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Enhancing the innovative behaviour of knowledge workers is a main task in knowledge management. The pay-for-performance policy is one of the management practices for innovative behaviour enhancement and has been gaining popularity in the knowledge-intensive context. However, it is still uncertain whether such practice really enhances the innovative behaviour of knowledge workers. To address this issue, this paper aims to propose and verify a conceptual framework incorporating kernel notions of social exchange, psychological empowerment and work engagement rooted in the social cognition paradigm.

The current study conducts a survey on 608 knowledge workers and their supervisors, validating the model structure and causal path pattern of the proposed framework. The causality is delineated from social exchange attributes of financial incentive, psychological empowerment and work engagement to innovative behaviour of knowledge workers.

Perceived organisational support and perceived pay equity are primary antecedents of symbolic incentive meaning reflected in the financial incentive of the pay-for-performance policy. Symbolic incentive meaning comprising dimensions of relative position, control and personal importance relates positively to innovative behaviour of knowledge workers. Psychological empowerment and work engagement are partial mediators of the positive relationship.

The current study explicates why and how social exchange attributes of the financial incentive provided by the pay-for-performance policy may enhance innovative behaviour of knowledge workers. Implications are supplied to knowledge management scholars and practitioners to optimise the pay-for-performance policy for innovative behaviour enhancement.

The purpose of this paper is to share findings from a literature review conducted during ongoing scholarly research on the characteristics of knowledge workers. This paper aims to place knowledge workers in the context of twenty‐first century organizations by providing a historical background on the emergence of knowledge work.

The literature presented in this review is drawn from Google and Google Scholar searches along with the following EBSCO databases: Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, MasterFILE Premier, MasterFILE Select, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycARTICLES, and PsycINFO.

Much of the literature review for this project comes from the management field. A predominant theme is that capitalizing on the talents of knowledge workers entails creating a culture with a specific set of characteristics chosen to create an environment in which knowledge workers flourish. A common perception is that the effective management of knowledge workers is hindered by the lack of a cohesive definition. The literature review suggests that a set of characteristics exists specific to knowledge workers.

The paper posits an increased awareness of twenty‐first century workforce characteristics that need to be taken into consideration as soon as possible by private, public or academic enterprises.

While there is no dispute about the exponential growth of knowledge workers and their critical impact on business, the number of knowledge workers is difficult to gauge due to the lack of a precise definition. Moreover, this workforce is difficult to manage until it is well understood and defined. There is no model to encompass the full spectrum of characteristics that define knowledge workers. A proposed taxonomy of the characteristics of knowledge workers can serve as a springboard for more intensive research into the application of management practices uniquely suited to motivating knowledge workers to superior performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple cases of Moldovan women who individually initiated and involved in work arrangements with Italian employers. The main purpose is to examine the international employment experiences of female migrants by identifying the challenges they face in a foreign country and building a comprehensive typology of female migrant workers.

The empirical work consists of field notes gathered through direct observations and semi‐structured interviews conducted with five Moldovan women while they were still working in Italy. The content analysis of the interviews reveals how Moldovan workers perceive their foreign experience and the ways it influences their personal development.

The paper suggests that such brain mobility concepts as brain drain, brain waste and optimal brain drain represent the distinguishing characteristics of our interviewees who are citizens of a transitional economy. Imaginary trip, frustrating encounter, identity consolidation and self‐actualization are identified as four consecutive stages through which the self‐initiated migration experience develops over the time. The resulting variations in migrants' behaviours and mind‐sets create a typology of female workers based on their desperateness to migrate (planner vs despairer), their failure to tolerate the frustrating encounter (surrenderer), their attitudes towards personal development (conformist vs rejuvenator) and their ability to transcend their own limitations (highflyer). The paper describes the double identity strangeness along with other aspects which differentiate self‐initiated experiences from expatriate assignments.

The use of a limited number of case studies prevents concluding whether and to what extent the findings apply to all female migrant workers from other transitional economies. This limitation could be clarified in a future study on larger samples of female respondents involved in self‐initiated employment arrangements in Italy or in other developed countries.

At the organizational level, the findings allow employers and human resource managers in the destination country to distinguish different types of migrant workers and better understand their particular needs in order to facilitate their intra‐firm integration.

Using a gender analysis highlighted in the international migration literature, this research makes a contribution towards creating a solid knowledge base on Moldovan migrant women – a widely underexplored group of migrant workers – and their involvement in labour market processes in Italy.

