State-of-the-Art Report on Knowledge Work: New Ways of Working

Iina Aaltonen, Paula Ala-Kotila, Helena Järnström, Jari Laarni, Hannamaija Määttä, Esa Nykänen, Ingrid Schembri, Antti Lönnqvist, Jenna Ruostela, Harri Laihonen, Aki Jääskeläinen, Joe Oyue, Gabor Nagy

    Research output: Book/ReportReport

    Abstract

    This report is a State-of-the-Art survey on the main findings of "New Ways of Working". i.e., ways of working that are adapted to the needs of knowledge workers. The introduction of the report presents some background information as well as the grouping of all the concepts found in the references used in this report. The comprehensive list of concepts is presented in the appendix. The report is divided to two main parts. The first part is "The Knowledge Work Environment" including chapters for distributed work, Contextual approach to the workspace design, Contextual approach to the workspace design, ICT for the knowledge worker and Benchmarking study. The benchmarking study is the biannual study made by NewWoW (USA) including this time six additional questions for this Finnish RYM SHOK NewWoW project. Among the chapters, especially the "Work places at present: a review of recent research" chapter, includes an insight into recent findings concentrating to 20 carefully selected articles both in a text and table format. The second part is "Approach for Developing New Ways of Working" including chapters of workspace management, Measuring the impacts of New Ways of Working on knowledge work productivity, Profiles and ICT solutions for the future knowledge work. The second part also summarizes the key concepts and issues in developing New Ways of Working, including the challenges of measuring impacts. Our results suggest that the core of knowledge work is non-routine problem solving. Knowledge workers are characterized by a need to handle abstract knowledge and constantly learn and adopt new knowledge. Knowledge workers do not necessarily need ICT, although ICT is already an integral part of many knowledge workers, everyday work. With the evolving society, physical matter becomes less important and knowledge that workers possess becomes an in-creasingly valuable asset. Organizations should focus on planning the arrange-ments for distributed work so that they support the employees. It is also important to involve the occupational health in evaluating the well-being of mobile and distributed workers. Though as evaluation concept has been created, more research is needed in this area.
    Original languageEnglish
    Place of PublicationEspoo
    PublisherVTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
    Number of pages122
    ISBN (Electronic)978-951-38-7829-0
    ISBN (Print)978-951-38-7828-3
    Publication statusPublished - 2012
    MoE publication typeNot Eligible

    Publication series

    SeriesVTT Technology
    Number17
    ISSN2242-1211

    Keywords

    • New Ways of Working
    • State-of-the-Art survey
    • ICT

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