Knowledge economy

The knowledge economy is the use of knowledge (savoir, savoir-faire, savoir-être) to generate tangible and intangible values.

We define the knowledge economy as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technical and scientific advance, as well as rapid obsolescence.
- Walter W. Powell, 2004

Quotes

• Knowledge is a broad and abstract notion that has defined epistemological debate in western philosophy since the classical Greek era. In the past few years, however, there has been a raging interest in treating knowledge as a significant organizational resource. The heightened interest in organizational knowledge and knowledge management stems from the transition into the knowledge economy, where knowledge is viewed as the principle source of value creation and sustainable competitive advantage.
  • Maryam Alavi and Dorothy E. Leidner. "Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues." MIS quarterly (2001): 107-136.

• Authoritarians offer citizens a deal: if we hand over our freedom, they will guarantee certainty and safety. This might have been possible in a closed society with little interaction between people, but it is a false promise in a knowledge economy where citizens are interconnected. If the best chaos theorists can't model the weather beyond a week, how does the National Security Agency think it can predict which of us will turn into a terrorist? If our intelligence agencies persist in monopolising knowledge we will see continued intelligence failures.
  • Heather Brooke, The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition, Page 236.

• This new knowledge economy will rely heavily on knowledge workers. ...the most striking growth will be in “knowledge technologists:” computer technicians, software designers, analysts in clinical labs, manufacturing technologists, paralegals. ...They are not, as a rule, much better paid than traditional skilled workers, but they see themselves as “professionals.” Just as unskilled manual workers in manufacturing were the dominant social and political force in the 20th century, knowledge technologists are likely to become the dominant social—-and perhaps also political—-force over the next decades.
  • Peter Drucker, "The next society" Economist.com (November 2001)

• Investing in people is the single most important thing in the knowledge economy. Traditionally, wealth was defined by land and natural resources. Today the most important resources is between our ears.
  • Barack Obama. Remarks by President Obama at Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (April 27, 2014) at whitehouse.gov, 2014

• We define the knowledge economy as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technical and scientific advance, as well as rapid obsolescence. The key component of a knowledge economy is a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources.
  • Walter W. Powell and Kaisa Snellman. "The knowledge economy." Annu. Rev. Sociol. 30 (2004): 199-220.

See also

• Information society
• Knowledge management
• Knowledge worker