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Abstract: This article discusses the challenges of knowledge workers and their management. Knowledge workers are employees whose major working tool and asset is knowledge. It is especially the tacit dimension of knowledge and the ability of knowledge workers to develop and use it that makes the difference between knowledge and non-knowledge workers. Due to the intangibility of tacit knowledge, knowledge workers are difficult to manage. The main part of their work is hidden. Knowledge workers usually do not work in a linear way, the results of their work may differ from a short-term and long-term perspective. Managers have a limited opportunity to interfere in the process of their work and intervene in the case of problems. It is also difficult to manage their productivity. In our paternalistic and hierarchic culture managers often limit the performance of their knowledge workers by applying a too authoritative managerial style, which is based on orders and control. This article provides the reader with a review of theoretical literature on knowledge workers and their management and on topics related to knowledge workers. The review presents the ideas and concepts of different authors and indicates that there is no single understanding of who is and who is not a knowledge worker. The term knowledge worker is somewhat ambiguous. Empirical data represent the part of the empirical research on knowledge workers and their management executed by the University of Economics in Prague. The research started in the autumn of 2010 and it still continues. The objective of the research is to verify some aspects of knowledge work and the management of knowledge workers. This article discusses the part of the research focused on the style of management of knowledge workers. The stress is put on factors that positively influence the performance of knowledge workers and the ideas of knowledge workers on how they would like to be managed. Other topics of the research have been or will be discussed in other publications.
Keywords: knowledge workers, management of knowledge workers, performance of knowledge workers, knowledge, style of management
1. The research on knowledge workers and their management
The research on knowledge workers and their management started in autumn 2010 and it still continues. The main hypothesis of the research is that...