The Art of Knowledge
Knowledge workers: exploring the link among performance rating, pay and motivational aspects
An article I got off of Emerald. I think their offer for free stuff is over but I managed to procure about 40 articles. So I'm stripping them apart and here's what I got off of this one. It was written by Alan D. Smith and William T. Rupp.
- Employees that have a sense of belonging and purpose tend to be more motivated than employees who feel alienated. In fact, many companies, which have built solid relationships and credibility with their employees, find that they can depend on those same employees in hard times.
I think they'll find that they can depend on those employees in hard times that have the tools and resources to make themselves useful. Wanting to be useful and actually being useful are two totally different things. I love the Orioles organization and would probably work there for free, but just because I'm all enthusiastic about being there deosn't seem im being productive.
- Quinn et al. (1996a,b) noted that the professional intellect within an organization frequently becomes isolated inside the organization. It is a fact that the existence of a large organizational culture creates conflict with other groups, such as marketing or manufacturing conflicting with research and development departments. Thus, at the heart of an effective professional organization, managing and developing the professional intellect is critical for sustained competitive advantage.
Of course the different parts of a company are going to interact with each differently and there are going to be different cultural climates in different sectors. And he does make a good point that managing the professional intellect becomes imperative. If the organization has grounded functionality in a system that can elevate and move people along in the company, the people will look to use it for their own benefit. The system should allow employees in different sectors to view what the Marketing Department is doing or what the CEO is doing, that brings a sense of closeness and involvement with the entire corporate scheme.
- This leveraging of professional intelligence can be accomplished by capturing knowledge in systems and software, overcoming reluctance to share information, and organize about reinvestment in intellectual capital. Unfortunately, to accomplish these important characteristics, organizations may have to abandon their familiar hierarchical structures and reorganizing in patterns that best suit their professional intellect to create value within the organization. Hence, by creating intellectual webs and connectivity within the organization, networking and culture, and incentives for sharing are the keys to success with these outstanding organizations
- Simply put, people work harder because of the increased involvement and commitment that comes from having more control and say in their work; people work smarter because they are encouraged to build skills and competence; and people work more responsibly because more responsibility is placed in hands of employees farther down in the organization.
I didn't get a whole lot out of this article. But I thought it was ok. They said a lot of things that I have already read about or been made aware of via HBR or INC. There was simply to much business application to the new knowledge worker in here. The main problem was that the new knowledge isn't here yet. They are attempting to facilitate a plan for something that doesn't really exist. It's as though they are trying to sell real-estate on Mars. There are more article reviews to come as I took down pretty much anything that looked of interest.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:44 PM