The extensive use of ICT suggests the increasing importance of knowledge in the economy, and therefore today we can speak of the knowledge-based economy. Knowledge workers, who intensively apply and/or generate knowledge in their works, increasingly become the most important labour force. In short, the progress of ICT leads to an increase in the importance of knowledge workers (Jemielniak, 2012).
In this chapter knowledge worker is defined as the one who works in a knowledge intensive profession, either uses or exploits knowledge intensively such as many professionals in industry or business, or works on producing knowledge such as researchers or academicians working in corporate laboratories or higher education. Academicians and researchers can be considered as the first generation of knowledge workers, because they were already using and generating knowledge before people in other sectors deliberately did so. Higher education institutions are places where existing knowledge workers teach future generations of knowledge workers.