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In the previous chapters, we discussed the gig economy, knowledge economy, and its characteristics of each. The concept of knowledge workers is discussed in detail and their role in the knowledge economy and in creating knowledge. This chapter will explain how the knowledge economy and gig economy are connected and how the concept of knowledge workers and professional gig workers are connected. We will differentiate skilled gig workers from low-skilled workers and their role in economic development and productivity. Furthermore, we will explain their involvement in the organisation and how they can manage them and utilise their knowledge to increase productivity. The end of this chapter will discuss the platform economy concept and explain the platform economy's aspects in detail. This chapter emphasises how working globally is facilitated by digital transformation and IT infrastructure and how managing the professional workforce will create the opportunity to connect to a variety of job demands, particularly from developed countries.

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.

Two primary approaches have been used to study employment brands and branding. First, there is a long history of the study of organizational attraction. Second, in the past 10–15 years, there has been growth in a hybrid stream of research combining branding concepts from the consumer psychology literature with I/O psychology frameworks of organizational attraction and applicant job search behavior. In this chapter, we take an entirely different approach and suggest that the theoretical models built around product/service brand knowledge can readily accommodate employment brands and branding without hybridizing the framework with I/O psychology. This merging of employment brand with product and service brands is accomplished simply by recognizing employment as an economic exchange between workers and employers and recognizing workers as cognitive and emotional beings that vary in their talents and have their own vectors of preferences for the employment offering. After developing a testable model of the components, antecedents, and consequences of employment brand knowledge, we review the existing employment brand and organizational attraction literature and identify multiple opportunities for additional research.

This chapter describes the workforce trends in developed and developing countries, depicts the changes, and provides a road map for countries seeking to become a hub for professional workers. The roadmap outlined the factors that countries should consider in their strategic planning to succeed as suppliers, transforming the country into a knowledge economy and a hub for professional gig workers. As discussed in Chapter 4, professional gig workers are knowledge workers who work and deliver tasks online, and they participate in professional knowledge-based online jobs. How to organise, train, and structure this skilled workforce to maximise economic growth, income, decrease unemployment, prevent outflow, and transform the country into a professional hub is a critical question that requires special attention from the government and industry players.

To manage workers in the gig economy, we must understand the various types of gig workers and how they perform. This chapter focuses on the many types of gig workers and how professional gig workers overlap with knowledge workers in the knowledge economy. The chapter will next go through the distinctions between the gig economy and the talent economy. This chapter will finish by examining the informal economy and its relationship to the gig economy.

Knowledge workers labor to meet their business goals with the support of practical information technology (IT) tools. IT advances can be organizational enablers, when aligned with business goals, and when selectively applied. Workplace leaders and their workers often experience a productivity paradox. This paradox forms an operational limit for current knowledge workers and organizational success. Performance management steps within a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework can help overcome workplace productivity paradoxes. The BSC frames and tabulates lagging and leading indicators of IT tools’ usage and soft skill engagements. These adaptive measures dashboard workplace progress and success for organizations of all sizes and in public and private sectors. Lessons can be learned from BSC deployment successes in several business sectors. Valued practices exist to pick / monitor / adapt organizational capability objectives, measures and HR initiatives. Can right IT tool(s) or application(s) help achieve aligned business goals? Yes. Certain IT applications can favorably frame learning and development (L&D) efforts and metrics for knowledge workers as most valuable players, or MVPs.How do knowledge workers and their business leaders manage and leverage these IT applications for employee L&D to improve organizational capabilities? How do they address and adapt to complex and chaotic business conditions, and manage disruptive technologies: a. Artificial Intelligence (AI), b. The Internet of Things (IoT), and c. Data Analytics? Prudent managers and workers can accommodate these conditions and disruptions with agile, productive BSC approaches to generate productivity-ware and to attain their aligned business goals.

The article conceptualizes the dilemma between exploration and exploitation for flexible knowledge workers. At a time when work is fragmented and society is individualized, we consider, besides the strategies of organizations, also those of workers and the ways in which they move among organizations in an attempt to ‘get by’ between increased margins of autonomy and a lack of the resources necessary to pursue their passions and to fulfil their projects. Through analysis of the life stories of flexible knowledge workers and their relationships with the organizations for which they work, the article illustrates how flexible knowledge workers handle the tension between exploration and exploitation and how organizations resist their attempts. The purpose is to interpret the pervasiveness of individualization processes that prompt individuals to think of themselves as organizations, while human resource management claim that people are their most valuable resource but treat them as disposable workers.

This chapter examines prior studies on various types of knowledge, knowledge workers, and the knowledge economy. One must have a clear grasp of the function of knowledge workers and human capital in the knowledge economy and how the organisation should manage to gain from knowledge workers and their knowledge to prepare the organisation and economy for the knowledge economy. This chapter will go through many models, drivers, pillars, and requirements for the knowledge economy. The chapter will then finish with the essential aspects of the knowledge economy.