With the past decades of a growing trend in the western-world where knowledge workers are replacing traditional workers the importance of finding ways to attract, retain and engage the former is becoming even more challenging as the preferences of this kind of workers is totally different than for other workers. Non-monetary rewards such as achievement, autonomy and feedback have for a long time been highlighted by researchers to be of importance, yet the human relations departments (HR) still seem not to have realized the importance of such rewards and while HR strategies often are focusing on total rewards as a summary of monetary and non-monetary rewards there is a lack of an uniform ranking of the importance in between them. The purpose of this thesis is to make a ranking of the non-monetary rewards being most valuable for a knowledge worker to retain them within a company. The job mobility for this group is high and failing to retain them would except for short-term costs and organizational knowledge loss risk to create a lack of competitive advantage in long-term. Based on an extensive review of literature and papers by both researchers and practitioners with aspect to motivation theories, knowledge workers and rewards a theoretical framework has been constructed derived to five propositions which have been tested in a single case study. The empirical data was collected from a case being described in-depth and consist of archival data from employee surveys during seven years of time which have been supported by interviews and observations to achieve a triangulation of data. During analysis the findings have been put in relation to the environmental factors present within the case to achieve a rich and trustworthy case study. The findings confirms earlier research that autonomy is one of the highest ranked reward for a knowledge worker but that affiliation is of equal or even higher importance. The result also indicates that the difference between knowledge workers and other kinds of workers with aspect to affiliation is low or even non-existent. The thesis has also shown that autonomy, praise/recognition and career/personal development is of far more importance for a knowledge worker than for other kind of workers which may act as an important input to HR professionals. Furthermore this thesis has by the construct of a theoretical framework based on content theories of motivation contributed with a theoretical ground to the system of total rewards defined by HR professionals.

1969, Peter Drucker defined the phrase ¡§knowledge Economy¡¨ as the use of knowledge to produce economic benefits. The concept that knowledge and education can be treated as business products to be exported for high value return or productive asset becomes reality in the past decades due to the driving forces such as globalization, innovations in information and network technology. November 2004, Halo2, a video game designed exclusively for Microsoft¡¦s Xbox, sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to $125 million US in its first 24 hours on store shelves, thus out-grossing the film Spider-Man 2 as highest grossing release in entertainment history. May 2002, Taiwan Government announced that they will nurture Taiwanese Digital Content industry into a profound force of economy. Among the major members in digital content industry, digital game industry is the one with the most potential. Game Development Talent in Taiwan is well known in pan-Asia region, with the ability to produce high quality games and leading role in Chinese entertainment business. The future for Taiwan game development talent is, without a doubt, bright. Knowledge workers have always been a popular subject of academic research. However, scholars in the past have treated the concept of knowledge worker as a single entity, rather than sets of different sub-group. The paper attempts to focus on the group of who participated in game development with a quantitative approach. The aim is to gain in-depth understanding about the lifestyle of game developers. Socialists¡¦ view of the world consisted of sets of ¡§fields¡¨ with rules to guide behavioral pattern of the people living in it. The behavioral pattern, as well as the tastes and opinions about most things in daily life, is referred as lifestyle. Game developers pay heavy attention on their professions, care less about dining as well as other aspects in daily life. The long working-hour is a major feature in game developers¡¦ lifestyle, and they enjoy such a way of life.

