SUPPORTING DISTRIBUTED KNOWLEDGE WORK IN A KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE ORGANISATION

Abstract

This study focuses on the phenomenon of distributed knowledge work and examines how a knowledge intensive organisation can support the work of its distributed workforce. The goal of the study is to understand the aspects of distributed work and its challenges from the employee perspective, and discover how an organisation can better support those employees working in the distributed work environment. The case organisation in the study is VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, and the research was conducted as a part of an internal development project aiming at providing new workplace solutions and practises for the knowledge workers. The study examined a part of the organisation, 114 employees located in a particular office building in Otaniemi. The empirical part of the study was conducted using a mixed method approach, consisting of a survey study and two group interviews of differently distributed teams at the case organisation. The data were analysed with statistical methods and content analysis.

The theoretical part of the study examined previous research about the distributed phenomenon in the context of knowledge workers. The theoretical review showed that the distribution of knowledge work has increased due to the changes experienced in the working environment, which are mostly based on technological advances enabling work to be conducted anytime and anyplace. The developments have added distributed and mobile features in organisations in terms of employees working in and between multiple locations and collaborating across time and space. Previous studies have indicated that the distribution of work will increase more in the future, which results to new and different challenges for the employees in knowledge intensive organisations, mainly due to the redefinition of work time. The challenges require organisations to rethink their current work practises, based on a time when work was done at a fixed place during regular work hours. Some organisations have started renewing the organising of work according to the distributed work setting by analysing the work of the knowledge workers, creating protocols for distributed work and developing the workspaces to better correspond the working style of distributed knowledge workers.

The results of the empirical part of the study provided insight about the distribution of knowledge workers at the case organisation, and it was discovered that in supporting distributed work the organisational policies and alignments have great effect in enabling the successful conducting of knowledge worker tasks. The study indicates that in order to better support the knowledge workers in an increasingly distributed work setting, more emphasis should be put on developing the organisational policies, in terms realistic work hour monitoring, guidelines for distributed working, understanding and supporting the social aspects of work, support and encouragement in using the virtual collaboration tools and acknowledging the differences in workspace requirements.

Asiasanat:Knowledge workers, Distributed work, Challenges of distributed and mobile work, Organisational support