Ergonomic analysis on work activity and training.

It is an honor and a great pleasure for us to present this special issue for WORK. This selection of papers is an outcome of our symposium organized during the IEA congress 2009 (Beijing, China) that followed up previous IEA symposia. Ever since the IEA Conference in Paris (1991), and at each of the subsequent triennial IEA conferences (Toronto, 1994; Tampere, 1997; San Diego 2000; Seoul 2003; Maastricht 2006), a highly active scientific committee (chaired alternately by M. Bellemare, C. Chatigny, M. Lacomblez, S. Montreuil, and C. Teiger) has taken the task to organize a multiple session symposium on “Ergonomic Work Analysis and Training”. Initially, such a scientific event aimed to develop and promote the ergonomic approach of work analysis in the field of vocational training. Within this framework, “Activity” has been used as a central concept to understand work specificities. Hence, Daniellou and Rabardel [2] synthesized some major theoretical contributions defining Activity as being: