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Managing Knowledge Workers Unleashing Innovation and Productivity

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A. D. Amar

ISBN: 1-56720-448-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-56720-448-3

DOI:

264 pages

Praeger Publishers

Publication: 10/30/2001

List Price: $110.95 (UK Sterling Price: £76.95)

Availability: Print on demand

Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Ebook

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

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Description: With the emergence of a powerful new breed of organization--the knowledge organization--comes a bold new challenge to the old ways of managing people. Workers with special cutting-edge knowledge and the ability to transform it into marketable goods and services can not be managed the old command-and-control way, nor even by some of the more enlightened ways developed since then. Only new ways, and old ways updated and adapted to special new situations, can work. Only in this way can innovation and productivity--the crucial ingredients for success in knowledge-based organizations--be harnessed. Indeed, it is the capacity to innovate, not the infusion of huge amounts of capital, that is the true predictor of success in these new companies. Just as the baby boomers working in traditional settings differ from those who went before, so do the later generations of X-ers and Y-ers differ from them. Their sociology and psychology are totally different, and Amar shows specifically how and why. The result is an in-depth presentation of whom these knowledge workers are and how to select, adapt, and develop new concepts, principles, strategies, and techniques to achieve the unique successes they are capable of delivering.

Amar highlights the difference between these new, knowledge-based organizations and their traditional counterparts. He makes clear with examples, anecdotes, and other illustrative material that the driving force behind them is their ability to innovate. These organizations attract special types of people, and, as Amar points out, they have their own ways of seeing the world and doing things in it. They tend to decry and defy tradition. Amar explores the sociology and psychology of these startling new workers, and provides management with a full bag of tools to interact with them, including ways to redesign work itself as well as the entire organization, plus new ways to approach the commonplace functions of decision-making, leading, motivating, and controlling. He also provides special insights into the modification of behavior, and a means to assess when it can be useful and productive.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Knowledge Organizations
Knowledge Organizations and Environment
Appendix 1-1: E-Business: Selection and Adaption of Products and Services for the Internet Commerce by A.D. Amar
Knowledge Workers
Sociology of Knowledge Workers
Training, Learning, and Behavior Modification in Knowledge Environment
Knowledge Work and Organization
Making Knowledge Work a Pleasure
Teaming and Grouping Strategies: It's a Symbiosis
Knowledge Work Organization and Design
Management Functions in Knowledge Organizations
Make Sure No One Decides for Them
Leading to be a Leader
Keeping Them Going: Motivation in Knowledge Environment
Putting Them in Control
Appendix 10-1: Controls and Creativity in Organization
Lifting Them Up: Combating Low Morale in Knowledge Organizations
Future of Knowledge Organizations
Knowledge Organizations in the Twenty-First Century

About the Author: A. D. AMAR is Professor of Management at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University. Also Director and Editor of The Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business, he has published more than 50 articles in other periodicals as well. He holds degrees in engineering and management engineering, an MBA from Baruch College, and a doctorate in business from City University of New York. Among his clients as a consultant at various times are General Motors, VW/Audi USA, the Social Security Administration and The Human Resource Administration of the City of New York.

LCC Class: 658


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