Motivation and Knowledge Workers

Knowledge workers are growing group of employees in both advanced and emerging economies. The major tool and resource of their work is knowledge. Due to its tacit dimension, knowledge is of intangible character. Knowledge work is done in heads of knowledge workers, it is non linear, difficult to capture. Even though knowledge workers are usually responsible professionals, wrong motivation can negatively influence their performance. Our previous researches on knowledge workers and their management show that managers of knowledge workers very often do not understand importance of proper motivation when working with this group of employees. The paper focuses on problematic of motivation of knowledge workers and represents first results of preliminary research we did in this field.