Peter Drucker wrote quite a bit about knowledge workers (the earliest
reference I've found without effort is "Managing in Turbulent Times"
published in 1980). It was quite apparent that Drucker was specifically
delineating between unskilled and skilled workers, especially where
automation replaced human labor but engendered more work for people with
specialized knowledge and skills.
I think that one of the more dramatic consequences of this change to
Drucker was the substantial economic impact this transition had. As he
points out, capital investment no longer resulted in labor savings, but
instead increased labor costs as workers were needed who had greater
knowledge, skills AND the ability/incentive to learn new skills and
knowledge to stay current.
There's several websites I found that discuss knowledge workers, but this
one was interesting to me:
http://www.careerdynamics.com/knowwork.html
Finally, I think that the term itself simply identified a significant
transition in the workforce, just as "nuclear family" once identified a
significant change in the composition of the family in industrialized
societies. I'm certain that Drucker didn't use it as a pejorative. It
may be that we can also describe these same workers as "learning workers."
regards,
Doc
-- "The familiar life horizon has been outgrown, the old concepts, ideals and emotional patterns no longer fit, the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand." -Joseph CampbellRichard C. "Doc" Holloway Your partner for workforce development Visit me at http://www.thresholds.com/community/learnshops/index.html Or e-mail me at <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com> Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2361 Phone: 01 360 786 0925 Olympia, WA 98507 USA Fax: 01 360 709 4361
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>