Productivity, Knowledge Work, and The Office Facility

Type	Book, Section
Author(s)	Aronoff,S. , Kaplan,A.
Publication year	1995
Notes	ID: ARONOFF1995; A useful background discussion on the changing nature of office work, in the authors terms, from Clerical to Knowledge.: $ "Clerical work is considered to be more or less procedural, such as routine administrative tasks."$,p53 and "$Knowledge work involves the creation, analysis, and production of information",$p53. The authors identify the requirement for the right environment to allow knowledge worker to be as effective as possible.$"Knowledge workers require periods of private concentration to develop a creative understanding of information and solution to complex problems"$,p56. The paper further discusses the problems associated with the measurement of productivity and puts forward the case that they could be a time lag before any productivity gains are achieved. A good review is given of the development of managerial theories from the scientific management of Frederick Taylor, to the more human centred approach of Elton Mayo and the Hawthorne studies. The latter part of the chapter discusses measurement of productivity and presents various assessment techniques, ie.absence measures, activity logs,attitude and opinion surveys,direct measures. The chapter concludes with analysis of productivity from a financial view point, i.e $"Is there a productivity payoff?"$,p72. The authors clearly feel there is but like others encounter the problem of the absence of a conceptual framework for assessing knowkedge work, or knowledge worker, productivity. $ $; RP: IN FILE
Issue	3
Start page	51
End page	77

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