The rise of the knowledge worker

The first use of the term knowledge worker is traced back (Allee, 1997; Skyrme, 1999) to Peter Drucker in the 1960s. He used it to refer specifically to managers as knowledge workers. By the early 1990s (Drucker, 1992), he had come to employ the term in the way now widely used - referring to all those workers the object o f whose work is intangible. Skyrme (1999) draws attention to the OECD prediction that, by the late 1990s, eight out often new jobs created in developing countries will be for knowledge workers. Whereas

much o f the literature argues that the era of the knowledge worker is only just dawning, Burgoyne (1995) in a prescient article suggests that the knowledge world or

‘mentoculture5 is already being replaced by the world of meaning and identity, or ‘spiroculture5. In the context of this study, I have adopted the view that Burgoyne5 s insight has jumped the gun somewhat in terms of the preoccupations of managers and developers.

The introduction to this chapter suggested that demassification or etherialisation was the defining characteristic of the knowledge age. Skyrme (1999) suggests that the

components of this process are knowledge intensiveness, smart products, high information to weight ratios and more value and trade in intangibles. He also sees virtualization of organisations as having a contributory effect. He means by a virtual organisation one that is ‘distributed geographically and whose work is co-ordinated by electronic means5 (p. 20).

Along with this qualitative transformation there is a quantitative change. The numbers o f these demassified knowledge workers as a proportion of all workers has increased substantially from the proportion present in earlier times.

One way of describing the output of knowledge workers is to say that they produce

intellectual properties. Anything that they produce, which is to have lasting value, i.e. that becomes a property, will be predominantly intellectual rather than physical. Managing this intangible stuff is a new and difficult problem in organisations. Managing the

intractable, self-confident and mobile knowledge workers who produce it is even more of a problem. Mintzberg (1983) said that

The professional’s close relationship with his (sic) clients .... is predicated on a high degree of professional autonomy - freedom from having not only to respond to managerial orders but also to consult extensively with peers (p. 192).

Schon (1991, but first published in 1983) classically describes the way in which

professionals manage their own creativity and also transmit what they know to others. He shows how transmission of professional ways o f going on lies at the heart of managing of professionals.

In other words - it’s as easy to manage professionals (a.k.a. knowledge workers) as it is to herd cats. Skyrme, 1999, suggests that the requirements for managing professionals are to move from

• Telling how telling what • Controller ^ coach • Directing ^ enabling

• Input measures ^ ouput/outcome measures

• Detailed measurement 4 enthusing and encourging (p. 144).

Blackler (1995) describes the types o f knowledge discussed in the popular management literature as being either embodied, embedded, embrained, encultured, or encoded. While these distinctions have some utility, Blackler goes on to say that they are grounded in a compartmentalised and static view o f knowledge. He prefers to attend to the process o f knowing, rather than the object o f knowledge, and he sees this as mediated, situated, provisional, pragmatic and contested. In taking this view he accords with community o f practice writers, such as Lave & Wenger (1991) and Schon (1991).

Vermaak & Weggeman (1999) offer an interesting perspective on this issue in their analysis of the individual orientation of professionals contrasted with the control orientation of managers. They suggest that handing over the primary process to the professionals ensures peace but only at the cost of sub-optimising, fragmentation and non-commitment. They argue for concerted action between managers and professionals to develop collective ambition, mutual learning and shared performance standards.

Another strand in this continuing issue for organisations is the employment of specific staff to manage the knowledge for the knowledge workers. Davenport & Prusak (1998) suggest that ‘knowledge management jobs are proliferating rapidly5 (p. 110) and that already the big consultancies have more than 200 people just managing the knowledge produced by the others.

Embedded in these tales are a number o f reasons why it would make sense to study how knowledge workers produce their intellectual properties. The ones that seem especially salient are:

• there are more and more knowledge workers • what they produce is new and intangible

• how they produce it is frequently unrecorded, and often hard to record

• the emergence o f the new knowledge workers is throwing up huge challenges to conventional views of managing.

Allee (1997) brings a challenge to this line o f argument. She says that there ‘is a creeping elitism lurking around the knowledge worker literature. It is subtly implied that those o f us who do knowledge work are entitled to different treatment than a non-knowledge worker’ (p. 216). She suggests that we are all knowledge workers now, and, in terms of how we are to be managed, ‘who would not benefit from more participation, flexibility, and respect for work in progress?’ (p. 216). Allee’s challenge, however, is not to the notion of knowledge work and knowledge workers. Rather she challenges the restricted way in which the term is used. If, as she suggests, we are all knowledge workers now, then the issue of the production of intellectual properties becomes even more salient.

Reflection

Knowledge work or the production of IPs is a pervasive phenomenon. There is much to be learned about the difficult process of managing knowledge workers, and the intriguing process o f generating IPs, from the study o f those who are exceptionally good at it. While the study o f excellent IPDs is of interest in itself, it can also serve a wider purpose in illuminating the way that the generality o f knowledge workers will operate and therefore will need to be dealt with by others in their organisations. It also offers some pointers to those who might wish to develop as IPDs themselves. Finally, and crucially, it offers some new understanding of the nature o f IPs in the field of management development and gives an intimate account of how they are produced.