This chapter introduces human resource practices in contemporary knowledge-based organizations of today’s fast moving sectors. Such organizations are called ‘knowledge intensive firms’ (KIFs) which are distinct from traditional organizations as their main focus is innovation. These firms employ knowledge-oriented workers named as ‘knowledge workers’ (KWs) whose main task is to find creative solutions to complex problems and create new knowledge. Knowledge workers are well-educated experts and their nature of work includes complexity, creativity and analytical thinking. Such workers are the most important resource of KIFs, as they own the means of production. In this regard, attracting, retaining and motivating KWs have become crucial for knowledge intense firms to gain competitive advantage. Having these workers in hand, human resource management practices also differ in knowledge-oriented organizations. This chapter aims to introduce such contemporary practices and inform the reader about the strategies in attracting, retaining and motivating KWs in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of realistic job previews (RJPs) and realistic living conditions previews (RLCPs) during the recruitment of a group of internationally mobile knowledge workers who elect to go overseas independently rather than as part of an overseas assignment. It also aims to explore individual perceptions of the value of RJPs and RLCPs in contributing to work and general living adjustment.

The paper draws on a qualitative study of international faculty in six Canadian universities using in‐depth interviews to examine their experiences of recruitment and focusing specifically on the extent to which RJPs and RLCP were provided.

The findings reflect the need for realistic recruitment that includes information about position specifications and responsibilities as well as non‐organizational factors such as opportunities for spousal employment. Thus, respondents did not conceptualize the recruitment process in terms of two separate components of “job” (RJP) and “living conditions” (RLCP). Instead realistic recruitment emerged as a holistic process, with each individual having his/her own differential weighting of the relative importance of different factors.

The sample comprises mostly white‐western faculty, thus ethnic minority faculty are underrepresented. Further research might also explore the perceptions and experiences of international recruiters.

The paper extends the current literature on RJPs and RLCPs to consider internationally mobile knowledge workers who elect to go overseas independently. Located within an interpretive perspective it also enhances our understanding of individual experiences and the need for a more holistic approach to international recruitment.

The aim of this paper is to show the association which exists among the wide range of knowledge management, knowledge sharing and HRM practices in the knowledge‐intensive firms.

The proposed literature review includes the systematic process of research in the following manner; after identifying the main area of interest, key concepts and words were selected, parameters were set to ensure selection of good quality journals, and availability of articles in full text was also considered.

The study finds that one must keep in view the variable personnel demands and extensive training and development needs of knowledge workers, and highlights the need for attention to be paid to unique scientific practices for managing gold‐collar workers in knowledge‐intensive firms.

The need for further empirical, cross‐case, cross‐cultural and longitudinal studies is highlighted to explore the dimensions of HR practices for managing gold‐collar workers in KIFs.

Perception of gold‐collar workers with reference to the relationship with top managers is discussed through the 30 articles published over the period 2000 to 2006. To manage KIFs, the creation of an original focus on people issues is highlighted. With the help of Chenail's qualitative matrix, the study thematically analyzes the HR antecedents that emerged into four distinctive categories.

The objective of this study is to analyze the process of reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) occurring in multinational companies (MNCs), examining whether headquarters' absorptive capacity and the human resource management (HRM) practices developed by the parent unit influence success.

The data were collected through a questionnaire completed by the human resource manager of multinational company (MNC) headquarters. The analysis has been carried out on a sample of 115 Spanish MNCs by using structural equation models (SEM).

The results indicate that a parent firm's absorptive capacity positively influences RKT and that, in turn, this absorptive capacity is greater if headquarters implement certain practices of employee staffing, training, participation and performance appraisal.

This study extends existing research on RKT by examining the absorptive capacity of headquarters. Its main contribution is to provide evidence that MNCs can improve their RKT through HRM practices developed by the parent unit. This is original because most studies on RKT focus on HRM practices used by subsidiaries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate values are interpreted by local and international employees in a multilingual organisation that has opted for the local language, not English, as its corporate language.

This is a research paper exploring how the recontextualisation and resemiotisation of value terms impact on how corporate values are interpreted, employing triangulation of questionnaire and interview results.

When values are recontextualised in employee discourse, proficiency in the corporate language and cultural background was found to have an impact on their interpretation. Internationals were found to have a broader and not exclusively professional interpretation compared to the locals. Internationals with a low level of proficiency in the local language were more sceptical than the locals as to whether there was a shared understanding of the values.

The questionnaire yielded fewer respondents than the authors expected, which should be taken into account when interpreting the results.

The paper suggests best practices for communicating corporate values to a multilingual workforce.

This paper contributes to the understanding of linguistic challenges in the multilingual work contexts.

To the authors’ knowledge, there is little prior in-depth research on how language impacts on employees’ interpretation of corporate values. As values are cohesive devices in organisations, the language used to convey them is worth addressing as the present paper aims to demonstrate.

Knowledge is becoming a critically importance resource in contemporary business organizations, a development posing significant issues for HRM. Draws together various strands of theory, research and practice to develop a better understanding of these issues, with special emphasis on HRM practice in knowledge‐intensive organizations. Discusses the difficulties of making a transition from traditional forms of HRM to post‐industrial approaches. A review of traditional compensation systems serves as the basis for a series of propositions concerning preferred practice in this critically important area. The major contention is that the managers of knowledge‐intensive organizations are confronting major new issues in co‐ordinating and directing the effort of knowledge workers. The major conclusion is that existing compensation structures and routines must be re‐thought and makes several suggestions in this regard.