Working Autonomy in Innovative Activities; Managing Knowledge Workers

Gambardella, Alfonso; Khashabi, Pooyan und Panico, Claudio (2013): Working Autonomy in Innovative Activities; Managing Knowledge Workers. In: Academy of Management Proceedings, Bd. 2013, Nr. 1, 14788

Abstract

Strategic management of human capital is critical in knowledge- intensive industries. Unlike the case of ordinary workers, incentivizing knowledge workers is a challenge since their performance is not exactly verifiable, and their innovative output is uncertain, and thereby, not contractble. We aim to test if working autonomy in practice is a motivation instrument for managing knowledge workers and tackling contractual hazards. For this purpose, we disentangle two distinct channels in which a firm may offer working autonomy to the worker; efficiency and incentive channel; an employer may delegate more autonomy to the worker to achieve higher productivity. At the same time, autonomy may be granted to better motivate the worker. Using the dataset of Inventors Survey in Europe, the U.S. and Japan (Innovative S&T)” we investigate the determinants of working autonomy for the category of knowledge and ordinary workers. Our results confirm a uniform effect of autonomy through efficiency channel for knowledge and ordinary workers. However, the effect via incentive channel is not similar. We find strong evidence of using autonomy as a tool to motivate knowledge workers through the incentive channel. This effect is absent for the case of ordinary workers. The results have implications for the strategic management of human capital, explaining the differences observed in the autonomy levels of employees in the organizations, based on the nature of the workers' activities and assets of the firm.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Betriebswirtschaft > Institut für Strategie, Technologie und Organisation
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• ISSN: 0065-0668
• Sprache: Englisch