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A Study of Alienation Among Knowledge Workers

In: Business and Management

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A Study of Alienation among Knowledge Workers

Submission of Thesis Proposal

Nisha Nair
Doctoral candidate
Organizational Behavior Area
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA)
India
Email: nishan@iimahd.ernet.in
Telephone +91-79-6632-6216
Mobile: +91-9327309000

Advisor Information
Dr. Neharika Vohra
Organizational Behavior Area
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA)

‘The hidden conflict between the knowledge workers view of himself as a professional and the social reality in which he is the upgraded well paid successor to the skilled worker of yesterday, underlies the disenchantment of so many highly educated young people with the jobs available to them’ - (Drucker, 1969, p 259)

Knowledge workers (KWs) are thought to be the engines of growth of the new economy (Yigitcanlar, Baum & Horton, 2007) and the key strategic and competitive resources of today’s organizations (O’Neill & Adya, 2007). Considerable attention has been directed to the analysis of knowledge work and knowledge intensive firms in recent years (Alvesson, 1995, 2001; Burton-Jones, 1999; Donnelly, 2006; Swan & Scarborough, 2001). Because of the emphasis on human capital in knowledge-intensive firms (Edvinsson & Malone, 1997), where tacit knowledge residing within workers is the chief asset of the organization, it has become imperative to retain KWs and ensure their continued commitment to the organization. Davenport et al. (2002) observe that companies cannot risk alienating the KW. However, there has been little attention directed at alienation of KWs in contemporary management research, even though Drucker hinted at their potential alienation very early on, as the opening quote suggests. Alienation has traditionally been studied with respect to the blue collar worker. Research on alienation among the non manual worker is limited, although some

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