Communicating to knowledge workers by J. Steffen suggests that suggests that employees “can broadly be divided into four archetypes which describe their relationship with knowlegde”:
- The Knowledge Seeker (e.g. R&D, marketing) - “motivated by the job itself; focuses on the big picture; finds detail tedious”
- The Knowledge Sharer (e.g. manager, trainer) - “regards knowledge as a common currency; distinguishes between stewardship and ownership of knowledge; more interested in transfer than retention of knowledge”
- The Knowledge Keeper (e.g. finance, personnel) – “screens knowledge selectively; ascribes equal importance to the retention and transfer of knowledge; forms strategic alliances”
- The Knowledge Avoider – “distinguishes between official and unofficial knowledge; regards official knowledge as inherently suspect; considers knowledge-sharing a lure to entrap staff into unnecessary activities”
This article provides nice framework to look at the attitudes of employees to knowledge and links it to their function. It’s not research-based, but still useful (at work we refer to it a lot discussing knowledge workers). It also provokes follow-up questions like “what is more important function or personality type in defining those archetypes?”
Tags: knowledge networkerArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/05/02.html#a576; comments are here.
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