This study considers the predictive power of gender in the perceived job suitability of male and female applicants seeking employment as knowledge workers. Four research questions were generated in order to address the problem statement of identifying if suitability for job fit in the knowledge economy is influenced more by gender or qualification: • Do managers differentiate between the perceived job suitability of male and female potential employees? • Do managers differentiate between the perceived job suitability of less-qualified male and more-qualified female potential employees? • Do managers differentiate between the perceived job suitability of equally morequalified male and female potential employees? • Do managers differentiate between the perceived job suitability of equally lessqualified male and female potential employees? In this simple study, respondents were asked to rank eight candidates’ suitability for a knowledge worker job. The results were collated, cleaned and validated before being subjected to a Wilcoxon matched pairs signed ranks test (for non-parametric variables). The results demonstrated that overall, gender is the better predictor of job suitability, however, the more qualified a candidate is, the less gender can be relied upon as an accurate predictor for job suitability. All the results from this study have been discussed in terms of their suggestions for future research in selection bias in hiring and gender bias. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

It is a widely held belief that those who are attractive generally experience an easier life; that the door to success is opened by perfect bone structure and a sparkling white smile. However, this might not be the case. Attractiveness might play a far lesser role in individual’s achieving their objectives than has previously been thought. Is it possible that an individual’s qualifications may have a greater influence regarding the perceptions of managers who question the suitability of a candidate to fill the position of a Knowledge Worker? The main purpose of this research was not only to identify the existence of the so-called Beauty Premium in the Knowledge Economy but, to determine that if it does indeed exist, how to explore the influence of this aspect regarding the hiring decisions for which managers are responsible. A two-phased experimental design was followed that investigated the existence and strength of the Beauty Premium amongst a group of managers who were provided with fictitious resumes coupled with photographs of the applicants. These managers were requested to make a hiring decision based on the information in front of them. The results revealed the existence of a Beauty Premium but that is was relatively weak and that the qualification of an individual had a far greater influence on a manager’s perception of the suitability of a candidate to fill a position of a Knowledge Worker. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

Organisations seek methods to maximise performance in order to be successful. The purpose of this study was to examine and empirically quantify the drivers of organisational energy in relation to driving organisational performance. Organisational energy can be seen as the power source that ignites all aspects of organisational climate and behaviour. Most importantly, this study sought to develop the existing theory further and to operationalise the variables for organisations.A quantitative analysis was conducted on data collected from 292 knowledge workers across a wide range of industries. A questionnaire was used to measure respondents’ observations on the drivers of organisational energy and performance in the workplace. Statistical techniques including factor analysis, regression analysis and analysis of variance were applied to determine whether significant relations exist amongst the variables.In complementing and expanding on preceding research, this study provided empirical evidence of the relationship between organisational energy and organisational performance. It also demonstrated the most statistically significant drivers of organisational energy to be that of innovation followed by collective identity and engagement. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Demand for knowledge workers has increased relative to the available supply. A further cause for concern is that the requirements for managing knowledge workers differ from those for managing lower qualified employees. Due to scarcity and different management requirements, attracting and retaining the best available knowledge workers poses a serious challenge.The purpose of this study was to to identify and understand the impact of some of the key factors that motivate knowledge workers.A quantitative research design was employed with knowledge workers the targeted sample through purposive sampling combined with an element of snowballing. The final sample consisted of 91 respondents from different industries, educational backgrounds and age groups, but who all indicated that they were knowledge workers in the survey. The survey data was tested for reliability, validity and factor analysis used to narrow down the elements for the statistical analysis of the hypotheses.Following the research, the initial five hypotheses were narrowed down to four of which three were correlated to knowledge worker motivation. Management relationships as well as independence and interpersonal relationships were positively correlated whilst staff turnover was negatively correlated to knowledge worker motivation. Based on the research outcomes, recommendations were made to both knowledge workers and management. Furthermore, suggested areas for future research were provided. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Companies within the high-technology industry are largely dependent on a specialised knowledge base to make advances in technological innovations and maintain a competitive advantage. Technology start-ups (TSUs) have limited resources and face various organisational challenges which place them at a disadvantage in the recruitment of skilled knowledge workers. This research investigates the factors which attract highly skilled knowledge workers to technology start-ups (TSUs) in South Africa, despite their numerous challenges. This study used a mixed method design involving 129 knowledge workers. Exploratory interviews were conducted in the first phase to investigate which factors attracted knowledge workers to TSUs. An Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint (ACBC) experiment in the second phase tested the relative importance of the attributes that were identified during the interviews and in the literature. The findings revealed that intellectual challenge and financial package were the most important individual attributes while non-financial job attributes were most important overall. Different preferences existed between genders although not between job types. The entrepreneurial aspirations of the knowledge worker were also found to be a significant factor in their attraction to a TSU. Recommendations are made to TSUs for recruiting talent based on the findings.Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Individually held knowledge is one of an organization’s most valuable assets. The extent to which an organization can leverage that asset depends on its members’ not only applying knowledge in their work, but also exchanging and transferring knowledge with others in the organization. We still know very little, however, about why some knowledge workers are more or less willing to share their specialized knowledge with others. I argue that a robust explanation can be found in the risks or opportunities that knowledge sharing poses to personal identity. Specifically, knowledge workers’ willingness to share knowledge with others can be explained by the importance they place on that component of personal identity associated with expertise (i.e., their expertise identity). I systematically explore contingency factors that might influence the effect of knowledge workers’ expertise identity on their willingness to share knowledge, including other aspects of the self, dyadic social relationships, team identification, and the organizational environment. Finally, I argue that the effects of people’s knowledge sharing will be evidenced in the learning outcomes realized by those around them. I conducted a cross-sectional survey study at a national engineering firm. The final sample included 221 members of 40 continuing teams (55% response rate). In addition to self-report data, surveys captured respondents’ round-robin peer ratings of fellow team members on multiple constructs, including a measure of individuals’ willingness to share their specialized expertise with others in terms of sharing the full range of personal techniques, reasoning, and experience that form the basis of their own mastery. I conducted analyses using multilevel modeling and social relations modeling techniques. Results supported 4 of 6 hypotheses. An individual’s willingness to share knowledge with others was higher when expertise identity was high and dyadic trust, receiver expertise, and team identification were also high. Further, people with high expertise identity were less willing to share knowledge than people with low expertise identity when dyadic trust, receiver expertise, and team identification were low. Implications of these results, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed. / text

