Context Of Knowledge Work Research Articles

Digital work practices that promote informal workplace learning: digital ethnography in a knowledge work context

ABSTRACT Informal workplace learning is an essential part of lifelong learning. In recent years, digital technology has come to play an increasingly important role in enabling informal learning at work through various tools and resources. However, as little empirical research exists on informal learning in this context, more knowledge of digital work practices that promote informal workplace learning is needed. This paper describes a digital ethnography that was conducted to investigate informal learning in authentic work settings. The data were collected from a public sector workplace during the years 2020–2022 and included observations, interviews, and participant diaries, which were analysed using qualitative ethnographic content analysis. This study draws on practice theories to further understand digital work practices and how they are formed in people’s daily activities and interactions in the social and material environments of digital technology and work. We present our findings in terms of five practice categories – work-related communication, relational communication, sharing, following and listening, and controlling the use of digital technology – to illustrate how informal learning takes place in everyday work. The detailed accounts of these practices contribute to understanding how digital technology can be used to foster informal learning in work.

Becoming a learning organization while enhancing performance: the case of LEGO

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred from a production context to a knowledge work context for the purpose of becoming a learning organization while enhancing performance. This is important to study because many organizations struggle to enhance efficiency in the short term while still trying to be long-term learning oriented (i.e. learning organization development).Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on theory on learning interventions to show how lean practices for problem-solving can foster learning and help an organization to become adaptive. This study’s subject is a non-production department of 100 employees at the LEGO corporation. The authors applied survey results from a natural experiment lasting 18 months between a pre-measurement survey and a post-measurement survey. The results were compared to a control department of 50 employees who were not exposed to the lean practices intervention. The authors’ focus was on the individual level as individuals have different perceptions of lean practices, performance, and learning.FindingsUsing repeated-measures tests, difference-in-difference regressions analyses, and structural equation models, the authors find that a package of contemporary lean practices for problem-solving, along with leaders who function as learning facilitators, significantly improved learning organization dimensions while also enhancing efficiency and quality and that learning organizations positively mediate the relationship between the lean intervention and quality-related performance, while efficiency is directly affected by the lean interventions. Data from LEGO's key performance indicators (KPIs), benefit trackers, on-site observations and more than 40 interviews with managers provided results that were consistent with the survey data. A detailed description of the lean practices implemented is provided to inspire future implementations in non-operations environments and to assist educators.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors contribute to the learning literature by showing that a learning-to-learn approach to lean management can serve as an active and deliberate intervention in helping an organization becoming a learning organization as perceived by the individual organizational members. The authors also add to the lean literature by showing how a learning approach to lean, as used by LEGO, can positively affect short-term efficiency and quality and create a foundation for a longer-term competitive advantage (i.e. a learning organization) in a non-production context. By contrast, most of the lean literature streams treat efficiency separately from a learning organization and mainly examine lean in a production context.Originality/valueThe extant literature shows three research streams on lean, learning, and performance. The authors built on these streams by trying to emphasize both learning and efficiency. Prior research has not empirically tested whether and how the application of problem-solving lean practices combined with leaders as learning facilitators helps to create a comprehensive learning organization while enhancing performance in a non-production context.

Remote Collaboration Needs for New Work: Concepts, Procedure and Evaluation

More freedom, more flexibility, and reduced travel time for knowledge workers are just a few advantages of new work models, which have been discussed for several years now. Moreover, the problem of rural depopulation can be addressed by this concept. In the research project “Digital Teams”, we aim to develop a digital open-source platform to support and optimize the digital work environment for distributed teams in rural areas, especially in the knowledge work context. In this article, we focus on the research and design aspects of the project. We provide insights on how we have used the design thinking approach for our research and the development of the UX- and UI-design concepts. We are focusing on an ecosystem concept, which provides all relevant services for knowledge workers in their daily work life, rather than focusing on a specific remote collaboration purpose. We present initial evaluation results, which tend to be positive and give an outlook on future work.

