Disconnecting knowledge from the knower: The knowledge worker as Icarus

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the knowledge work discourse has been transformed from a celebration of those who create knowledge to one of leaden prescription to purposively separate the knowledge from the knower.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach takes the form of genealogical discourse analysis of the dominant and alternative knowledge work discourses.

Findings

From its earliest conceptions, knowledge work as a discourse was conceived as creating a new class of worker who was highly educated, motivated and financially aspirational. Through alignment with significant discourses from such fields of knowledge as economics, the law and technology, knowledge has become an organisational asset, to be secured by technology and protected by law even from those who created it. Discursive transformation shows that knowledge work and those who perform it – the knowledge workers – have become marginalised in the discourses until they have virtually disappeared altogether.

Research limitations/implications

As a conceptual paper, the analysis does not address an empirical research frame. However, the paper illustrates how power is implicated in all aspects of the knowledge work discourse.

Originality/value

The paper identifies how power relations are implicit in organisational discourses of knowledge work. Knowledge is seen to be central to studies of organisations, economics and globalisation, yet human beings as creators of knowledge have been marginalised in the knowledge discourses.

Citation

Adelstein, J. (2007), "Disconnecting knowledge from the knower: The knowledge worker as Icarus", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 26 No. 8, pp. 853-871. https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150710836172