An Introduction To Knowledge Workers Management Essay

An Introduction To Knowledge Workers Management Essay For the main part of the 20th century, the industry was depended on the performance of manual workers in manufacturing. During this time the most important contribution of management was to increase the productivity of these workers to make the organization profitable and to sustain their continuity. (Drucker, 1999) But a shift has taken place. Nowadays, in the 21st century, the economy starts increasingly to depend on the performance and productivity of knowledge workers. Most businesspeople believed in the importance of knowledge workers and saw that knowledge workers are vital to organizational success which includes organizational sustainability and growth. For this reason â€Å"knowledge workers† become essential in nowadays economy (Helton, R 1988, Drucker, 1999). But what does this relatively new term ‘knowledge workers’ means? In the literature there is no common or specific definition found. (Ramirez Frey, 1997). According to their need of autonomy it i s the role of the knowledge worker to learn, constantly updating – and developing new skills, and transfer this knowledge to others in the organization. By doing this, they will make them valuable to the organization ( James, 2002). At last a knowledge worker can be defined from the perspective of an individual activity. In reference to this perspective, the balance between ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ activities regarding their job is examined (Kelloway & Barling, 2003). However the work of knowledge workers is defined as work with high levels of cognitive activities (Helton, 1988) and where they will work with information to make decisions and create idea’s (Fox, 1990). For this reason knowledge workers tend more to the side where activities are related to ‘thinking’