This systemic notionWts with the socially constructed nature of knowledge: to
understand the individual knowledge worker we need to look toward the system
within which the knowledge is embedded. I suggest the following deWnition, paying
attention to the worker, the work, and the organization, and then deconstruct it to
develop linkages to managerial challenges:
Knowledge workers can be deWned as employees who apply their valuable knowledge and
skills (developed through experience) to complex, novel, and abstract problems in environ
ments that provide rich collective knowledge and relational resources.
- 1 Employees who Possess Valuable Knowledge
and Skills: Individual Knowledge
The ‘possession’ of knowledge and skills (developed through experience) can best
be described as ‘human capital’ (Bontis 1998 ; Davenport 1999 ; Lepak and Snell
1999 ) expressed through ‘embrained’ and ‘embodied’ knowledge (Collins 1993 ;
Blackler 1995 ). Embrained knowledge represents technical-theoretical knowledge,
otherwise referred to as ‘know-what’ (Ryle 1949 ) or ‘knowledge about’ (James
1950 ). Professionals are often thought to have particularly deep sets of technical-
theoretical or explicit knowledge (Polanyi 1966 ). Knowledge workers can be seen to
work from an in-depth knowledge base. However, ‘knowledge of ’ will be of little
use without experience of how to apply it.
Embodied knowledge plays an important role in the application of specialist
knowledge. It refers to ‘knowing how’ to do something (Ryle 1949 ). This is
illustrated by the lawyer who, with twenty-Wve years of experience, knows how to
win a litigious case and how to apply case law to win an argument. This deeply
specialist skill is often tacit, hence the notion of embodied knowledge: through
application or action the knowledge worker does not focus on separate aspects or
explicit parts of the skill. The embodied and embrained forms of knowledge create
the foundation of knowledgefromwhich the knowledge worker acts. They are part
of the raw material in the knowledge conversion equation.
- 2 Knowledge Work: the Application of Knowledge
to Complex, Novel, and Abstract Problems
A key characteristic of knowledge work is the capacity to solve complex problems
through creative and innovative solutions: the enactment of know-what and know-
how (explicit and tacit knowledge) in novel circumstances. It is therefore not the
mere presence of human capital but also how it is applied that is important. Reed
( 1996 : 585 ) argues that employees in this category ‘specialise in complex task
452 j u a n i s w a r t