People and Knowledge management in organizations: challenges of the next decades

Abstract

In the next fifteen years the characteristics of organizations and the way they manage human capital will be conditioned by the development of eight processes with global presence: pre-eminence of knowledge, globalization, population ageing, importance of the role of women, psychological contract, erosion of traditional authority, and the emergence of new organizational values. These eight factors are analyzed here, and their evolving tendencies are addressed.

These processes are combining to transform the organizations of the second and third decades of the XXI century into more complex and pluralistic structures, with more diffuse frontiers, open and disperse structures, and with work forces organized into different levels of involvement which communicate among themselves and with the outside world through global networks.

These organizations present new challenges to people management, including the consequences of rising retirement age, occupation and productivity of older workers, coexistence of three generations in the work force, intercultural intelligence, motivational development, merit significance, talent management in open organizations, and new leadership styles required in a more fluid, more spread out, and more egalitarian environment.

We approach the Portuguese situation in the light of similarities and differences with regard to the evolution of the conditioning factors analyzed here and in the light of measures recommended for this issue in general. We identify its specific characteristics and discuss the effect they may have on people management policies and practices to be adopted in the period under consideration.