Abstract Peter Drucker (1999), a management master, points out that in the organizations of the 21st century, the most valuable assets of an organization are knowledge workers and the productivity of knowledge workers. Koch (1998) points out that exerting ¡§80/20 Principle¡¨ to find out core customers, investing resource and service on those rare mass-customers who can create most profits, and cultivating the relationship of long-term strategies are the effective ways to increase profits instead of continuously looking for new customers. Telecom industry plays a very important role in the development of Taiwan economy. It is really a crucial issue for this case corporation to focus on how to keep mass-customers in the competitive environment. The cost strengths of customer loyalty come from the factors of men and the outcomes of the long-term mutual interaction between customers and employees. The input of outstanding human resource is the main indicator deciding whether an enterprise possesses competitive strengths or not. The employees serving enterprise customers are the front-line representatives of this case corporation approaching enterprise customers. Outwardly, these employees represent their company, and it goes without saying that the quality and work performance of the employees are very important to the enterprise. The subject of the research is the present knowledge workers serving in the department of enterprise customers in this case corporation. Through the theories and concepts of literature review, the research uses individual attributes and knowledge workers¡¦ management strategies as the independent variables and core competencies as the intermediary variables to explore the relationship among individual attributes, knowledge workers¡¦ management strategies, core competencies and work performance. Among the totally mailed 603 questionnaires, there are 412 effective and available, and the effective return rate of questionnaires is 68.33%. After factor analysis, credibility analysis, variance analysis, correlation analysis and multi-regression analysis, here is the result of the research: 1. There is a positive significance among the research variables of the knowledge workers¡¦ management strategies, the degree of the possession of core competencies and work performance. 2. There is a positive significance between the knowledge workers¡¦ management strategies and the degree of the possession of core competencies: for example, ¡§team encouragement¡¨ has the positive effect on ¡§interpersonal competency,¡¨ ¡§attitude competency,¡¨ and ¡§profession competency,¡¨ and ¡§company learning commitment¡¨ has the effect on ¡§profession competency.¡¨ 3. There is a positive significance between the degree of the possession of core competencies and work performance: for example, ¡§interpersonal competency¡¨ and ¡§profession competency¡¨ significantly have the positive effect on ¡§task performance,¡¨ and ¡§interpersonal competency,¡¨ ¡§attitude competency¡¨ and ¡§profession competency¡¨ all significantly have the positive effect on ¡§contextual performance.¡¨ 4. There is a positive significance between the knowledge workers¡¦ management strategies and work performance: for example, ¡§knowledge leadership¡¨ and ¡§company learning commitment¡¨ significantly have the positive effect on ¡§task performance,¡¨ and ¡§knowledge leadership¡¨ and ¡§team encouragement¡¨ significantly have the positive effect on ¡§contextual performance.¡¨ 5. The knowledge workers¡¦ management strategies have an influence on work performance through the intermediary variables, core competencies: for example, ¡§company learning commitment¡¨ indirectly influences ¡§task performance¡¨ through the intermediary variables ¡§profession competency¡¨ and ¡§team encouragement¡¨ indirectly influence ¡§contextual performance¡¨ through the intermediary variables ¡§interpersonal competency,¡¨ ¡§attitude competency¡¨ and ¡§profession competency.¡¨

In the era of knowledge economy, human capital is the important capital which enterprise can rely on and maintain the competitiveness, and also the source of power for continuous innovation. To stimulate the working intention of knowledge worker is one of the important tasks for an enterprise to elaborate their human capital. This paper investigates the Biotechnology industry in order to understand that how the presentation of human capital in this knowledge intensive industry affects the innovation performance through the knowledge worker management. By the empirical data and statistic analysis in this paper, the findings are as below: I.The aspects of human capital are: the executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors, the entrepreneurship of employees, the investment and exploitation in human capital, and excellent hire. II.The aspects of knowledge worker management are: the leadership of knowledge, the working styles with challenge, the plan of employees¡¦ development, organic designs of work, reasonable evaluation of performance, and the promotion of knowledge exchange. III.The aspects of innovation performance are: innovation of product and innovation of manufacture. IV.The influences of human capital on innovation performance. 1.The executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors and the investment and exploitation of human capital both have significant positive effects on the innovation of products. Among which the investment and exploitation of human capital effects more than the executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors does. 2.The entrepreneurship of employees has a significant negative effect on the innovation of products; the excellent hire has no significant effect. 3.The executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors and the investment and exploitation of human capital both have significant positive effects on the innovation of manufacture. Among which the investment and exploitation of human capital effects more than the executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors does. 4.The entrepreneurship of employees and excellent hire has no significant effect on the innovation of manufacture. V.The moderating effects on innovation performance from the interaction of human capital and knowledge worker management. 1.The interactions of excellent hire and leadership of knowledge, the working styles with challenge, and reasonable evaluation of performance have significant positive effect on innovation of products. 2.The interaction of the executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors and organic designs of work has significant negative effect on innovation of products. 3.The interaction of the investment and exploitation of human capital and organic designs of work has significant positive effect on innovation of products. 4.The interaction of excellent hire and the plane of employees¡¦ development has significant positive effect on innovation of manufacture. 5.The interaction of the investment and exploitation of human capital and reasonable evaluation of performance has significant negative effect on innovation of manufacture. 6.The interaction of the executives¡¦ direction ability of vision supervisors and the promotion of knowledge exchange has significant positive effect on innovation of manufacture. 7.The interaction of the entrepreneurship of employees and the promotion of knowledge exchange has significant negative effect on innovation of manufacture.

