O Serviço Social nas empresas: desafios e oportunidades num campo de intervenção em transformação

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the role of social worker in the business context, especially in relation to the  most recent societal transformations (not only those resulting from the profound changes in the labour market and the flexibilization of labour relationships, but also from the reduction of the Welfare State in the protection of citizens and, consequently, workers). In order to do so, we begin by considering a brief socio-historical background of social work in the entrepreneurial context, highlighting the most important moments influencing the social workers’ intervention in the last decades in this field, the causes (external and internal) associated to this transformation, thus determining its possibilities of action as well as their implications in the development of a genuine corporate social policy. Next, we focus on the current situation (especially the one that results from the economic crisis of the last decade) to reflect on the possibilities all these transformations offer to Social Work in this specific field, namely in terms of the appropriation of new spaces of intervention and the strengthening of the presence of the profession in the field of labour relations.