Abstract
Knowledge work, which consists of goal-oriented activities
that require high levels of competency to complete,
comprises a large and increasing amount of work in modern
organizations. Because knowledge work seldom has
single correct results or methods for completion, externally
specified, quantified measures of performance may
not always be the most appropriate means for managing
the performance of knowledge workers. Two competing
models of flow, a type of subjective performance, are proposed
and tested in a sample of work experiences from
engineers, scientists, managers, and technicians who
study and design national defense technologies at Sandia
National Laboratories. Results support the definition and
model that conceives of flow as the experience of merging
situation awareness with the automatic application of
activity-relevant knowledge and skills. Ways in which this
definition and model of flow can be incorporated into theories
of knowledge, performance, and social networks are
explored.
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