Passionate and engaged? Passion for inventing and work engagement in different knowledge work contexts

PurposeIn response to the increasing interest in entrepreneurs' well-being in both the entrepreneurship and management research fields, this study builds and tests a research model on the role of entrepreneurial passion for inventing in work engagement in the context of modern knowledge work. The research argument is built on the job demands–resources model, the most commonly used frame for measuring employee well-being in work and organization psychology. The research setting in this study compares digital entrepreneurs and freelancers with traditional knowledge workers and part-time platform workers in terms of passion and engagement.Design/methodology/approachUsing a quantitative research design, the authors collected data from 349 highly specialized knowledge workers through anonymous questionnaires. The research hypotheses were tested with linear and logit models.FindingsThe results show that entrepreneurial passion is positively related to increased job demands and work engagement and that job demands can have a positive effect on work engagement in highly complex knowledge work.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by expanding the analysis of entrepreneurial passion outside the entrepreneurship context and into work engagement theory by adding passion for inventing as an important motivational factor in modern knowledge work. Extant literature on the consequences of work digitalization is still scarce, and this study provides insights into successful working on digital platforms.

Unobtrusive Continuous Stress Detection in Knowledge Work—Statistical Analysis on User Acceptance

Modern knowledge work is highly intense and demanding, exposing workers to long-term psychosocial stress. In order to address the problem, stress detection technologies have been developed, enabling the continuous assessment of personal stress based on multimodal sensor data. However, stakeholders lack insights into how employees perceive different monitoring technologies and whether they are willing to share stress-indicative data in order to sustain well-being at the individual, team, and organizational levels in the knowledge work context. To fill this research gap, we developed a theoretical model for knowledge workers’ interest in sharing their stress-indicative data collected with unobtrusive sensors and examined it empirically using structural equation modeling (SEM) with a survey of 181 European knowledge workers. The results did not show statistically significant privacy concerns regarding environmental sensors such as air quality, sound level, and motion sensors. On the other hand, concerns about more privacy-sensitive methods such as tracking personal device usage patterns did not prevent user acceptance nor intent to share data. Overall, knowledge workers were highly interested in employing stress monitoring technologies to measure their stress levels and receive information about their personal well-being. The results validate the willingness to accept the unobtrusive, continuous stress detection in the context of knowledge work.

Fulfilling Remote Collaboration Needs for New Work

More freedom, more flexibility, and reduced travel time for knowledge workers are just a few advantages of new work models, which have been discussed for several years now. Moreover, the problem of rural depopulation can be addressed by this concept. In the research project “Digital Teams”, we aim to develop a digital open-source platform to support and optimize the digital work environment for distributed teams in rural areas, especially in the knowledge work context. In this article, we focus on the research and design aspects of the project. We provide insights on how we have used the design thinking approach for our research and for the development of the UX- and UI-design concepts. We are focusing on an ecosystem concept, which provides all relevant services for knowledge workers in their daily work life, rather than focusing on a specific remote collaboration purpose.

Breaking the Screen: Interaction Across Touchscreen Boundaries in Virtual Reality for Mobile Knowledge Workers.

Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to transform knowledge work. One advantage of VR knowledge work is that it allows extending 2D displays into the third dimension, enabling new operations, such as selecting overlapping objects or displaying additional layers of information. On the other hand, mobile knowledge workers often work on established mobile devices, such as tablets, limiting interaction with those devices to a small input space. This challenge of a constrained input space is intensified in situations when VR knowledge work is situated in cramped environments, such as airplanes and touchdown spaces. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of interacting jointly between an immersive VR head-mounted display and a tablet within the context of knowledge work. Specifically, we 1) design, implement and study how to interact with information that reaches beyond a single physical touchscreen in VR; 2) design and evaluate a set of interaction concepts; and 3) build example applications and gather user feedback on those applications.

