That's new reality, not fad. Mark Youngblood characterizes this emerging organization in his new book Life at the Edge of Chaos, Perceval Publishing, 1997. Everyone is subject to shared 'rights and responsibilities' in the form of core principles and beliefs. Power, authority, and accountabilities are bottom-up. Employees are self-reliant and accept responsibility for the organization's overall success.
People are free to interact with whomever they think is necessary to achieve a goal.
So you may be a knowledge worker, but that doesn't mean you work for someone or some company that understands the value of the knowledge that you have. We are in a time of great social transformation, larger even then the industrial revolution, moving to what some call the knowledge economy. These and similar questions are the issues of our times, and the issues we will deal with in the next few essays as we look at knowledge work and knowledge workers.