Facilitating Collaborative Knowledge Workers to Improve Organizational KPIs

Abstract

Knowledge workers are “part of institutions that determine and shape the work that is done” and within such institutions, leadership, working environment, organizational culture and job design should create conditions that facilitate knowledge workers to perform (Megill, 2013; Antikainen et al., 2006.) Essential to the success of a knowledge intensive-organization are not only the knowledge reserves of the workers, but also what an organization is able to do with the latter (Drucker, 1999.) Wall et al. (1992) explain that a worker’s performance is equal to ability * opportunity * motivation, where if one of the factors is equal to zero, performance will be zero. Contrasting to the industrial age, organizational wealth and growth no longer relies on abundant raw materials but on knowledge workers’ performance, which can be the greatest determinant of the worth of their companies (Brocke & Rosemann, 2010.) However, despite the need for attention, knowledge work is yet to have had a researcher in the like of Frederik Taylor or Henry Ford to radically improve knowledge worker performance. Knowledge work is not easily observable or measurable (Matson & Prusak, 2010,) tasks are not fixed, and in contrast to manual work, there are no standard production time where tasks are performed differently among workers. A brain’s performance cannot be measured based on brain cells devoted per tasks, or creativity and there is no direct correlation between units of labor and units of output (Ramírez & Nembhard, 2005.) This means that rather than applying the common theme found in the Taylor- and economic productivity- approach which use universal performance measures to improve performance, knowledge worker performance is considered too difficult to measure, where up to today, there are no well-known universal effective and practical methods to measure knowledge worker productivity (Davenport, 2014; Hammer, et al., 2004; Ramírez & Nembhard , 2004; Davenport et al., 2002; Paradi, et al., 2002; Drucker, 1999.) The challenge in improving knowledge worker performance lies in a necessary shift in management mindset where despite differences to manual workers, knowledge workers “are still being managed with methods that were developed in the industrial age” (Davenport, 1996.) According to Megill (2013) this is the biggest problem who states that one cannot make knowledge using industrial modes of management and production, “it just does not work.” Therefore, more research was required concerning how an organization can create conditions that facilitate knowledge workers to perform.