Knowledge Workers

What Do Knowledge Workers Have in Common?

Despite their varied interests and roles, knowledge workers have several things in common. They tend to be specialists, who have developed a considerable mastery of their respective disciplines through professional training and sometimes practical experiences. As a result, their “disciplinary” focus often shapes their views of key issues confronting their [Page 418]industries, companies, or even their jobs. This is reinforced by the fact they also tend to devote quite a bit of time and energy in acquiring, processing, and using knowledge. Their interpretation of this knowledge is often guided by their prior education and training.

These professional workers also control vast amounts of knowledge that gives them the raw material with which to work through problems, giving them a growing sense of control; some of that knowledge is tacit and therefore cannot be shared easily with others. Yet often this tacit knowledge is the primary source of innovations that can create value. This knowledge is a key source of creativity that results in new products, systems, and processes. It is also a source of new forms of organizing and managing workflow and other employees. In addition, this knowledge makes it easier to acquire new technical skills that make today’s organizations more efficient, responsive, and productive. Knowledge workers play an important role in coordinating the various phases of resource assembly, production, marketing, and distribution. They increasingly do so on a global basis as they work for global companies, multinationals, or even local companies that use global supply chains.

Knowledge networks, where discoveries are made, are also global and access to them provides the foundation for innovation of all forms. Knowledge workers use their connections and professional associations to develop links to these knowledge networks, acquire knowledge, and transform it into profitable goods and services. One of the key roles that knowledge workers play in this context is to develop the firm’s absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, value, import, process, assimilate, and use externally generated knowledge in its own operations. Knowledge workers have the expertise and understanding needed to target, import, and transform this knowledge into sources of revenues and profitability. The relatedness of the knowledge these professional employees have helps not only in gaining externally generated knowledge but also in making it possible to use this knowledge productively. The presence of these knowledge employees has been fundamental for the success of the “open innovation” movement, in which companies use discoveries and innovations made by other companies to create new businesses and protect their existing markets.

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