Beyond Formal Education: learning–by–doing, ICT adoption and the competitiveness of a traditional Portuguese sector

Abstract

ROBERTO CARNEIRO & PEDRO CONCEIC¸A˜OIntroductionWhich development patterns can be identified in Portuguese industry? What kindof qualifications do Portuguese firms require in order to face the challengesimposed by the need to absorb new technology in those development processes?How are the Portuguese firms re-adjusting to face increasing competitiveness inthe global marketplace? Which broader social issues emerge from thesephenomena, particularly that of the exclusion of low-skilled workers, and whatpolicies can contribute to favour their social and economic inclusion? These broadquestions motivated the research discussed in this article.The article builds upon the analysis of data from a survey of two industrialsectors, chosen as representative of two Portuguese industrial categories: atraditional sector (the shoe and leather industry) and a sector associated with theeconomies of the ‘second’ industrial revolution (electrical and electroniccomponents and equipment). The survey was carried out in conjunction with aseries of structured interviews with leaders of firms from the two sectors. Thefollowing is a summary of the main results.Earlier TSER research, developed under the New Skills project, has shownthat Portugal seems to be partially at odds with the existing trends of theknowledge based economies (Kirsch, 1998). Indeed, the country has shown aremarkable ability to incorporate and sustain in the workforce a large proportionof workers who lack ‘appropriate’ formal education. This original feature explainsin part the comparatively low Portuguese unemployment rates, which contrastwith those of the broader European landscape.We illustrate this by analysing the performance of a traditional sector, leatherand shoe (footwear), which has been prospering while absorbing sizeablecontingents of workers with low levels of formal education. We will see howthis traditional sector has been competitive despite its lack of highly qualifiedpersonnel. We offer an interpretation for its performance stemming from alearning-by-doing dynamics and compare it with the performance of a more hightechnology-intensive sector, the electronics and electric industry, where formallearning processes have been institutionalised.Since growth in the leather and shoe industry has been accompanied by steadysector productivity gains, our conjecture is that growth in this industry was drivenEuropean Journal of Education, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2002