Refer to the MANAGEMENT AT WORK case study in your book (Chapter 8, pp. 222-223) titled "Elementary, Watson".   

• 1. These days, according to more and more experts, “every worker is a knowledge worker.” Consider the definition of knowledge workers in the text: “workers whose contributions to an organization are based on what they know.” In what sense might just about any employee qualify as a “knowledge worker”? For example, what qualifies as “knowledge” in an organization’s operational activities (i.e., in the work of creating its products and services)? What’s the advantage to an organization of regarding all employees as knowledge workers?
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• 2.Review the sections in Chapter 4 entitled “Decision-Making Defined” and “Decision-Making Conditions.” Why are computers, especially cognitive computing systems, so effective in assisting the decision-making process? In particular, how can they increase the likelihood of good decisions under conditions of risk and uncertainty?
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  • 3.The overwhelming message,” says Geoff Colvin, seems to be that no one is safe. Technological unemployment… . may finally be here. But even if that’s true… . it will also be true that, as always, technology is making some skills more valuable and others less so… . Which skills will be the winners? Colvin supplies at least one answer to his own question: “It just seems common sense that the skills that computers can’t acquire—forming emotional bonds, making human judgments—will be valuable.” Thomas Davenport agrees: “It’s probably not a bad idea,” he suggests, “to improve your human-relationship skills.” Think of a few jobs in which the application of “human-relationship skills” is important—even absolutely necessary. Explain why these jobs require more than just decision-making skills. How about you? Does the job that you want require good human-relationship skills? Do your human-relationship skills need some improvement? What sort of things can you do to improve them?
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• 4. Science journalist Patrick J. Kiger reports that students of the future are likely to have it a lot easier because digital textbooks equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities will guide them along with the patience and perceptiveness of their favorite kindly professors. Take the newly developed Inquire intelligent biology textbook for the iPad. It allows students to stop and type in a question like “What does a protein do?” and then presents them with a page full of information specific to whatever concept they’re stuck on. Using “What does a protein do?” as a model, think of three questions that you would like to ask this book about topics in this chapter. Explain why you chose the questions that you did and what sort of information you’d find helpful in response to each of your questions.

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From the definition of knowledge workers their contribution to the organization is based on their knowledge It can also be argued that employees have ... View the full answer