‘re-classified’ as a result of a range of fairly undemanding technical or commercial
tasks being introduced into existing administrative or clerical job (Tessaring 1997).
For example, the introduction of ICT in the banking industry means that the work of
administrative or clerical staff has been re-classified as technical/commercial, since
staff now devote a greater amount of time to monitoring financial transactions
compared with the past. In contrast, other occupational profiles have been ‘expanded’
as a result of an enlargement or enrichment of work roles due to the drive to encourage
employees to assume greater responsibility for adding value through self-management
of work processes, work relationships and customer relationships (Guile and Fonda
1999). For example, changes within the medical profession have resulted in doctors
and nurses assuming responsibility as process managers for health services and
facilities. These developments have not necessarily increased the level of medical
knowledge and skill which doctors and nurses require, however, they have significantly
broadened the contexts in which they are expected to work, the range of expertise they
are expected to mediate between, the roles they are expected to perform and the
accountability associated with work roles. In this sense, the range of and type of
knowledge and skill required by professionals, such as doctors and nurses, has been
radically enlarged.
The links between product and service quality, competitive advantage and knowledge
work, therefore, are not as simple and unidirectional as many policymakers and some
researchers claim (Keep 1999). This is partly because, depending upon market segment
and product development strategies, firms can still chose to adopt either ‘high’ or ‘low’
added-value models of production and skill formation and remain economically viable
for the foreseeable future (Bengtson 1993; Regini 1995). The choice between models
of production and skill formation would suggest that the demand for ‘science-based’
knowledge work in the EU, as well as elsewhere in the world (Florida 1995), is most
likely to surface either in specific regions (Cooke and Morgan 1998) and sectors which
constitute the ‘growth industries of the future’ (Thurow 1999).
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