With the coming of knowledge economy, competence of knowledge workers has become important human capital in organizations. Competence of knwoeldge workers contribute to organizations¡¦ competitiveness and performance. With the pervasion of information technology in all sorts of organizations, competence of IT professionals has become more and more critical. It is no difference in media industries. Digitalization and electronization are the trends in media industries in recent year. These trends further enhance the reliance of organizations on the competence of IT professionals. Literature about compensation is aboundant, but few addresses IT compensation issues, let along IT compensation in media industries. Therefore, this research investigates into IT comepsantion issues in a leading radio station. Specifically, this research aims to understand: First, what are the factors impacting IT recruiting and IT compensation? What are the core competence of IT professionals in media firm? Using case study approach, this research found professional skills and work experiences matter the most in recruiting, but may not reflect in compensation. This research also identified five types of competence which IT professionals should possess in media firm: professionalism, leadership, interpersonal skill, practical experience, and m motivation.

Two of the most important issues in knowledge age are knowledge management and innovation. Companies that is able to control knowledge, able to develop the ability of innovation. Therefore, understand how to acquire, encode, diffuse, storage knowledge, and how to match knowledge and management system, is very important for organizations. Knowledge workers are the most important carrier of knowledge. They are the one who actually learn, share, use, and create knowledge. Thus, understand and pay attention to knowledge worker and the management of knowledge worker should be considered one part of knowledge management. Moreover, knowledge management should match corporation¡¦s competitive strategy. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relationship among organizational characteristics, knowledge management, strategy of knowledge management, organizational innovation, and consider the influence of the strategy of knowledge management and organizational characters to knowledge management and organizational innovation. The results of the research indicate that: The lifecycle of a company has significant difference on organizational innovation. The scale of a company has also significant difference on organizational innovation. In addition to difference analysis, relation analysis indicates that ¡§connect performance and reward¡¨, ¡¨improve knowledge which is already there¡¨, ¡§leadership of knowledge¡¨, ¡§institutionalize the measurement of knowledge¡¨, ¡§organic organization structure¡¨, and ¡§culture of learning¡¨ has significant influence on organizational innovation. As the result, the suggestions are: companies should develop their manager¡¦s ability of leadership of knowledge; connect performance and reward; improve knowledge which is already there; institutionalize the measurement of knowledge; establish organic organization structure; and create the culture of learning.

Personeelvermindering as gevolg van operasionele redes word gelykgestel aan 'n ekonomiese doodstraf, aangesien geaffekteerde werknemers weinig, indien enige skuld het aan hierdie traumatiese ervaring. Die toenemende bekommernis oor hierdie verskynsel en die totstandkoming van mense-en arbeidsregte het dan ook veroorsaak dat hierdie verskynsel op 'n internasionale vlak omsigtig en deeglik benader word deur beide wetgewers en arbeidsorganisasies. Verandering in die wêreld geskied teen 'n snelle pas en vind op alle terreine van die samelewing plaas. Suid-Afrika is onlosmaakbaar deelgemaak van hierdie wêreld en word dus ook blootgestel aan honger internasionale maatskappye wat almal veg vir oorlewing en groter markaandele in 'n globaliserende wêreldekonomie. Dit laat Suid - Afrika met 'n dringende behoefte om meer mededingend te word. Om dit te kan bereik, moet aan die knellende behoefte aan opleiding aandag geskenk word, sowel as aan die skepping van aantreklike internasionale beleggingsgeleenthede. Internasionale beleggers raak gou afgeskrik deur hoë werkloosheid en misdaad, en hier is Suid -Afrika ver agter die Ooste. Die tendens van globalisering en die uitwerking van sekere aspekte daarvan op werkloosheid noodsaak dus dringende fokus op kwellende kwessies, soos: Hoe om werkloosheid te verminder, teenoor die behoefte aan verhoogde produktiwiteit en verbeterde internasionale mededingingsvermoë. Hierdie veranderinge het ook meegebring dat verbruikers, werknemers en die gemeenskap waarin maatskappye besigheid bedryf, uiters sensitief begin word het vir onverantwoordelike optrede van maatskappye teenoor die gemeenskap, die werknemers en die omgewing. Hierdie veranderinge en die gevolge daarvan lei tot 'n groeiende bewustheid van en ernstige behoefte aan korporatiewe sosiale verantwoordelikheid. Die waarde hiervan word in 'n al hoe groter mate besef en maatskappye aanvaar hierdie verantwoordelikheid toenemend in alle dimensies van die gemeenskap. Die manier waarop maatskappye met mense omgaan, word direk beïnvloed deur werkspraktyke en korporatiewe sosiale verantwoordelikheid het dus 'n fundamentele uitwerking op hoe potensiële hoëgehalte kennis-werkers die maatskappy beskou. Dit word derhalwe al hoe belangriker dat werkgewers die menings van hulle eksterne en interne belangegroepe ernstig opneem, aangesien globalisering besig is om die magsbasis tot voordeel van die werknemers te verskuif. Intussen sal personeelvermindering voortgaan ten spyte van duidelike bewyse dat die langtermynvoordele daarvan verdag is, en dit plaas 'n enorme sosiale verantwoordelikheid op werkgewers. Die goed nagevorste verband tussen misdaad en werkloosheid dui duidelik op die onderprestering van die regering teenoor beloftes wat gemaak is. Dit is juis om dié rede dat die rol van maatskappye in die gemeenskap al hoe meer onlosmaaklik deel van die besigheid word. Die uiteindelike gevolg hiervan is 'n onaanvaarbare hoë misdaadsyfer, wat weer lei tot 'n gebrek aan beleggingsvertroue, wat op sy beurt weer lei tot personeelvermindering. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Sociology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

