ABSTRACT
Use of the word ‘knowledge’ to preface the terms ‘economy’, ‘work’ and ‘worker’ is now commonplace in academic and policy-related literatures. From one perspective, these terms are associated with the creation of information, ideas and concepts that add value. From another, they are linked with those occupations that require high level (graduate) skills and qualifications. The assumptions associated with both perspectives underpin national education and training policies designed to create the more highly skilled and qualified workforce considered necessary to generate a competitive ‘knowledge economy’. In this chapter, we explore evidence relating to these themes drawn from workers in two knowledge intensive organizations: a research-led university (The University) and a ‘cutting edge’ software engineering company (The Company). In the former, we investigated the learning environments of contract researchers; in the latter, we focused on the learning environments of software engineers.
