Knowledge Worker Trust Within Organisations

By Dominic McLoughlin

In Knowledge Worker Trust within Organisations, Dr McLoughlin develops a theoretical model which represents a new way of considering the knowledge worker and trust literature. Both academics and practitioners have observed structural changes in developed economies, generating widely accepted claims about the move to a society based on 'knowledge', 'knowledge work' and 'knowledge workers'. These claims imply a need for more detailed research on the contexts, antecedents, and consequences of 'trust' in knowledge work. This book assesses the claims regarding the knowledge worker relationship with management, which assumes high levels of trust, providing quantitative analysis of workplaces in Australian Information Technology Industry. Quantitative analysis was undertaken for the immediate work area, the organisation and a combined model, using Partial Least Squares. Through clearly identifying aspects of the 'soft focus' ideas of the working conditions for knowledge workers, the centrality of trust in knowledge-based workplaces is demonstrated. The research reported in this book uses the experience of individual knowledge workers in their workplaces, providing a rare insight into the different impact of the behaviour of immediate managers when compared to senior managers. Because management behaviour has an impact on trust and employee engagement, this book will be useful to human resource managers as well as scholars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780992487218

Book preview

Model

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This book examines the claims about trust between workers and managers within ‘knowledge-based workplaces’. In continuing to develop useful knowledge about ‘knowledgebased workplaces’, scholars need to move beyond the current debates and explore the particular circumstances for these workers within their workplaces. This book draws on insights from the trust literature as a means of explaining employee’s experiences of work. The specific focus of this book is to address the lack of a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of trust between ‘knowledge workers’ and management. This book establishes a theoretical model of trust within ‘knowledge-based workplaces’.

Utilising data from a survey of workplaces that employ workers meeting the criteria of the knowledge worker definition – predominantly software developers and software engineers – the analysis tests the mediating effect of trust between a number of trust antecedents and outcomes. The analysis suggests that associations between management behaviour and organisational outcomes are partially mediated by trust, lending credence to the argument that knowledgebased workplaces are similar to other workplaces. A number of important contributions to knowledge are made in assessing the theoretical model. The importance of ‘knowledge worker consciousness’ and ‘who trusts whom’ are highlighted. For example, those who perceive themselves as knowledge workers do have higher trust in organisations, yet do not have higher levels of trust in their immediate manager.

The book is divided into six chapters. Chapter one introduces and sets out the book. Chapter two outlines the debates about ‘knowledge work’ and the influences on it at some length, concluding by proffering a theoretical model of trust in the knowledge-based workplace. The third chapter outlines the method by which the theoretical model is assessed. The results are presented in Chapter four, while the discussion, implications and theoretical contribution are contained in Chapter five. Chapter six concludes the book. First, the remainder of this Chapter outlines the contents of this book in more detail.

KNOWLEDGE WORK AND TRUST

Many writers have argued that workplace and labour market changes in developed economies may be understood through the lens of an alleged move to an economy based on ‘knowledge’. Chapter two will outline how this altered society is seen as being composed of ‘knowledge workers’ employed in ‘knowledge-based workplaces’. This echoes earlier claims around the nature of a ‘Post-Industrial Society’ (Bell, 1973), a ‘Knowledge Economy’ (Reich, 1991), an ‘Information Society’ (Castells, 1996), and even a ‘Post-Capitalist Society’ (Drucker, 1993) – and claims about the ‘new class’ of worker, and the new type of employment relations to be found therein. What will here be labeled the ‘conventional view’ of these employment relations¹ posits that in the knowledge economy the employment conditions of ‘knowledge workers’ in ‘knowledge-based workplaces’ differ from those in other sectors. The working conditions in knowledge-based workplaces are said to be superior. Because ‘knowledge’ is central to their work, ‘knowledge workers’ in a sense ‘own’ knowledge in a way that workers in previous eras did not own such an essential component of the production process. Therefore, this puts knowledge workers at an advantage in the employment relationship, and accordingly, this conventional view posits, trust is a central component in the management of knowledge workers. Management has the role of eliciting knowledge, as knowledge workers must trust management to enable them to expend greater discretionary effort, to generate knowledge, which can then be utilised by the organisation. The tension between generating trust for eliciting knowledge and the potential for destruction of trust from the capturing of knowledge is largely ignored. Accordingly, the role of trust within knowledge-based workplaces is the focus of this book.

The conventional view of the knowledge-based workplace emphasizes the cultivation of ‘soft focus’ management practices to maximize the eliciting of knowledge, but these ideas require considerable care in their elucidation and definition. This book will be careful to ensure that it sets itself clear boundaries and identifies central issues in the complexities and uncertainties raised in the above broad claims. Despite its centrality, the concept of trust, its antecedents and referents remain remarkably underexplored in the knowledge work literature. A major task for this book will be to include the more developed literature on ‘trust’ within the social psychology literature in the discussion of trust in knowledge-based workplaces. Until now this work has been largely quarantined from the knowledge work literature. This will be undertaken in the context of developing a theoretical model of trust in the knowledge-based workplace.