Work productivity management in knowledge-intensive service companies: considerations and challenges

The purpose of this research is to inquire about the different considerations and perspectives that arise regarding the concept of productivity in the knowledge work context, as well as the main challenges that emerge in knowledge workers’ productivity management. A group of managers and workers from organizations in the knowledge-intensive services sector was interviewed. We resorted to content analysis to process the information, taking borrowing elements extracted from the systematic literature review for coding purposes. The perspectives among the interviewees regarding the concept of productivity diverge, and these differences are connected to the type of company and the role of the interviewee: manager or worker. The challenges reported include time management, complexity, heterogeneity, intangibility and task multiplicity, as well as the challenge for managers to set guidelines to measure and monitor productivity without affecting worker welfare. It becomes necessary to approach the concept of productivity from a holistic perspective, and to implement alternative managerial practices that take into account the nature of the work done, worker satisfaction and the diverse perspectives of stakeholders.

The ENRICHER Method for Human Machine Symbiotics & Smart Data: A Socially Responsible Approach to the Intelligent Augmentation of Knowledge Work

The systems development community is in need of a new culture, embodied in methodologies which assert human knowledge and dignity in technology development effort, especially where automation shapes working-life. Recent research, though limited, provides initial evidence to suggest industry 4.0 factory environments can satisfy the goals of human dignity and improved productivity amongst knowledge workers by developing human-centred systems. This paper looks at the unique differences between human and machine intelligences and introduces human-machine symbiotic, evolutionary development approaches. It extends the work of human centred systems in industry 4.0 settings into a very different knowledge work context: archiving cultural heritage, which has received little attention to date in IFAC.The Insyte-Cooley Research Lab (I-CRL) using action research have sown the seeds of a new culture embodied in a systems development process called “ENRICHER” which valorises human knowledge with positive results. Extensible machine-readable knowledge models are co-evolved by both technologists and users which support digitisation.

Resisting Corporeal Boundaries in Body Work and Knowledge Work

ABSTRACTThis essay summarizes two worker injury narratives: (a) one in a bodywork context and (b) the other in a knowledge work context. Framed by these narratives, the essay integrates unobtrusive control theory with recent research on organizational health and wellness Discourses1. The author highlights how the material quality of corporeal resistance may be a conduit for change in unobtrusive organizational contexts. The essay concludes with practical recommendations for workers to question hidden, problematic, work norms as well as maintain authentic health and wellness as an organizational member.

Lean approach in knowledge work

Purpose: Knowledge work productivity is a key area of improvement for many organisations. Lean approach is a sustainable way to achieve operational excellence and can be applied in many areas. The purpose of this novel study is to examine the potential of using lean approach for improving knowledge work practices.Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review has been carried out to study how lean approach is realised in knowledge work. The research is conceptual in nature and draws upon earlier research findings.Findings: This study shows that lean studies’ in knowledge work is an emerging research area. This study documents the methods and practices implemented in knowledge work to date, and presents a knowledge work continuum, which is an essential framework for effective lean approach deployment and to frame future research focus in knowledge work productivity.Research limitations/implications: This study structures the concept of knowledge work and outlines a concrete concept derived from earlier literature. The study summarises the literature on lean in knowledge work and highlights, which methods are used. More research is needed to understand how lean can be implemented in complex knowledge work environment and not only on the repetitive knowledge work. The limitations of this research are due to the limited availability of previous research.Practical implications: To analyse the nature of knowledge work, we implicate the areas where lean methods especially apply to improving knowledge work productivity. When applying lean in knowledge work context the focus should be using the people better and improving information flow.Originality/value: This study focuses on adapting lean methods into a knowledge work context and summarises earlier research done in this field. The study discusses the potential to improve knowledge work productivity by implementing lean methods and presents a unique knowledge work continuum to frame previous research and give focus for future research.

