The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

Afterword: The Network Society
and the Knowledge Economy:
Portugal in the Global Perspective
Jorge Sampaio
Throughout my almost ten years in office as President of the
Republic, I have gradually become more and more aware of the consequences
that the growing interconnection between economies and
social relations on an international scale—made possible and, to a
large extent, induced, by the expansion of the new information and
communications technologies—have on the structuring of societies in
general, and the Portuguese society, in particular.
Within the general context of economic/entrepreneurial activities,
the onset of the Information Society has immediately brought about
significant changes, albeit changes which vary in speed from region to
region and from sector to sector. Changes which are apparent in terms
of work organization possibilities, from the strategic decision-making
level to the scope of merely technical operations.
Furthermore, it is indisputable that the trend towards globalization
in the financial markets, which is enabled and permanently supported
by the digital revolution, has today a direct effect on the security of
employment of a great part of the salaried workers in the world and on
the population mobility patterns and geography of hunger and disease.
Moreover, it can easily be demonstrated, that the new international
economic order, with its subversion of the traditional criteria for the
location of industrial activities, tertiarization and the emergence of
trans-national financial and commercial strategies, has led to a profound
reconfiguration of our cities and urbanization processes and of
the relationship they establish with the national territory as a whole.
With the growth of the Internet and real-time communication
resources, it is evident, moreover, that for the younger generations, a