The following paragraphs will show the problematic nature of defining knowledge work, despite its broad application. Those who have grappled with this issue identify broad and narrow perspectives. On the ‘broad’ perspective, almost any employee can be defined as a knowledge worker, since almost everyone uses some knowledge in their work – particularly tacit knowledge (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Brown and Duguid, 1991; Davenport, 2005). Yet this renders the concept largely meaningless – in that few if any workers would not be knowledge workers in this sense. The ‘narrow’ perspective on which workers are knowledge workers, is associated with a discrete conception of knowledge. That is, knowledge is ‘theoretical’, and knowledge workers apply theoretical knowledge to particular tasks, usually involving information technology (Zand, 1997). This underlies the book, including selecting the sample of workers chosen for testing the theoretical model. The definition of ‘knowledge work’ outlined by Warhurst and Thompson (2006) is used in this book to define knowledge worker and knowledge-based workplace. It captures key themes revealed in the literature, that is knowledge as theoretical and abstract, the use of knowledge (by organisations in this case) and finally the comparative autonomy of knowledge workers (consistent with the need for trust and ‘soft focus’ management).

A second major task is utilising data from a survey of private sector Australian information technology (IT) workers. This target population is not only considered archetypal as knowledge workers, more importantly it will be shown that they meet the definition outlined above. The book seeks to look closely at the role of trust, its particular circumstances, antecedents and outcomes in ‘knowledge-based workplaces’.

The ‘conventional’ knowledge worker thesis is criticised from a number of vantage points. The ‘critical’ perspectives on the ‘knowledge worker’ thesis will be outlined in detail in Chapter two, but a brief outline is provided here. First, marxian social critics question Daniel Bell’s definition of knowledge as the new ‘axial principle’ of a new society, and more so Peter Drucker’s characterisation of the new society as ‘post capitalist’. Notwithstanding globalisation and the growth of information technology-based work, the critical view is that the fundamental relations of production remain unchanged – whatever the changes in the forces of production (i.e. technology). Similarly, this book assumes capitalist relations of production to be broadly intact, notwithstanding the knowledge worker thesis. Moreover, the thrust of much of the ‘knowledge management’ literature, as the critical literature argues, accepts the existing structure of organisations which seek to ‘capture’ the knowledge possessed by workers, and to turn it into the property of management, with the possibility of then transferring captured knowledge to fellow organisation members to improve productivity. Despite the appearance of novelty, this understanding of appropriation essentially goes back to the work of Braverman (1974) and the thesis that employers under capitalism ‘deskill’ workers and capture their knowledge of the production process (Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich, 1977; Edwards, 1978, 1979).

If society is to be thought of as in some sense a ‘knowledge’ society, it is important to specify what is meant by ‘knowledge’. Some of the key writers on the topic of knowledge work: Brown and Duguid (1991), Reich (1991), Blackler (1995), and Spender (1996), all have different, if often overlapping definitions of ‘knowledge’ and therefore of ‘knowledge worker’. As mentioned, this book adopts a ‘narrow’ concept of ‘knowledge’ as primarily abstract and theoretical – but registering its application and utility. In general it is important to acknowledge, and to demarcate, alternative conceptions of knowledge which, whatever their advantages in terms of comprehensiveness, in their application, strain the coherence of the field. For example, the view that knowledge workers are empowered as individuals by their possession of knowledge – the new ‘means of production’ – clashes with other ‘radical’ conceptions of knowledge as the possession of collectives. Such popular theories as those surrounding the notions of communities of practice (Brown and DuGuid, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991) build on intertwined conceptions of learning, working, and the building of identity, and are the stuff of radical conceptions of knowledge hailing from a marxian perspective (for example Activity Theory). As mentioned previously, these points will be explicated more thoroughly in Chapter two. Here the point is to make clear that they do not play a role in theoretical perspective that this book adopts.

