Futureorientation 1/2009
Dear Reader. Knowledge Work – what is it? What is it not? Is it working with the brain or must the heart be in it, too? And what about the other senses we are gifted with: sight, smell, hearing, and taste? Does knowledge work take place in an office or does it happen in a harvester or at a welding station? Is service work knowledge work?
Theme: The Knowledge work issue
Benja Stig Fagerland: Shall women save the world’s economy?
The financial crisis has spoken, and has shown that the number of women in corporate management has an important effect on share prices. Therefore, the financial crisis leads to a cultural revolution that now favors female leaders, according to professor Michel Ferrary.
Sally Khallash Bengtsen & Julie Kronstrøm Carton: From knowledge worker to knowledge entrepreneur
The future belongs to the knowledge entrepreneur, who happens to be far ahead of the knowledge worker we know today. But who is this knowledge entrepreneur, and why are work and the economy moving in this direction?
Anita Mac: Projects are not for managing
Traditional project management methods dictate that project objectives and success criteria be defined and established at the outset in order to reduce uncertainty and shorten the route to a satisfactory result. A newer model, a more complex zone model, recommends providing plenty of scope for the explorative and creative elements of project work so that unique solutions can be found before project management starts. We offer some ideas for developing project organization in your company.
Oliver Bernhard Pedersen: The knowledge worker: A source of innovation
Employee-driven innovation is a good way to harness the huge quantity of knowledge your employees possess. Get six tips on how to make it a success in your company.
Johan Peter Paludan’s comment: Asking the right question
There is a story about Francis Bull (1887-1974), who was a Norwegian professor of literature. He was particularly famous for his memory. It was a prerequisite for his being able to hold many lectures for his fellow prisoners during the three years he sat in Grini, the Norwegian concentration camp in the Second World War.
Nikolaj Henum: Give me info, but not too much of it
Internal communication is a priority area of great importance for the success of the company. What you as an employee know and what you do not know about the company are determining factors for your sense of industry and your relationship to your workplace. Read about the balance imperative to good internal communication, and about where responsibility for this task should be placed.
Peter Khallash Bengtsen: Knowledge does not create growth
Knowledge does not create growth unless there is competence. That is why there will be minor and major changes for knowledge workers of the future. Knowledge work will spread to more sectors and place new demands on a larger part of the global labor force. Here are a few glimpses at the tendencies that come into focus as the global knowledge workforce and its knowledge competency develops in the next decade.
Evan Selinger: An innovation university
Rochester Institute of Technology, a college located in Rochester New York, strives to become an “innovation university” that produces graduates capable of succeeding far beyond ordinary mid-level positions in industry.
Sally Khallash Bengtsen & Julie Kronstrøm Carton: Global knowledge work up to 2020
“A joined-up world” is the positive scenario for global knowledge work in the future. But it is only one possibility. In another scenario, Western knowledge workers lose ground to the new economies. Read the two scenarios about how global knowledge work may develop up to 2020.
Essay by Morten Grønborg: The impotent organization – or: where are the creatives?
A snowboarder at full speed down the slopes. The sun reflected in the whirling clouds of snow. The sky overhead is blue, a snowy mountain is the backdrop. It is personal fulfillment at full speed. Freedom.
Adam Morgan: The power of monsters
We have forgotten much of what we learned in our literature classes at school. But we remember the basics of a good story: a hero, conflict and, more often than not, a monster. What’s your monster going to be?
