Knowledge Based Working: Intelligent Operating for the Knowledge Age

Citation

Mason, D. (2006), "Knowledge Based Working: Intelligent Operating for the Knowledge Age", The Electronic Library, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 717-718. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470610707330

This book sets out the author's personal views on enabling knowledge‐based working. Ellis sees a difference between theoretical knowledge management and workplace knowledge management: knowledge‐based working is about the process of infusing and enthusing individuals and teams with knowledge rather than about the technology or specific processes. His aim is to demonstrate practical proven ways that managers and employees can be encouraged to recognise and seize the opportunities that increased access to knowledge offers.

The author's philosophy is that KM has been around long enough now for there to be a basis for an informed critique, but that managers still wrongly dismiss KM as irrelevant, saying either knowledge is an intangible that can never be managed, or that managing knowledge is something everyone does all the time and doesn't need any special consideration. Ellis is wholeheartedly biased in favour of KM and its tenets, although cheerfully acknowledging strong evidence to the contrary.

This enthusiasm is both the strength and the weakness of this book. The gung‐ho language found throughout is meant to be informal, but unrelenting enthusiasm can be wearying, and large sections often come across as a consultancy pitch.

The book is addressed to working managers but has enough of a research base to be useful to students, although it is not a textbook. The book is based on the author's experience of attempting to introduce KM to one large organisation over several years trying out ideas arising from formal study. Unusually for a book aimed at managers, there are self assessment questions at the end of each chapter and there are “self‐reflection points” interspersed throughout the book where the reader is invited to ponder the personal meaning of the ideas presented.

Chapter one outlines the basic ideas of knowledge‐based working, with examples of how and where it manifests itself. Chapter two describes how work and workers should be organised in the Information Age and how this differs from traditional work organisation. Chapter three presents Ellis' four rules of organisational behaviour: Knowledge will always out‐compete technology; Employee commitment is not optional; the manager's function is to build a knowledge‐friendly culture; and knowledge‐based working must converge with strategy. Ellis offers a four‐stage model for transitioning from traditional practice to knowledge‐based working, plus the inevitable two by two consultant's matrix. Chapter four outlines the implications of knowledge‐based working from the perspective of the organisation, managers and individuals, as evidenced by one large case study which makes up the bulk of the chapter.

The book features up‐to‐date research drawn mainly from the author's doctoral thesis. The ideas presented are all fairly standard and supported by mainstream research. It does feature interesting and relevant cases and scenarios from the author's work experience. The model is original and is the outcome of real world attempts to put theory into practice. However, Ellis offers no empirical support for his model of knowledge‐based working, and very little unconflicted support for many of the other ideas he espouses and the cited research itself is used rather too selectively in coming to the author's conclusions. Some of the anecdotal evidence of the superiority of Japanese KM work practices look rather silly after it took Western management to save former stars of the Japanese car industry. The principles of knowledge‐based working, as presented here, seem to depend too much on unrealistic assumptions about human behaviour and motivation. Developing work practices based on trust, flexibility, sharing etc., is all very well in theory, but as any manager knows, altruism is rare and cannot be relied upon as a motivator for work activities. Overall, the book does not convince.