The challenges for knowledge workers in organizations to carry out sustainable organizational development

Abstract

In the last decades, we have witnessed important changes in production processes due to the intensified use of technologies and automation that impact social and environmental activities in society. This is the context in which the Knowledge Workers are inserted. This study aimed to analyze these workers’ competencies and how they contribute to the changes in the organizations, aiming at their sustainable development. The method used was the Systematic Literature Review. Searches were conducted in the Brazilian databases BDTD, CAPES, and SciELO with the terms Knowledge Workers’ competencies; social intelligence; collective intelligence; organizational intelligence, and sustainability in the Portuguese language and published between 2018 and 2022. Three hundred seventy-seven publications were found. With the application of the delimiters: date, title, abstract, and keywords, only 11 were aligned to the research question and were read in full. From this, 3 (three) categories of analysis were generated: social/corporate responsibility, sustainable development, and information management that support the results of this RSL. The final consideration is that the knowledge worker can transform data and information into value-added knowledge. Individual competencies are linked to the company’s values, beliefs, and purpose, which relates to social and organizational intelligence. This work can contribute to public or private organizations forming workers focused on sustainability and the common good.