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Keywords Knowledge organizations, Employee productivity, Performance measures, Quality
Abstract The structure of the economy continues to change; where once they are dependent on the productivity of a manual workforce, companies increasingly depend on the productivity of knowledge workers. Today, knowledge workers account for more than two-thirds of the workforce, and thus should be the focus of strategic plans to improve productivity. Currently there are no universally accepted methods to measure knowledge worker productivity, or even generally accepted categories. This paper provides a taxonomy of knowledge worker productivity measurements, and identifies a number of productivity dimensions that are used to categorize the findings of previous research. Also describes the relative density of discussions along these dimensions and identifies critical areas for future research.
1. Introduction
Once primarily dependent on the productivity of manual workers, industry increasingly depends on the productivity of knowledge workers (KWs). The proportion of KWs in the workforce has increased dramatically, as organizations have moved from manual production to a more automated, and knowledge-driven, production. KWs are rapidly becoming the single largest group in the work force of every developed country (Drucker, 1999; Helton, 1988). However, this has not always been the case. In 1920, the ratio of manual workers to KWs was 2:1 (Davenport, 2002). By 1980, the ratio was 1:2. The midpoint in this shift seems to have been 1956, the year "white-collar" workers first outnumbered "blue-collar" workers (Naisbitt, 1982; Thomas and Baron, 1994). Nickols (2000) notes that the pace of the shift from manual work to knowledge work seems to be nearing steady state. Some see the emergence of KWs as a consequence of a broader shift from an industrial to a post-industrial society (Drucker, 1988). Because of the impact of KWs in the economy's performance, they are perceived as an important area of opportunity and are starting to be included in organizational strategic plans to improve productivity (Gordon, 1997; Berglind and Scales, 1987).
In the global economy, companies are often unable to recover the rising cost of materials, labor, and other resources by simply raising prices (Picard, 1998). Increasing the productivity of KWs provides an opportunity for increasing profits by improving the overall process or product instead of simply eliminating costs. Peter Drucker (1999) states:
... the challenge...