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38 MANAGING KNOWLEDGE WORK AND INNOVATION

cultural (normative) control (see below) rather than formal co-ordination and
control mechanisms as a means to co-ordinate work. This supports the idea
that an organic, informal and flexible mode of organizing is preferred in these
types of knowledge-intensive firm (the notion of cultural or normative con-
trol is explored in depth later in the chapter). Notably, firms which adopted a
bureaucratic or autocratic model had significantly higher employee turnover
than those adopting a commitment or star model. Often over time, with a
change in CEO came a change in organizing and the most de-stabilizing in
terms of employee turnover, and firm performance was the shift from star or
commitment types to the bureaucracy. This tended to occur when firms went
public and shareholders demanded more traditional modes of management.
The very few firms that shifted from a star model (arguably the template that
most closely resembles the adhocracy) to bureaucracy experienced the highest
employee turnover. Baron et al.’s research therefore clearly demonstrates that
the majority of knowledge-intensive firms do tend to organize largely infor-
mally and traditional bureaucratic modes of organizing are not suitable if inno-
vation is required.
More recent research by Robertson and Swan (2004) also highlighted that
subtle shifts in organizing template from an adhocracy to a ‘soft bureaucracy’
(again largely legitimated by the public flotation of the firm onto the stock mar-
ket) can also have a significant detrimental effect. Soft bureaucracy is considered
to be a new, subtle form of bureaucratic control and domination characterized by
‘ambivalent structures of governance, within which domination is not essentially
exerted by means of, for example, violence, direct punishment or local hierarchical
supervision, but through sophisticated managerial strategies’ (Courpasson, 2000,
p. 142). Control in ‘soft bureaucracies’ is thus characterized by four distinctive
components: (1) a specific combination of impersonal and personal obedience;
(2) centralization as a means of legitimating political decisions; (3) control based
on soft coercion and protection; (4) control which fuses external and internal
legitimacy. In short, the aim is to manage knowledge-intensive firms to be ‘both
simultaneously innovative (retaining the appearance of worker autonomy) and
yet able to control innovation’ (Robertson and Swan, 2004, p. 130). Ultimately
however Robertson and Swan (2004) demonstrate that whilst soft bureaucracy
may be one way of subtly controlling knowledge workers, the negative effect in
terms of morale and subsequent performance may be significant. Their research
also supports Baron et al.’s earlier research which highlighted that going public,
and the demands of the market (shareholders) for greater formalization can start
to erode the enabling context for knowledge work.

>> STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS ON KNOWLEDGE WORK
Development of organizational ‘best practice’

Research has demonstrated that even when the structural conditions are gener-
ally supportive of knowledge work tasks, it is still very easy for creativity and

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