Empowering Knowledge Workers describes the work of managers, decision makers, executives, doctors, lawyers, campaign managers, emergency responders, strategists, and many others who have to think for a living. These are people who figure out what needs to be done, at the same time that they do it, and a new approach to support this kind of worker presents the logical starting point for understanding how to take advantage of ACM.
"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--
Responsibility helps employees feel valuable, and this book aims to show managers how to create an atmosphere of responsibility, benefiting both employees and managers. It explains what empowerment means, why performance improves through empowerment and when to increase responsibility to employees.
Knowledge Workers in the Information Society addresses the changing nature of work, workers, and their organizations in the media, information, and knowledge industries. These knowledge workers include journalists, broadcasters, librarians, filmmakers and animators, government workers, and employees in the telecommunications and high tech sectors. Technological change has become relentless. Corporate concentration has created new pressures to rationalize work and eliminate stages in the labor process. Globalization and advances in telecommunications have made real the prospect that knowledge work will follow manufacturing labor to parts of the world with low wages, poor working conditions, and little unionization. McKercher and Mosco bring together scholars from numerous disciplines to examine knowledge workers from a genuinely global perspective.
The complexities of employee empowerment have been largely underestimated and it is clear that organisations struggle with putting the concept into practice. Rozana Ahmad Huq recognises that effective utilisation of human resources is a strategic issue for organisations. Hierarchical organisations struggle to survive. The growing trend for downsizing and merging of organisations means that they can no longer maintain the 'command and control' approach and employees are given more responsibility and expected to take decisions. However, simply burdening employees with extra responsibility without empowering them does not deliver results. Drawing on her own research in organisations, Dr Huq investigates the concept of empowerment in a new way that combines themes from the disciplines of management and social work, the latter being a domain where empowerment is an important construct. This helps to bridge the gaps in knowledge in the management domain and draws attention to the positive and negative psychological implications for employees of the practice of empowerment that are often ignored by leaders and managers. Ultimately, the author offers a 'practice model' to help people in management and non-management understand the new roles and behaviours that they need to adopt if empowerment is to become a reality. This book is a resource for any business or other organisation genuinely interested in employee empowerment and for those with a responsibility for teaching about it.
The facilitation of knowledge work or what is increasingly known as "Case Management" represents the next imperative in office automation. The desire to fully support knowledge workers within the workplace is not new. What's new is that recent advances in Information Technology now make the management of unpredictable circumstances a practical reality. There's now a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting knowledge work. The facilitation of knowledge work or what is increasingly known as "Case Management" represents the next imperative in office automation. The desire to fully support knowledge workers within the workplace is not new. What's new is that recent advances in Information Technology now make the management of unpredictable circumstances a practical reality. There's now a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting knowledge work. Here are examples of what recognized experts have have recently written on the topic: Advancing to support more knowledge work is the goal of many organizations, thus there is a new groundswell of activity around unstructured processes. - Jim Sinur, VP of Research, Gartner I think a sea change is coming in the process world. -Connie Moore, Research Vice President, Forrester The sea of change Moore refers to is about technology that is able to support knowledge workers. The work of a knowledge worker is by its nature unpredictable and can not be handled by more formalized process definition techniques. For executives and managers of knowledge workers, "Mastering the Unpredictable" will: Explain the need and why previous technological approaches don't meet the need Explain the current technology gap, and the new technology that can close the gap Lay out the options that can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their organizations Equip them to best take advantage of this evolving trend"
Empowering Workers and Clients for Organizational Change teaches students to effectively engage in organizational change at the service delivery level ... The contributors discuss strategies for assessing the structural characteristics of agencies, organizational culture, and empowerment, and provide information on the use of force field analysis as an assessment framework that can help bring about change within human service agencies"--Back cover
It's the new normal. Now all of your employees are Twittering away and friending clients on Facebook. Not to mention customers--who feel obligated to update your Wikipedia entry with product complaints. In this new world, dealing with empowered employees and customers --Insurgents -- is only going to get more challenging. Employees are using this technology in the workplace and customers are using it in the marketplace, and neither obey the rules you set up. This chaos is your future as a manager. You could try to shut it down and shut it off. Or you can harness it and reap the business benefits. According to Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler of Forrester Research (the organization that brought you Groundswell), your defense against insurgents is to enable them. At its heart, this is a book about how to scale the management of insurgency, both the innovation of insurgent employees and the energy of insurgent customers. The key is a process Forrester calls E Triple S, for the four elements of managing insurgents effectively: empowering, selecting, scaling, and socializing. While it's based in current trends, the core concept of Managing Insurgents -- that the next management and innovation challenge is harnessing individuals empowered by mobile, social, and connected technology -- is a new idea. In the wake of Groundswell, dozens of social-technology-for-business books cropped up. And there are plenty of books on improving your customer service. But there's no serious business book about management, marketing, and innovation in the throes of this trend. When Insurgency hits, it will be perceived not just as a sequel to Groundswell but as the start of a new management philosophy.
This book develops and examines the concepts and strategies for rural empowerment through the formation of a community-driven social knowledge management (SKM) framework aided by social technology. The framework is aimed at mobilizing knowledge resources to bridge the rural–urban knowledge divide while securing rural empowerment using digital connections and social collaborations built on strategies of self-sustenance and self-development. With key empirical findings supplemented by relevant theoretical structures, case studies, illustrative figures and a lucid style, the book combines social technologies and social development to derive a social knowledge management platform. It shows how the proposed SKM framework can enhance knowledge capabilities of rural actors by facilitating connection among rural–urban entities through formation of purposive virtual communities, which allow social agents to create, modify and share content collaboratively. The volume brings forward diverse issues such as conceptual foundations; bridging the rural–urban knowledge and information divide; issues of information and knowledge asymmetry; a knowledge-theoretic perspective of rural empowerment; knowledge capability, freedom of choice and wellbeing, to provide a comprehensive outlook on building a knowledge society through digital empowerment. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of development studies, rural sociology, management studies, IT/IS, knowledge management and ICT for development, public policy, sociology, political economy and development economics. It will benefit professionals and policymakers, government and nongovernment bodies and international agencies involved with policy decisions related to application of technologies for rural development, social workers and those in the development sector.
Expand classroom experiences and spark student excitement with learning adventures powered by technology! Written by an internationally recognized expert in the field, this second edition of the bestseller provides educators with practical strategies for using technology to "break down" classroom walls and prepare all students to succeed in a digital world. Making the case for technology′s capacity to improve school performance and create communities of best practice, the book demonstrates how appropriate use of computer and Internet technologies enhances students′ critical thinking, research, and problem-solving skills. Equally important, informed use of technology can level the learning field for disadvantaged students and allow children who are disabled to participate more fully in mainstream education. Offering more than 50 Web sites, as well as new resources, realistic lesson ideas, sample activities, more information about online learning, and real-world examples, this timely revision examines: Information literacy Learning in a globally connected community Increased access to information Applications for digital cameras, fax machines, cell phones, and more The relationship between technology expenditures and student achievement Complete with a section on navigating government archives online, this updated edition of Empowering Students With Technology helps students connect instructional content to real life and facilitates their development as independent and collaborative learners.
