Performance-based incentives in knowledge work: are agency models relevant?

AbstractThe digitization and online dissemination of the Popol Vuh, a historical indigenous knowledge work, poses distinct ethical, legal, intellectual, and technological concerns for humanities researchers and information practitioners seeking to study and digitally curate works through a decolonized consciousness. Ongoing debates on data sovereignty, the repatriation of cultural artifacts, and cultural appropriation question the ability of researchers and information practitioners to effectively steward indigenous knowledge works in a digital environment. While consensus on best practices for the postcolonial digital library or archive remain to be established, information inequity continues to persist, effacing indigenous knowledge, languages, and content from the knowledge society. The following case study will discuss the results of a 10-year multi-institutional initiative to curate, repatriate, and steward the reproduction of an indigenous knowledge work online. From the vantage point of the library, the case study will explore the project’s successes, failures, and the work left to be done.

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Limited liability and non-responsiveness in agency models

Games and Economic Behavior ◽

10.1016/j.geb.2021.03.010 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 128 ◽

pp. 73-103

Author(s):

Henrique Castro-Pires ◽

Humberto Moreira

Keyword(s):

Limited Liability ◽

Agency Models

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Beyond Knowledge Capitalism’s Happy Labour Subject

Sociology ◽

10.1177/00380385211028153 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 003803852110281

Author(s):

Breda Gray

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Workers ◽

Knowledge Work ◽

Social Benefits ◽

Social Contributions ◽

A Site ◽

Study Participants

This article unravels the workings of happiness as integral to knowledge capitalism’s ‘emotionality of rule’ from the perspectives of two cohorts of ‘knowledge workers’: digital creatives and academics. It analyses the ways in which the study participants make work a site of personal fulfilment and happiness as they strive to become ‘happy’ labour subjects. Despite their different worklife trajectories, both cohorts appeal to the promise of happy entrepreneurial productivism. This promise attaches workers to the privileges of knowledge work in ways that downplay its costs. However, the dominance of knowledge capitalism’s happy labour subject is challenged by the backgrounded significance of work’s social benefits in their accounts. As such, this article argues that the individualised depoliticisation of contemporary ‘knowledge work’ can be challenged by re-valorising work’s social contributions.

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From virtual to participatory learning with technology during COVID-19

E-Learning and Digital Media ◽

10.1177/20427530211022926 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 204275302110229

Author(s):

Kurt D Squire

Keyword(s):

Youth Development ◽

Technology Use ◽

Knowledge Work ◽

Extended Period ◽

The United States ◽

Learning Technologies ◽

Learning Goals ◽

Virtual Schooling ◽

Technology Infrastructure ◽

Participatory Learning

During COVID-19, schools around the world rapidly went online. Examining youth technology use reveals sharp inequities within the United States’ education system and incongruencies between the technologies used in virtual schooling and those in the lives of students outside of school. In affluent communities, virtual schooling is supported by a distributed schooling infrastructure that coordinates students’ knowledge work. This home and school technology infrastructure features material, human, and structural capital that facilitates youth development as nascent knowledge workers. Technology use during virtual schooling keeps youth activity grounded within the “walls” of school; during virtual schooling, students have little voice in setting learning goals or contributing “content.” Technology use at home for learning or entertainment stems from their own goals and features them as active inquisitors seeking out information and extending their social networks, and crucially, using participatory learning technologies such as Discord for communications. An extended period of virtual schooling could enable a rethinking of the role of technology in schools, including an embrace of play, emotional design, participatory communications, place-based learning, embodied understandings, and creative construction.

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Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18041826 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 1826

Author(s):

Christine Ipsen ◽

Marc van Veldhoven ◽

Kathrin Kirchner ◽

John Paulin Hansen

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Work ◽

Well Being ◽

Key Factors ◽

Differential Impact ◽

Home Office ◽

Negative Experience ◽

Number Of Children ◽

Advantages And Disadvantages ◽

Working From Home ◽

And Performance

The number of people working from home (WFH) increased radically during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate people’s experiences of WFH during the pandemic and to identify the main factors of advantages and disadvantages of WFH. Data from 29 European countries on the experiences of knowledge workers (N = 5748) WFH during the early stages of lockdown (11 March to 8 May 2020) were collected. A factor analysis showed the overall distribution of people’s experiences and how the advantages and disadvantages of WFH during the early weeks of the pandemic can be grouped into six key factors. The results indicated that most people had a more positive rather than negative experience of WFH during lockdown. Three factors represent the main advantages of WFH: (i) work–life balance, (ii) improved work efficiency and (iii) greater work control. The main disadvantages were (iv) home office constraints, (v) work uncertainties and (vi) inadequate tools. Comparing gender, number of children at home, age and managers versus employees in relation to these factors provided insights into the differential impact of WFH on people’s lives. The factors help organisations understand where action is most needed to safeguard both performance and well-being. As the data were collected amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we recommend further studies to validate the six factors and investigate their importance for well-being and performance in knowledge work.

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Quantified factory worker: field study of a web application supporting work well-being and productivity

Cognition Technology & Work ◽

10.1007/s10111-021-00671-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Päivi Heikkilä ◽

Anita Honka ◽

Eija Kaasinen ◽

Kaisa Väänänen

Keyword(s):

Field Study ◽

Web Application ◽

Work Performance ◽

Knowledge Work ◽

Well Being ◽

Production Data ◽

Automated Manufacturing ◽

Perceived Benefits ◽

Mental Load ◽

Machine Operators

AbstractThe work on the factory floor is gradually changing to resemble knowledge work due to highly automated manufacturing machines. In the increasingly automated work environment, the machine operator’s task is to keep the production running and to solve possible problems quickly. This work is expected to become more autonomous, which raises the importance of supporting the workers’ well-being. An important aspect of that is giving concrete feedback of success at work as well as feedback on physical and mental load. We implemented a smartphone optimized web application, Worker Feedback Dashboard that offers feedback to machine operators about their well-being at work and personally relevant production data as well as their connections to each other. The feedback is personal and based on objective, near real-time measurements. We present the results of a field study, in which ten machine operators used the application for 2–3 months. We studied the operators’ user experience, usage activity, perceived benefits and concerns for the application with questionnaires, interviews and application log data. The operators found the feedback interesting and beneficial, and used the application actively. The perceived benefits indicate impacts on well-being as well as on work performance. Based on the results, we highlight three design implications for quantified worker applications: presenting meaningful overviews, providing guidance to act based on the feedback and refraining from too pervasive quantification not to narrow down the meaningful aspects in one’s work.

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