Editing Knowledge worker (section)

== Additional context and frameworks ==

Drucker (1966) defines six factors for knowledge worker productivity:<ref>{{cite book |last=Drucker |first=Peter F. |title=Management Challenges of the 21st Century |location=New York |publisher=Harper Business |year=1999 |isbn=0-88730-998-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/managementchalle00druc }}</ref>

# Knowledge worker productivity demands that we ask the question: "What is the task?"
# It demands that we impose the responsibility for their productivity on the individual knowledge workers themselves. Knowledge workers have to manage themselves.
# Continuing innovation has to be part of the work, the task and the responsibility of knowledge workers.
# Knowledge work requires continuous learning on the part of the knowledge worker, but equally continuous teaching on the part of the knowledge worker.
# Productivity of the knowledge worker is not — at least not primarily — a matter of the quantity of output. Quality is at least as important.
# Finally, knowledge worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an "asset" rather than a "cost." It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organization in preference to all other opportunities.

The theory of [[human interaction management|Human Interaction Management]] asserts that there are 5 principles characterizing effective knowledge work:

# Build effective teams
# Communicate in a structured way
# Create, share and maintain knowledge
# Align your time with strategic goals
# Negotiate next steps as you work

Another, more recent breakdown of knowledge work (author unknown) shows activity that ranges from tasks performed by individual knowledge workers to global social networks.  This framework spans every class of knowledge work that is being or is likely to be undertaken.  There are seven levels or scales of knowledge work, with references for each are cited.

# Knowledge work (e.g., writing, analyzing, advising) is performed by subject-matter specialists in all areas of an organization.  Although knowledge work began with the origins of writing and counting, it was first identified as a category of work by Drucker (1973).<ref>{{cite book |last=Drucker |first=Peter F. |year=1973 |title=Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |isbn=0-06-011092-9 }}</ref>
# Knowledge functions (e.g., capturing, organizing, and providing access to knowledge) are performed by technical staff, to support knowledge processes projects.  Knowledge functions date from c. 450 BC, with the [[Library of Alexandria]],{{dubious|date=September 2013|reason=Library of Alexandria wasn't established until 300 BC }} but their modern roots can be linked to the emergence of information management in the 1970s.<ref name="Mcgee and Prusak, 1993">{{cite book |last1=Mcgee |first1=James |first2=Lawrence |last2=Prusak |year=1993 |title=Managing Information Strategically: Increase Your Company's Competitiveness and Efficiency by Using Information as a Strategic Tool |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |location=New York |isbn=0-471-57544-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/managinginformat00mcge }}</ref>
# Knowledge processes (preserving, sharing, integration) are performed by professional groups, as part of a knowledge management program.  Knowledge processes have evolved in concert with general-purpose technologies, such as the printing press, mail delivery, the telegraph, telephone networks, and the Internet.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mumford |first=Lewis |year=1961 |title=The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations, and its Prospects |url=https://archive.org/details/cityinhistoryits00mumf |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World }}</ref>
# [[Knowledge management]] programs link the generation of knowledge (e.g., from science, synthesis, or learning) with its use (e.g., policy analysis, reporting, program management) as well as facilitating organizational learning and adaptation in a knowledge organization.  Knowledge management emerged as a discipline in the 1990s (Leonard, 1995){{full citation needed|date=September 2013}}.
# [[Knowledge organization]]s transfer outputs (content, products, services, and solutions), in the form of knowledge services, to enable external use.  The concept of knowledge organizations emerged in the 1990s.<ref name="Davenport and Prusak, 1998">{{cite book |last1=Davenport |first1=Thomas H. |first2=Laurence |last2=Prusak |year=1998 |title=Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know |publisher=Harvard Business School Press |location=Boston |isbn=0-87584-655-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/workingknowledge00dave }}</ref>
# Knowledge services support other organizational services, yield sector outcomes, and result in benefits for citizens in the context of knowledge markets.  Knowledge services emerged as a subject in the 2000s.<ref name="Simard et al., 2007">{{cite book |last1=Simard |first1=Albert |first2=John |last2=Broome |first3=Malcolm |last3=Drury |first4=Brian |last4=Haddon |first5=Bob |last5=O'Neil |first6=Dave |last6=Pasho |year=2007 |title=Understanding Knowledge Services at Natural Resources Canada |location=Ottawa |publisher=Natural Resources Canada, Knowledge Services Task Group |isbn=978-0-662-44528-9 }}</ref>
# [[Social media]] networks enable knowledge organizations to co-produce knowledge outputs by leveraging their internal capacity with massive social networks.  Social networking emerged in the 2000s<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tapscott |first1=Don |first2=Anthony D. |last2=Williams | author-link1= Don Tapscott | author-link2 = Anthony D. Williams (author) |year=2006 |title=Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything |publisher=Penguin |location=New York |isbn=1-59184-138-0 |title-link=Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything }}</ref>

The hierarchy ranges from the effort of individual specialists, through technical activity, professional projects, and management programs, to organizational strategy, knowledge markets, and global-scale networking.

This framework is useful for positioning the myriad types of knowledge work relative to each other and within the context of organizations, markets, and the global [[knowledge economy]].  It also provides a useful context for planning, developing, and implementing [[knowledge management]] projects.

Loo (2017) investigates how a particular group - creative knowledge workers – carries out their jobs and learns within it. Using empirical data from advertising and software development in England, Japan and Singapore, it develops a new conceptual framework to analyse the complexities of creative knowledge work. The framework draws from four disciplines of business and management, economics, sociology and psychology (Loo, 2017, p.&nbsp;59). Focusing uniquely on the human element of working in the knowledge economy, Loo explores the real world of how people work in this emerging phenomenon and examines the relationships between knowledge and creative dimensions to provide new frameworks for learning and working. This research identified three levels of creative knowledge applications. They relate to intra-sectoral approaches, inter-sectoral approaches (where jobs require different styles of work depending on the sectors), and changes in culture/practices in the sectors. With the intra-sectoral work, they refer to the roles and functions of specific jobs in each of the two sectors of advertising (e.g. copywriting and creative directing) and software development (e.g. software developing and software programme managing). With the inter-sectoral work, it may include software programme managers having different functions when working in different organisations – e.g. a computer software company and a multinational financial organisation. With the last type of creative working, it may include aspects such as the culture of 'good practice' in technical problem-solving and the 'power of expression' in software programming. All the three types of micro-level of creative knowledge work offer a highly contextualized understanding of how these workers operate in the knowledge economy. This approach is different from that taken by Zuboff (1988), Drucker (1993), Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) and Reich (2001) who sought to provide a more generic understanding (Loo, 2017).

Finally, complex creative knowledge work needs a supportive environment. One such environment relates to the supporting technical base. Based on the findings, information, communications and electronic technologies (ICET) are viewed as an organisational tool, a source of ideas (such as the Internet), and a way of modelling a concept. It may also be applied to inter-sectoral activities such as software for cross-disciplinary applications. This organisational tool enables creative knowledge workers to devote their energies to multi-faceted activities such as analysis of huge data sets and the enabling of new jobs such as webpage designing. ICET enables workers to spend more time on advanced activities, which leads to the intensification of creative applications. Lastly, it was noted from the findings that a supportive environment focused on training, work environment, and education (Loo, 2017 [https://www.routledge.com/Creative-Working-in-the-Knowledge-Economy/Loo/p/book/9781138211391 Loo, S. (2017) Creative Working in the Knowledge Economy. Abingdon: Routledge]).