Background: As employees have become one of the key assets providing companies competitive advantage, the importance of talent retention has grown. This holds true especially in industries such as information technology, where firms not only have to adapt to the needs and expectations of Generation Y but are also experiencing a substantial shortage of knowledge workers. Purpose: The goal of this thesis is to first gain an understanding of what tools and techniques Finnish IT companies are using to approach the topic of retention, a process guided by theory. The existing literature and empirical findings are then combined to create a model for enhancing the retention of IT knowledge workers. Method: Empirical data was generated through interviews with ten Finnish IT firms employing knowledge workers, all different in terms of organizational characteristics and retention approaches. Template analysis was then used to infer meaningful findings from the data. Conclusion: The results show that retention of IT knowledge workers should be approached holistically. There are five categories (Training and Development; Compensation and Benefits; Flexibility and Work-life Balance; Organizational Culture; and Organizational Prestige) that must all be given thought to before implementing retention tools and techniques identified as most suitable for the specific organizational context.

Clinical information systems are being introduced into nurses’ work at an alarming rate. These systems are implemented with limited input from nurses who provide direct patient care, and without considering human factors in the systems design and implementation process. The need for nurses to be involved at every level of decision-making as it relates to technological innovation into their work is imperative to mitigate system failure and truly support their work. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is two-fold: 1) to discuss evidence that suggests that the nurse is not really viewed as an end user in most clinical information systems implementations and 2) to describe the implications of this misperception to the nurse, organization, and nursing profession.

