IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v23y2009i2p323-341.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The knowledge economy and the restructuring of employment: the case of consultants

Author

Listed:
  • Rory Donnelly

    (Birmingham Business School, r.donnelly@bham.ac.uk)

Abstract

Knowledge workers are said to be the vanguard of a new era in work and employment, with some even claiming that these workers have been freed from the constraints of organizational employment (Pink, 2001; Reed, 1996). However, many knowledge workers operate as employees and emerging research suggests that the interplay between these workers and organizations generates strong competing tensions. This article proposes that these conflicts lead to a hybridization of the employment relationship.The findings from this case study of a large consultancy firm suggest that these tensions along with organizational context, the form of knowledge work, the seniority of the individual and the level and nature of client influence play an important role in shaping the degree and balance of this hybridization in contemporary bureaucracies.

Suggested Citation

  • Rory Donnelly, 2009. "The knowledge economy and the restructuring of employment: the case of consultants," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(2), pages 323-341, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:23:y:2009:i:2:p:323-341
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017009102861
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017009102861
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017009102861?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cliff Bowman & Juani Swart, 2007. "Whose Human Capital? The Challenge of Value Capture When Capital is Embedded," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 488-505, June.
    2. Tam Yeuk‐Mui May & Marek Korczynski & Stephen J. Frenkel, 2002. "Organizational And Occupational Commitment: Knowledge Workers In Large Corporations," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 775-801, September.
    3. Chris Warhurst & Paul Thompson, 2006. "Mapping knowledge in work: proxies or practices?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(4), pages 787-800, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dankbaar, Ben & Vissers, Geert, 2009. "Of knowledge and work," MPIfG Working Paper 09/16, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Kean Birch & Andrew Cumbers, 2010. "Knowledge, Space, and Economic Governance: The Implications of Knowledge-Based Commodity Chains for Less-Favoured Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(11), pages 2581-2601, November.
    3. BOGAERT, Sandy & BOONE, Christophe & VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN, Arjen, 2009. "The impact of work group cooperative climate on affective commitment and turnover intention of professional employees," Working Papers 2009015, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    4. Maddy Janssens & Chris Steyaert, 2009. "HRM and Performance: A Plea for Reflexivity in HRM Studies," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 143-155, January.
    5. Farzaneh, Mandana & Wilden, Ralf & Afshari, Leila & Mehralian, Gholamhossein, 2022. "Dynamic capabilities and innovation ambidexterity: The roles of intellectual capital and innovation orientation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 47-59.
    6. Azman Ismail & Dayang Kartini Abang Ibrahim & Antonia Girardi, 2009. "The mediating effect of distributive justice in the relationship between pay design and job satisfaction," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 27(1), pages 129-148.
    7. Bader, Benjamin & Berg, Nicola & Holtbrügge, Dirk, 2015. "Expatriate performance in terrorism-endangered countries: The role of family and organizational support," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 849-860.
    8. Steven Toms, 2010. "Value, profit and risk: accounting and the resource‐based view of the firm," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 23(5), pages 647-670, June.
    9. Recep BOZLAGAN & Mahmut DOGAN & Murat DAOUDOV, 2010. "Organizational Commitment And Case Study On The Union Of Municipalities Of Marmara," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 10(2).
    10. Kean Birch & Vlad Mykhnenko, 2014. "Lisbonizing versus Financializing Europe? The Lisbon Agenda and the (un)Making of the European Knowledge-Based Economy," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(1), pages 108-128, February.
    11. Aleksandra Wilczyńska & Dominik Batorski & Joan Torrent-Sellens, 2020. "Precarious Knowledge Work? The Combined Effect of Occupational Unemployment and Flexible Employment on Job Insecurity," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(1), pages 281-304, March.
    12. Andreeva, Tatiana E. & Yurtaikin, Evgeniy E. & Soltitskaya, Tatiana A., 2006. "Human resources development practices as a key tool to attract, motivate and retain knowledge workers," Working Papers 782, Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University.
    13. Bader, Benjamin & Berg, Nicola, 2013. "An Empirical Investigation of Terrorism-induced Stress on Expatriate Attitudes and Performance," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 163-175.
    14. BOGAERT, Sandy & BOONE, Christophe & VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN, Arjen, 2009. "The impact of work group cooperative climate on affective commitment and turnover intention of professional employees," ACED Working Papers 2009005, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    15. Corsaro, Daniela, 2019. "Capturing the broader picture of value co-creation management," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 99-116.
    16. Meyer, Chris R. & Skaggs, Bruce C. & Nair, Sudhir & Cohen, David G., 2015. "Customer Interaction Uncertainty, Knowledge, and Service Firm Internationalization," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 249-259.
    17. Michelle Greenwood & Ken Kamoche, 2013. "Social accounting as stakeholder knowledge appropriation," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 17(3), pages 723-743, August.
    18. Andreeva, Tatiana & Garanina, Tatiana & Sáenz, Josune & Aramburu, Nekane & Kianto, Aino, 2021. "Does country environment matter in the relationship between intellectual capital and innovation performance?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 263-273.
    19. Khalid Jamil & Muhammad Zeeshan & Hamad Raza, 2017. "Effective Management and Its Impact on Growth of Small and Medium Sized Pakistani Firms," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 9(3), pages 6-12.
    20. Harkonen, Janne & Haapasalo, Harri & Hanninen, Kai, 2015. "Productisation: A review and research agenda," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 65-82.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:23:y:2009:i:2:p:323-341. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.