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This paper aims to describe findings from a study of current leading edge knowledge workers and to discuss the challenges and issues that knowledge workers may face in 2020, as the world of work shifts into a knowledge economy.

This is a discussion paper inspired by findings from an ethnographic study of knowledge workers who worked remotely or on the go, using leading edge technology like smart phones.

Today's knowledge workers have a need for better information integration across devices and sources. They struggle to maintain ubiquitous access to electrical power and the internet, and they find it difficult to integrate multiple formats of incoming information into their digital landscape. It is expected that the problems of information integration and infrastructure access will be solved by 2020. However, the paper predicts that knowledge workers of the future will face the daunting task of making sense of vast amounts of incoming information, once they have ubiquitous, integrated access. The paper discusses several solutions and approaches that will help with this daunting task: making information spaces visible, context‐aware systems, and user awareness and control. Additionally, it describes three tensions, which provides a backdrop for discussing opportunities for technology innovations in support of future knowledge workers. These tensions are: information does not equal knowledge; knowledge is global, mobile and difficult to contain behind the firewall; and increasing knowledge‐intensity is not reflected in today's educational outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the kinds of tools and processes that will support the success of knowledge workers in 2020.

The paper is grounded in observations of today's leading edge knowledge workers. Based on study findings, it predicts challenges that future knowledge workers will face and propose processes and solutions that can help knowledge workers to successfully overcome these challenges.

This paper examines the impact of state control on stock price crash risk given whether and how ownership structure affects stock price crash risk is relatively underexplored.

The sample includes 2,285 Chinese firms listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. Panel data is used for conducting the analysis and endogeneity is addressed with instrumental variable estimation and by testing how stock price crash risk is affected when the ultimate controller changes from a private-owned company to a state-owned enterprise.

The authors find that state control is negatively associated with future stock price crash risk. The mechanism analysis shows that state control reduces stock price crash risk through the implementation of conservative corporate policies. Furthermore, the impact of state control is more pronounced with more intensive state involvement, e.g. in strategic industries and when a company's ultimate controller is a non-corporate government agency or the central government.

This paper enriches the literature on the controversy of the role of state control and the results of this study highlight the importance of the conservatism of state control on reducing stock return tail risk. The authors also add to the literature on the importance of the policy-risk sharing effect of state ownership.