The relationship among the Taiwan¡¦s multinational corporations¡¦ knowledge management and the organization¡¦s role of human resource management Abstract Today, the commercial environment face the change of globalization, according to improve the corporations¡¦ efficiency and performance, corporations will transfer the core competences and the knowledge of operation practices inside the organization to others organization units, especially to the multinational corporations. Based on Drucker (1993) said, the knowledge workers are the most important property inside the organization. The knowledge need the appropriate persons to practice, creating and storing, so, how to keep the good person and integrate their knowledge inside the organization, that need ¡¨ human resource management system¡¨ to process. This research chose four multinational corporations which nationality is Taiwan. These four company coming from: the traditional livelihood industry; the traditional infrastructure industry; the high-tech manufacturer and information software research and development industry. This research concludes some propositions through the interview with top managers of these sample corporations. Positions are as follows: Proposition 1: the more explicit that the core knowledge inside organization was, the more complete that the information technology infrastructure done, the more possible that the corporation will take the system knowledge management strategy; the more tacit that the core knowledge inside organization was, the more important the tacit system was, such as, the organization culture, pay attention to the people and so on, to force the knowledge management. Proposition 2: the more that the core competition of the enterprises tends to be the market exploration, the easier they will use the partial step-by-step knowledge management strategy. the more that the core competition of the enterprises tend to be the technology exploration, the easier they will use the integral system knowledge management strategy. Proposition 3: the more complex that the need of global knowledge originality strategy (the localize and the global integrate level increased),the stronger that the effect of human resource management coordinate and control. Proposition 4: the role that the knowledge management organization plays in an enterprise follows the different executive step of the knowledge management in the enterprise has its different position. Proposition 5: the higher that the level of the enterprise knowledge management systematize ,the greater that the role of human resource management plays .besides, the higher that the level of personalizing of the enterprise knowledge management system, the greater that the roll of human resource management in strategetical execution. Proposition 6: the strategy about knowledge management of the enterprise and the human capital of the enterprise are to complement each other. From the six propositions, we can derive the following two important conclusion: 1. By the diversification of the knowledge management, the organization should select that can adopt to its characteristic of knowledge and compare to its competition strategy of knowledge management strategy. So that it can afford positive promotion of organization management achievements. Besides, the organization should transform to organic organization to construct the opening culture makes benefits of the knowledge flow; the organization should make his endeavor to build up the culture of edution to make learning and effective interaction to all action of the member in the organization and the manager should promote his own leadership. 2. The diversified roll of the human resource management, in the recruited policy, we pay more attention on the potential of staff and the corresponding of culture of education to make more benefits to carry out knowledge management. In the training, the develop scheme which is centered by the staff makes each member can be the knowledge contributor to pass the values toward the knowledge of the organization in the courses. Plot and connect the achievement system. The human resource professional should make progress with knowledge management science. Besides, we should progress the step task toward the strategy of knowledge management and realize the situation of the knowledge management proceeded in the organization. From inside of this, we can position the roll of human resource management organization and cooperate with the strategy of the company knowledge management to derive the hugest management result. Keyword: multinational knowledge management; knowledge flow, knowledge management strategy, knowledge workers, human resource management

