Thinking for a Living

In Thinking for a Living, Thomas Davenport contends that knowledge workers are vastly different from other types of workers in their motivations, attitudes, and need for autonomy - and thus require unconventional management techniques if they are to be more productive. Based on extensive research involving more than one hundred companies and six hundred knowledge workers, Thinking for a Living provides insights into how knowledge workers think, how they accomplish tasks, and what motivates them to excel. Davenport identifies four major categories of knowledge workers - transaction, integration, expert, and collaborative - and presents a framework for matching each category with management strategies that yield the greatest performance.