The relation between knowledge transfer and productivity in knowledge work

Within the modern ICT-enabled knowledge work context, questions related to access to information and knowledge-sharing practices have received growing research attention. However, there is still surprisingly little empirical research exploring the actual impact of effective knowledge transfer to work productivity. The purpose of this paper is to fulfil this research gap and empirically study whether there are any differences in subjective work productivity based on how the knowledge worker perceives the level of information flow and knowledge transfer within the organisation. Furthermore, the aim is to determine whether there are differences between the extent to which the positively experienced information flow and knowledge transfer impact experienced work productivity. Through the survey method, data were collected from 998 knowledge workers from Finland in various sizes of organisations. The quantitative data were analysed using SPSS software descriptive statistics, correlations and U-tests. The practical value of the study is in the analysis results. The paper presents the value of information flows and knowledge transfer to knowledge work productivity. This increased understanding will help managers to evaluate the effects of investing in supporting information flows and knowledge transfer within their organisations.

Exploring knowledge management software implementation from a knowing-in-practice perspective

This paper draws attention to a major issue of Knowledge Management (KM) technology implementation: potential sources of incongruence between KM software and the adopting organization. Using the case of a global consultancy firm, the paper explains KM software-organization incongruences as the consequence of differences between organizational and KM software developer’s knowledge work context and practice. Such differences reflect the differing ‘situated’ knowledge work practices that KM software developers and adopting organizations deliberately acquire and evolve over time. Theoretically, this paper gives a more comprehensive account of how knowledge work practices emerged and were then embedded into the software or the organization. Practically, this study would help make organizations more aware of the factors influencing KM software adoption and implementation, particularly in the case of large firms that are characterized by high-value, text-based content for decision-making such as professional service, R&D, and healthcare organizations.

Knowledge work intensification and self-management: the autonomy paradox

In the analysis of the sustainability of knowledge work environments, the intensification of work has emerged as probably the single most important contradiction. We argue that the process of knowledge work intensification is increasingly self-driven and influenced by subjectification processes in the context of trends of individualisation and self-management. We use a qualitative case study of a leading multinational company in the information and communications technology sector (considered to be ‘best-in-class’) to discuss this intensification and its linkage with self-disciplining mechanisms. The workers studied seem to enjoy a number of resources that current psychosocial risk models identify as health promoting (e.g. autonomy, learning, career development and other material and symbolic rewards). We discuss the validity of these models to assess the increasingly boundaryless and self-managed knowledge work contexts characterised by internalisation of demands and resources and paradoxical feelings of autonomy. Knowledge work intensification increases health and social vulnerabilities directly and through two-way interactions with, first, the autonomy paradox and new modes of subjection at the workplace; second, atomisation and lack of social support; third, permanent accountability and insecurity; and finally, newer difficulties in setting boundaries.

How Team Members Control Free Riding in Knowledge Work Contexts: A Multidimensional Scaling Study

Organizations are increasingly relying on knowledge-based teamwork. This type of teamwork is often threatened by free riding tendencies, since individual contributions to the team outcome are diffi...

Measuring the productivity impacts of new ways of working

Purpose“New ways of working” refers to non‐traditional work practices, settings and locations with information and communication technologies (ICT) to supplement or replace traditional ways of working. They are being deployed in knowledge work context in order to increase employees working motivation, job satisfaction and productivity. However, these benefits are not self‐evident. This paper aims to examine the task of measuring the expected benefits.Design/methodology/approachThis paper synthesizes the existing literature on measurement of knowledge work productivity and identifies some key prerequisites and restrictions that should be taken into account when measuring the impacts of organizational change.FindingsThe paper proposes a measurement approach for evaluating the impacts of a new ways of working initiative in a knowledge work context.Originality/valuePrevious literature has focused on studying whether facilities and ICT solutions are appropriate from the viewpoint of an individual knowledge worker. However, there is a lack of studies focused on the actual business impacts of different working arrangements.

