| The qualitative phenomenological study involved an exploration of the lived experiences of critical knowledge workers in a bureaucratic environment of nonproductive administrative burden. The participants included 22 former technical representatives in the aerospace industry. Data collection included one-on-one, face-to-face, recorded interviews with participants living in California, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas in the United States. Moustakas's (1994) modified van Kaam phenomenological method of analysis and NVivo 9 qualitative data analysis (QDA) software facilitated the interpretive analysis of the transcribed interviews and field notes. The investigation included an exploration of the central research question and three subordinate questions. The central research question was how did former technical representatives perceive their experience of nonproductive administrative burden? The results of the analysis led to the identification of seven themes: (a) concern for customers, (b) desire to perform and contribute, (c) sentiments about NAB, (d) NAB changed over time, (e) concern about value of NAB, (f) concern about leaders' roles in NAB, and (g) concern about performance. The study included recommendations to help leaders understand the importance of knowledge workers' perceptions of NAB and to improve critical knowledge worker performance, thereby improving organizational performance and the potential to develop competitive advantage. |
