The role of weak ties in enhancing knowledge work

The purpose of this research paper is to explore the collaboration in knowledge worker's performance from the organizational perspective and decompose most relevant contributing factors. A systematic literature review based on Fink's model [1] was conducted, 22 key journal articles were selected for further analysis. This research sheds light on the use of weak ties in knowledge workers' related tasks, seeking answers towards what context knowledge workers can make use of weak ties in their tasks and for what purposes. A constructive pattern is built to advance some effective measures in knowledge work. Since the focus of the study was on knowledge work-related tasked, there is a possibility that dissimilar evaluations would have arisen if the focus had been on non-knowledge work relevant tasks. This study has gone some way towards enhancing organizations' understanding of the significance of weak ties in knowledge workers' performance. The originality of this paper lies in taking a new look at opportunities of weak ties towards knowledge workers, revisit the significance of weak ties.