This study analyzes the type of authority and organizational structure in knowledge based organizations. Two models of authority were examined: bureaucratic authority, present, for example, in the manufacturing sector, in which managers with administrative experience exercise a fundamental role, and professional authority (expertise), present in organizations where the centrality of knowledge is related to the core business, above that of managerial knowledge. The hypothesis that the electrical sector is an example that possesses organizations structured according to this last model is tested using data from the micro data of the 2000 Demographic Census, from Pernambuco state, by estimating an earnings function. The results indicate that, although there was a valorization of human capital in the electrical sector, making it compatible with the knowledge based organizational model, the position and salary structure of this sector is still strongly based in the rigid hierarchy of the bureaucratic model.