Permanent Temporariness? Changes in Social Contracts in Knowledge Work

Many sociologists have argued that work no longer plays the central role in contemporary life experience because we have entered an age of insecurity in relation to employment, and knowledge workers are often pictured as egoistical portfolio workers who are only interested in their careers and no longer loyal to their employers. Cappelli (1999) on the other hand argues that more insecure employment relations is a result of employers’ strategy to buy workers rather than offering them long-term relations. Using case studies from seven different knowledge work contexts in Norway, this article argues that more temporary employment relations is not the result of career-seeking portfolio workers, but of changes in employment practices of their employers. These are not primarily changes in the formal employment contracts from permanent to temporary employment, but in the social contracts as they are practiced by the employers and experienced by the knowledge workers in the different contexts of knowledge work. The reason for more temporary relations was not because work does not matter for knowledge workers. On the contrary, we found that they accepted insecure conditions because work mattered and because they were eager to take on new tasks, learn the trade in new fields, and show that they were able to do the job. When they left their employer, it was because they were not able to do a good job in their positions or because they were increasingly directly exposed to an insecure market that signaled that they were not profitable (enough) for their employer. Although changes in employment practices by the employers toward more short-term relations are not caused by disloyal portfolio workers, these practices may produce the problem of disloyal workers who have to secure their employment in the labor market.

Democracy in management – the new coming of MBO via organisational dialogue

PurposeThe main purpose of the paper is to analyse how a performance measurement system constitutes a dialogue to enable manageability in knowledge work organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an action research project aimed to study the use of performance measurement in a knowledge work context. The case study is applied. The results are derived in participative action research interventions that aimed to build an applicable performance measurement system in three individual organisations. The approach is constructive and normative.FindingsThe paper provides information about applications of performance measurement in knowledge work context. As a result there is discussion on applying performance measurement in the managerial system of knowledge worker organisations and description of using performance measurement in knowledge work context. The contribution consists of managerial norms for applying performance measurement in knowledge work context.Research limitations/implicationsThe research, thus the results too, is delineated to small and medium size organisations.Practical implicationsIn the paper there are several transferable results. As the aim was to have normative results, the degree of practicality is relatively high. Taking the restrictions of conceptuality of performance measurement into account, the paper provides useful information to practitioners.Originality/valueThe paper answers the research question set. Originality of the paper lies in the field applying performance measurement. It continues the discussion on the traditions of management and leadership.

A methodology for forecasting knowledge work projects

Forecasting project duration for knowledge workers is particularly difficult due to the complexity and variability of their work. This study examines prediction of software development completion times which has traditionally involved either software engineering techniques or purely judgmental forecasts by lead analysts or project managers. In practice, neither approach has achieved much success in forecasting software project duration. This paper proposes a neural network model to modeling software project overruns. Actual software project management data, obtained for a regional grocery chain, were used to develop and test the neural network model as well as a traditional regression model for forecasting project overruns. Comparisons between the forecasts and the actual project overruns revealed that the neural network model outperformed the regression model in terms of forecast accuracy, degree of forecast bias and model fit. The results suggest that neural network modelling can be used to integrate managerial judgments and actual operating data to accurately forecast software project completion times. Scope and purpose This study examines the difficult managerial issue of estimating knowledge work project completion time. Many knowledge worker projects are late and over-budget due to the complexity of knowledge work contexts and the pressures on the project managers to underestimate project duration.This paper compares the project duration estimates of project managers to quantitative prediction techniques that use project history data to predict project overruns. The two techniques used are neural network modeling and regression.

Performance-based incentives in knowledge work: are agency models relevant?

The economic importance of has become widely accepted. Less widely accepted are the changes knowledge work requires in how we manage performance. This paper explores the differences between knowledge work and more traditional physical and managerial work, in the context of economic agency models, the most rigorous extant theoretical representations of how to manage performance. Assumptions derived from the characteristics of knowledge work are used to extend agency models. The conclusions about how to manage from this extended model are different from the conclusions of traditional agency models. Linking measured performance and compensation - a common recommendation that arises from interpretations of agency theories - is effective in knowledge work contexts only if knowledge workers are intrinsically motivated. We conclude that agency models and recommendations derived from them are relevant only to the extent that they employ modified assumptions consistent with the distinctive characteristics of knowledge work and knowledge workers.