with analyzes and research carried out by scholars from the labour relations, employment and entrepreneurship, data from the Censuses from 1960 to 2010 and information from other research institutes to search a universe of research that would provide a modest but representative sample of IT professionals of different generations, different work experiences and labor ties, and that meets the minimum variety of other social markers like race or color, sex and social origin. With this context defined, we interviewed a group of professionals composed of forty participants. These professionals provided interviews, completed forms, and answered questions through various other forms of contact so as to not only provide the markers data collected in this study, but mainly to present their experiences and points of view on the modalities of work they have experienced or intend to experience in their careers. The observation of the variations and similarities related to the types of labour ties mobilized by professionals of different generations constitutes the core dimension of this study that intends to contribute with a detailed presentation on the way in which the professionals that meet the target profile of research comprise the types of labour ties available to them, seeking to overcome the limitations of approaches that treat the subject from a very far position - oriented especially by quantitative methods. Listening to IT professionals, the main ones affected by the changes in the possibilities of links, is a fundamental element of this study that also seeks to analyze, in a way mediated by the sociological theory that covers the issues mobilized here, the visions and conceptions obtained by the professionals themselves about models, proposals and theories that come sometimes from the academic world and sometimes from the corporate world. Although these propositional worlds at times coexist with the perceptions and interpretations of the professionals interviewed, this study shows that the experiences and perceptions of professionals prove to be more complex than polarized models tend to postulate.

Based on an individual longitudinal data on dependent employment we analyse the role of Creative Industries for the employment system of Vienna. We focus on gross job flows and firm dynamics in this priority field of Vienna's urban policy and analyse the characteristics of the different parts of the cluster's production system. We find ample evidence for positive effects of Creative Industries on employment growth and firm birth, but also reveal considerable job turnover and a large heterogeneity of firm growth in the cluster. Especially, we find rather different evolutions along the clusters value chain, which points to weak linkages between upstream and downstream activities in the cluster. (author's abstract) / Series: Creative Industries in Vienna: Development, Dynamics and Potentials