http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2008/08/characteristics-of-knowledge-ec
In their paper Working for the Future: Technology and Employment in the Global Knowledge Economy, John Houghton and Peter Sheehan discuss the "impacts" (p.8) of globalization and as the foundation for the Knowledge Economy. They assert that
...firms are increasingly required to adopt global strategies to deal with the new realities. Global competition in all major markets between competitors from all major countries, the increasing multinational origin of the inputs to production of both goods and services, the growing intra-industry and indeed intra-product nature of world trade and the interdependent role of the various elements of globalisation are all contributing to a transformation of the global economy.
(1998, p.8)
The emergence of the knowledge economy can be characterized in terms of the "increasing role of knowledge" (p.9) as a factor of production and its impact on skills, learning, organization and innovation. These, then, are the key circumstances and characteristics in the development of Globalized Knowledge Economy:
- There is an enormous increase in the codification of knowledge, which together with networks and the digitalization of information, is leading to its increasing commodification.
- Increasing codification of knowledge is leading to a shift in the balance of the stock of knowledge – leading to a relative shortage of tacit knowledge.
- Codification is promoting a shift in the organization and structure of production.
- Information and communication technologies increasingly favour the diffusion of information over re-invention, reducing the investment required for a given quantum of knowledge.
- The increasing rate of accumulation of knowledge stocks is positive for economic growth (raising the speed limit to growth). Knowledge is not necessarily exhausted in consumption.
- Codification is producing a convergence, bridging different areas of competence, reducing knowledge dispersion, and increasing the speed of turnover of the stock of knowledge.
- The innovation system and its ‘knowledge distribution power’ are critically
important. - The increased rate of codification and collection of information are leading to a shift in focus towards tacit (‘handling’) skills.
- Learning is increasingly central for both people and organizations.
- Learning involves both education and learning-by-doing, learning-by-using and learning-by-interacting.
- Learning organizations are increasingly networked organizations.
- Initiative, creativity, problem solving and openness to change are increasingly important skills.
- The transition to a knowledge-based system may make market failure systemic.
- A knowledge-based economy is so fundamentally different from the resource-based system of the last century that conventional economic understanding must be re-examined.
More...
_________________
References:
Sheehan, P. Tegart, G. (Eds.) (1998) Working for the Future: Technology and Employment in the Global Knowledge Economy. Victoria University Press.
--
