There is a growing interest in the knowledge economy, and the new types of job and ways of working associated with it. This book analyses how a particular group - creative knowledge workers - carry out their jobs and learn within it. Using empirical research from advertising and software development in Europe, Singapore and Japan, it develops a new conceptual framework to analyse the complexities of creative knowledge work.

Focussing uniquely on the human element of working in the knowledge economy, it explores the real world of how people work in this emerging phenomenon and examines relationships between knowledge and creative dimensions to provide new frameworks for learning and working. It offers critical insights into how these workers apply their creative knowledge work capacities towards the production of innovative products and services, as well as using their creative abilities and knowledge to fashion both digital and tangible goods in the knowledge economy.

Adding significantly to the on-going debate around knowledge work and creativity, this comprehensive examination will be of interest to researchers and educators in organisational learning, management and HRM and to anyone involved in devising ways to develop and support workers in lifelong and flexible creative work practices.

About the Author

Sai Loo is a Lecturer at the Institute of Education, University College London, UK. His areas of interest are in the interdisciplinary approaches to defining, identifying and applying knowledge in different pedagogic and work settings. He has published widely including the Routledge research monograph, Vocationalism in Further and Higher Education.

Reviews

"This book fixes terms that are universally bandied about in modern business parlance within an original conceptual framework that draws from economics, sociology, psychology and management. It then grounds them in empirical studies of four occupations (software developers and managers; copy writers and creative directors) in two creative industries (IT software and advertising) in three countries (England, Japan and Singapore). This interdisciplinary approach gets beneath the slogans to show how divisions of knowledge and labour are collapsing between managers and 'leaders' as producers and consumers relate individually and collectively across an increasingly integrated workforce. It will find readers in academic areas from business to education, cultural studies to information science, as well as other 'knowledge workers' seeking to make sense of the increasingly networked reality in which we are all involved."

Patrick Ainley, Professor of Training and Education in the University of Greenwich School of Education and Training (as was) and now a Visiting Fellow in the Business Faculty and at New College, Oxford.

Book Information
ISBN 9780367339036
Author Sai Loo
Format Paperback
Page Count 178
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 267g