The diligent working attitude of Taiwanese employees has created miracle in Taiwanese economy. The result of investing too much time in their career does not only affect their psychological well-being but also impact their family dynamic. According to some researches, working overtime does not always bring benefit to the organizations; nevertheless, working overtime is still a widespread phenomenon even though there are labor laws to regulate such behavior in Taiwan, Karoshi is quite common on the news. This research samples knowledge workers to investigate the relationship between employees¡¦ motivations, cognitions, and behaviors of working overtime; the moderating effects specific to job characteristic will be studied as well. Furthermore, we have identified the motivations for work overtime into three main categories: immediate rewards, seeking for career growth potential, and peer pressure from other employees. The first category is immediate rewards, which simply referred to overtime pay or extra vacation days employees earn from working overtime. The second category of motivations to work overtime is to seek for a career growth potential in the near future. By working overtimes, the employees hope the employers can see the dedication employees had put into their work then provide employees opportunities to move onto a higher level position or an increase in compensation. Peer pressure is the third category of motivation for people to work overtime. The employees feel pressure to be the first one to step out off the office while others are still working after their regular work hours. In addition, this research also analyzed the relationship between work performance evaluations and emotions associated with overtime; identifying specific behaviors associated with working overtime by analyzing the relationship between how man overtime hours worked and how often one will need to work overtime. By doing this research, we hope that we hope we can provide a better understanding of the extended hours overtime phenomenon in Taiwan. Through the real example analyses, this research acquires the following results: 1.There is no obvious relation between seeking a career growth potential and employees¡¦ feeling toward overtime; nor there direct connection between motivation for overtime and emotions which associated with working overtime. 2.However, our real example analyses do show a positive relationship between motivation due to peer pressure for working overtime and work performance evaluation for overtime. Nerveless, the research data shows a inverse relation between motivations due to peer pressure for working overtime and emotions associated with working overtime. 3.There is a positive relationship between seeking a career growth potential and hours worked. 4.If one is concerned his/her evaluations from his/her supervisor, then there will be an obvious increasing in his/her overtime working days and hours but there is no connection with the work emotions. 5.The individual control of work will cause negative interference with the motives and the evaluations of overtime working; the feedback and the integrity of work will cause positive interference.

The Corporate Real Estate Executive has many factors to consider when selecting and outfitting workspace for the company's employees, most of whom are knowledge workers. There are many factors to consider other than cost including the office space design, the LEED or other green building characteristics of the space,the business context in which the company operates, and how all these factors work together to impact productivity. A workplace and productivity assessment tool was completed for four different companies to assess eight different productivity elements and how they interact to impact productivity. Two companies occupied LEED certified facilities, one company occupied a green building, and the fourth company was in conventional office space.

This doctoral thesis examines the construct of organizational identity of knowledge workers involved in a merger or acquisition, to gain insights into the complex social-behavioural responses of participants to perceptions of imposed integration of social groups. Following a qualitative case study methodology, this study used observation and interview data collection to capture the authentic experiences of participants from the host firm, and from the two acquired groups. The central curiosity guiding this study asked if continuity in subordinate identities, that transition relatively seamlessly from acquired to host organizations, offers the same adaptive or insulating effect against identity threat as superordinate identification. The central thesis proposed that despite the relative consistency between subgroup identities, the involuntary introduction of new members into a work team would continue to arouse perceptions of identity threat and provoke associated efforts to resist assimilation through withholding cohesion-building behaviours. The data were analysed using Atlas-ti to draw out key themes and patterns. The results suggested a relationship between the different integration strategies applied to the two acquisitions, and the participants’ perceptions of the integration. The data also suggested a relationship between levels of identity and reluctance to extend and engage in cohesion-building behaviours among host and adopted participants. Serendipitous findings pointed to potential triggers for the identity-related resistance, that most notably included status and dominance confusion that interfered with perceptions of identity continuity, and resistance to over-inclusion in superordinate and principle identities that lacked salience and distinctiveness. This paper introduced two new concepts to the field of identity research, including principle identity, and resistance to cohesion building behaviors. This paper also examined the perspectives of knowledge workers, as a distinctive cohort, to gain some insights into if and how a merger of like-professionals is experienced uniquely. Finally, the qualitative case study methodology offered an opportunity to examine the macro-economic contexts of the two acquisitions for relevance, and these contexts were found to be significant to a holistic understanding of the experiences of the integrations. / qualitative case study