The 1980s have shown that in many areas of business those companies that have converted their creative and innovative strategies into products and services have stolen a march on their competitors. It is likely that this ability will continue to be a critical success factor in the 1990s as well. The effective management of the creative abilities of its professionals and technologists forms a cornerstone of any innovative endeavour but studies into how these companies achieve their strategic leadership have focused more on management style, marketing prowess, and similar methods, not on how they met the motivational needs of their professionals and technologists. This paper describes the results of a research study into the motivation of this group of staff in an attempt to isolate key motivators and to offer a management model which can be used by managers to get the best from their knowledge workers.