ARGUMENT AND METHODOLOGY

In Chapter two, then, the arguments around the new society and the role of knowledge in it are explored in the first section. Section one (of Chapter two) discusses the literature clustered around debates about the emergence and nature of a ‘Post- Industrial Society’ (Bell, 1973), ‘Knowledge Economy’ (Reich, 1991), ‘Post-Capitalist Society’ (Drucker, 1993), and ‘Information Society’ (Castells, 1996). The literature review traces the emergence of assumptions underpinning the concepts of knowledge, knowledge work, knowledge worker and knowledge-based workplaces. It identifies two main initial themes, namely: ownership of the ‘means of production’ and trust in knowledge-based workplaces. The argument that a ‘new class’ of worker has emerged is considered and the influence of this debate on understandings of knowledge-based work is traced, particularly consideration of who possesses knowledge. This first section of Chapter two also explicates the ‘conventional’ view of knowledge-based workplaces, where it is said that there exists a climate where workers have high levels of trust in management. As outlined above knowledge-intensive production sees ‘knowledge workers’ enjoying employment advantages accruing from their centrality to the production process. However, the book will go on to argue that management has an inherent tension in its dual role. On the one hand, the role is to enhance trust, assisting in eliciting knowledge. On the other hand, capturing workers’ knowledge - through control systems and practices - is vital to organisations which utilise knowledge for profit. This capturing and utilising role can damage trust.

Before considering these issues further, Chapter two, Section two considers definitions, namely the various conceptions of ‘knowledge’ as they have implications for the ‘knowledge worker’ thesis. Much of the knowledge worker literature conceives of knowledge as theoretical and abstract, and possessed by individuals. However, knowledge may also be portrayed as tacit and invisible, very difficult or even impossible to encode, and even collectively held. These are very different conceptions, and pose definitional problems, which are canvassed in Section three of Chapter two. To deal with the problems of definition, and having observed the tendency for the concept of ‘knowledge worker’ to expand, the review adopts the definition proposed by Warhurst and Thompson (2006), citing the advantages already mentioned earlier in this chapter.

Another major task of Chapter two is to demonstrate that trust lies at the centre of the conventional knowledge worker thesis, and the claims of ‘soft focus’ management. Despite the centrality of the concept of ‘trust’ to the ‘knowledge worker’ thesis, the literature contains sweeping generalisations about ‘trust’, rather than careful attention to theoretical connections. In reviewing the theoretical literature, Chapter two, Section four draws on work from a social psychology perspective, and the literature around the area of ‘soft’ human resource management. The section traces disparities in the understanding of trust, reflected in the diverse understandings of trust in knowledge-based workplaces. This book suggests that a theoretical model of trust needs to consider the specific circumstances within knowledge-based workplaces, and therefore should consider the degree of trust at two conceptual levels: trust in the immediate manager and trust in the organisation. Clearly, it might be possible to trust one but not the other, but this distinction is lost in the broad claims about the importance of ‘trust’ in knowledge-based workplaces.

Section five of Chapter two points out that while change is implicit in many discussions, insufficient consideration has been given to the effects of high rates of organisational change. In particular, the potential for high rates of change to have a negative impact on trust is overlooked. Depending on its nature, high levels of change can be destructive of trust. High rates of change are another neglected element of knowledge worker research.

Chapter two, Section six shows the importance of management actions for understanding knowledge-based workplaces. It describes important trust antecedents which are derived from the overlapping ‘soft focus’ management, knowledge work, and trust literature, specifically: perceived character of managers (such as ability, benevolence, and integrity); communication and participation in decision making. This section proposes that the tension between the management roles of eliciting knowledge and capturing knowledge could lead to inconsistency in a manager’s behaviour. Trying to balance these competing objectives could lead to adverse perceptions of management character, poorer communication and participation, leading to lower trust. Many discussions of trust include the notion of people’s honesty and integrity. Perceived character comprises a number of such components drawn from the literature, particularly notions of behavioural consistency and fairness. Communication, for this research, has three key components drawn from the literature: the referent’s awareness of employee concerns; encouragement of openness; and encouragement of cooperation. Section six of Chapter two concludes by identifying another tension in the literature - high rates of change (needing faster decision making) and the amount of time needed for widespread participation in decisions. It is argued that all of these management behaviours should be reflected in a detailed understanding of knowledge-based workplaces.

The literature review argues (in Section seven of Chapter two) that the conventional knowledge worker thesis, in assuming high levels of trust, also expects certain organisational outcomes. These organisational aspirations are seen as forming part of the benefits of knowledge-based workplaces to the organisation, although there may also be benefits to workers. The key themes in the literature are: organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB); job satisfaction; support for change; and increased levels of commitment to the organisation.

Chapter two concludes in Section eight by proposing a theoretical model with a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of trust within knowledge-based workplaces, as a means of filling a striking absence in the literature, and thereby contributing to knowledge. Section eight also articulates a number of research questions, distilled from the extensive trust literature, and applied to knowledge-based workplaces. This includes the summarising of research questions identified in the course of the literature review regarding the role of trust in the immediate manager and senior management. Similarly a number of research questions about knowledge worker’s trust, trust antecedents and outcomes are restated. Research is then conducted to answer these questions and test the utility of the theoretical model, using surveys to gather the experiences of individual workers.

Chapter three begins by