Knowledge and Information Work in Organizations
19 Pages Posted: 15 Oct 2008
Date Written: December 1994
Abstract
Since the turn of the century, the United States, Canada, and Western Europe havebeen moving toward service and information economies and away from an agricultural andmanufacturing economies (Euromonitor, 1990; Machlup, 1962; Rubin and Huber, 1986;Porat, 1977). The fraction of workers using information to produce economic value hasbeen rising, and the fraction working with their hands in factories or on farms has beendeclining. In the United States, the percentage of jobs in manufacturing fell from 27percent in 1920 to 17 percent in 1990. In the European Community, the value-added bymanufacturing grew at an average annual rate of 6.2 percent from 1960 to 1970, but thisgrowth rate was only 0.7 percent from 1980 to 1985. Among white-collar workers, thefastest growing occupations have been clerical, professional, and technical workers, andmanagers and administrators (Wolff and Baumol, 1987).Six factors have been involved in this shift. First, third-world and developingsocieties have become centers of manufacturing, while the so-called advanced societieshave shifted toward services. In Europe, the telecommunications sector has been growingabout 9 to 11 percent annually, and the software and computing services sector has beengrowing 15 to 20 percent annually (Sema Group, 1991). Second, knowledge-intense andinformation-intense products and services have grown rapidly, and the production oftraditional products has also been using knowledge more intensively. Third, business hasinvested heavily in equipment to support information work. In the United States,information-related equipment accounted for 20 percent of capital investment in 1979; thisfigure had become 40 percent of capital investment by 1986. Fourth, knowledge workersand information workers have replaced manual production workers within themanufacturing sectors. Machine-tool operators, for instance, have often been replaced bytechnicians who monitor computer-controlled machine tools. Fifth, workers haveincreased education and information-processing skills (Howell and Wolff 1991). Sixth,new kinds of knowledge-intense and information-intense organizations have emerged thatare devoted entirely to the production, processing, and distribution of information. These new kinds of organizations employ millions of people (Office of Technology Assessment,1988).As early as 1976, the value of information-sector products and services hadalready exceeded that of the manufacturing sector in the U. S. By 1990, the informationsector (including services) accounted for $3 out of every $4 of GNP, and over half of theU. S. workers were doing some type of information work (Howell and Wolff, 1993;Roach, 1988). The U. S., however, represents an extreme case. For instance, in thesoftware and computing services sector, the United States has about 55 percent of theworld market, the European Community has about 25 percent, and Japan has about 8percent (Sema Group, 199 1).This article surveys information work, information workers, and the computersystems that support such work. It then examines the organizations that are mostdependent on knowledge and information work -- knowledge-intensive firms.
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