Reviewing the whole development history of management and the era background, we can find that the theories and practices of management are always continuing changing and improving. In addition, each industry starts to promote and apply the theories and practices of management to the operation of its individual industry with the changes or evolvements of the all industries in the outside environment. With the coming of knowledge economy in the 21st century, here comes the birth of ¡§knowledge management,¡¨ and it also becomes the focus of the active implementation in each industry and business enterprise. First, knowledge management is actively implemented in business enterprises, bringing great effects and positive influences just like what Peter Drucker said in 1965¡X¡§knowledge¡¨ is going to replace tangible assets such as machines, facilities, capital, materials, and labors, and becomes the most important key element of production in business enterprises. Besides, ¡§knowledge workers¡¨ will also replace the traditional labors and become the most efficient instrument which brings great benefits to business enterprises. Likewise, a hospital itself is an organization, too. In fact, the medical staffs in hospitals such as physicians and nurses are right the knowledge workers who are able to drive knowledge management. Moreover, the implementation of knowledge management in healthcare organizations or hospitals is still in the beginning phase. For this reason, the study will explore the realization and practice of knowledge management between middle level managers and basic level nurses. With regard to the implementation of knowledge management, the study is going to explore the practices and comparisons between the middle level managers and the basic level nurses in terms of knowledge acquisition, knowledge creation, knowledge storage, knowledge spread, and knowledge application, and to explore the outcomes of the implementation of knowledge management between these two levels under the enabling factors of knowledge management. Through the analyses and comparisons of the interview cases, here are the results and findings of the study: 1. The knowledge that the middle level managers and basic level nurses mainly value is the professional knowledge and skills of nursing. Then the concepts of services and the access environment and safety of patients are also concerned. 2. With regard to the implementation of knowledge management, the middle level managers and the basic level nurses both think that there is no specific or fixed one person who is responsible for the implementation of knowledge management but all people who work together to implement knowledge management according to their individual responsibility and accountability; that is, knowledge management is achieved by the division of labor. 3. As to the process and enabling factors of knowledge management exerted by the middle level managers and the basic level nurses, here are the outcomes: (a) In terms of knowledge acquisition, for the basic level nurses in the units, the most sources of collected knowledge are from books, periodicals, magazines, and rarely theses; for the middle level managers, almost the same as the basic level nurses. However, there are still some differences. For example, the vice director in charge of academic affairs thinks e-mails are also one of the sources of collected knowledge; the other vice director in charge of clinical practices, the head nurses in the units are also one of the sources of collected knowledge. (b) In terms of knowledge creation, both the middle level managers and the basic level nurses think that there is the mechanism of rewards in the hospital, such as the points of reward money and the reward money for new ideas. Furthermore, there are the competition reward money for QCC projects and the reward money for research proposals as well. Nevertheless, there is no cooperation in research between the nursing units in the hospital and other outside institutes or organizations, but there is cooperation relationship between the hospital and the nursing schools. For instance, the hospital is open for the nursing practicum of nursing students. (c) In terms of knowledge storage, both the middle level managers and the basic level nurses think the knowledge stored in the nursing department and units is paper-oriented and documentation-oriented. The paper documentation is usually keyed in and saved in the Word files of computers. However, part of knowledge is possibly not presented through the paper documentation and not saved in so-called ¡§knowledge base¡¨ but then stored in personal brain through the oral sharing. (d) In terms of knowledge spread, there is one difference in the priority of the same ways frequently used to spread knowledge between the middle level managers and the basic level nurses. For example, the basic level nurses think the priority of the frequent ways used to spread knowledge in the units is informally oral dialogs, ward-checking, ward or morning meetings, and educational on-the-job training; the middle level managers, the priority of the frequent ways used to spread knowledge is educational on-the-job training, ward or morning meetings, seminars or studying clubs, and ward-checking. The best mechanism of knowledge spread in the units, both the middle level managers and the basic level nurses think, is educational on-the-job training. Meanwhile, there are also the small library rooms as the mechanism of knowledge spread in the units, but the effect of the library rooms is not that ideal in the viewpoints of the basic level nurses. (e) In terms of knowledge application, both the middle level managers and the basic level nurses think that they can effectively use the knowledge base composed of documentation and paper to find the information they need in short time, and the QCC projects are conducive to the quality improvement. In addition, both of them also think the knowledge and skills learned from the on-the-job training for the whole hospital employees and for the unit nurses can be applied to daily work. (f) In terms of the enabling factors of knowledge management, both the middle level managers and the basic level nurses think that the nursing department and the units encourage knowledge sharing and mutual discussion among employees. More than half of the basic level nurses think that the head nurses in the units offer them enough encouragement and support; the two vice directors as the middle level managers, their director offers them enough encouragement and support. Meanwhile, the majority of the basic level nurses think the ideal environment of knowledge development and the ideal welfare system of compensation management will make them be more delighted to share their knowledge and skills. However, the middle level managers think the support from the director, good leadership and positive approvals will make them be more delighted to share knowledge and skills. Moreover, most of the basic level nurses agree that the head nurses in the units will consider offering different courses of training to different employees according to their needs. The two vice directors as the middle level managers also think that the nursing department will also considering offering different courses of training to different employees according to their needs. Finally, the study proposes four suggestions to the case hospital, such as (1) improving the installation and application of knowledge flat-top building, (2) reinforcing the motivation and incentive of the mechanism of rewards, (3) opening the training courses of upgrading information ability for the nurses, and (4) adding one specific worker who is only responsible for knowledge management.