Towards understanding 'knowledge workers' lived experience of service productivity in the banking sector

  • Obafemi Olekanma

Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

The problem domain of the study presented in this thesis is the lived experience of service productivity. Particularly, the study is concerned with the lived experience of service productivity of bank executives working as 'official knowledge workers' in the Nigerian banking sector. This group of employees are those that met the 'fit and proper persons' criteria set by the banking sector regulatory authorities and authorised to handle 'key control functions' in their banks. This group of employees are designated 'official knowledge workers' in this study. The research question formulated for the study is: "What is the lived experience of service productivity of the official knowledge workers in the Nigerian banking sector?" The first part of the study was a review of the service operations and knowledge management literature followed by synthesis, which yielded conceptual results. The empirical part was a qualitative study that involved face to face interviews with sixteen Nigerian bank executives from five Nigerian banks. Each interviewee gave a detailed account of their lived experiences of service productivity. The empirical material gathered was analysed using a phenomenological research method developed as part of this research, which I named 'Trans Positional Cognition Approach' (TPCA), and it constitutes the methodological contribution of the thesis. TPCA synthesises the principles of both the descriptive and interpretive phenomenological schools of thoughts and helps researchers to overcome the divide between the two schools of thought and follow a more inclusive approach. Through the analysis of the study data, I identified the existence of 'internal and external' service capacity deficit related factors that impact on the productive inputs of the official knowledge workers resulting in the incidence of what can be referred to as 'lost productivity', which implies a gap in these workers measures of productivity. I have used the Viable System Model principle of Normative Planning developed by Stafford Beer to better explain/understand the factors that constrain both the capability and potential productivity of the official knowledge workers. This is then expressed in greater detail in two academic models, the Official Knowledge Workers Productivity Challenge (oKWPC) and Official Knowledge Worker Productive Input (oKWPI) models developed as part of this research. Hence, this work contributes to scholarly knowledge on service productivity from the official knowledge workers perspective.
Date of Award19 Dec 2019
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University Of Strathclyde
SupervisorFarhad Shafti (Supervisor) & Viktor Dorfler (Supervisor)

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