Proceedings of FSWKS_06 conference abstracts

Endangered degrees of freedom. IT-workers as knowledge workers

Title:

"Endangered degrees of freedom. IT-workers as knowledge workers"


Author:

Martin Bechmann
(ITAS, FZK, Karlsruhe, Germany)



"Knowledge Work" is becoming a widely used term to describe the work of the knowledge society. It is mainly related to question of work organisation. However, the term implies some methodological problems: Because of the variety of definitions, it remains unclear who exactly is doing knowledge work and how attributes commonly linked to knowlegde work apply to knowledge workers. Also, it's analytical potential is unclear. The author presents some findings from an empirical study on knowledge work in the IT-sector.
A systematical approach to varying forms of knowledge work is proposed. Based on that theoretical framework, empirical results will be presented, in which IT-workers have been interviewed on their perception of their work, their position within their firm and work-live balance.


Key-words:

Knowledge work, Knowledge society, ICT, work organisation