'New Ways of Working' as a tool for improving the performance of a knowledge-intensive company

• Published in: Knowledge management research & practice Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 382 - 390
• Main Authors: Ruostela, Jenna, Lönnqvist, Antti, Palvalin, Miikka, Vuolle, Maiju, Patjas, Maija, Raij, Anna-Leena
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis 01.11.2015; Palgrave Macmillan UK; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Analysis; Business and Management; Cost control; Employees; Environmental management; Knowledge; Knowledge Management; knowledge work; Literature; Management; New Ways of Working; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Organization theory; Productivity; Studies; value creation dynamics; Workers; value creation dynamics; performance; productivity; New Ways of Working; knowledge work
• ISSN: 1477-8238; 1477-8246
• DOI: 10.1057/kmrp.2013.57

This paper explores 'New Ways of Working' (NewWoW) - that is, non-traditional mobile and flexible work practices, settings and locations using sufficient ICT tools - as a novel approach to improve the performance of a knowledge-intensive organization. This paper makes a contribution by illustrating how the measurement of the impacts of NewWoW can be done and by producing empirical evidence of the benefits of NewWoW. The conceptual background of the study is anchored in the literature on knowledge work productivity and performance as well as on NewWoW. The empirical section reports a longitudinal case study of a change process during which the case company, Rapal, went through a NewWoW project. The impacts of the change are evaluated based on the results of both objective and subjective performance measures. The project was successful and resulted in significant cost savings as well as improvements in environmental performance (CO 2 emissions).