Fourth Pillar in the Transformation of Production Economy to Knowledge Economy

Abstract

Knowledge has increasingly influence economic growth of nations of late leading to the concept of knowledge economy. It is here that knowledge has became one of the factors of production and the disparities in countries productivity and growth are now less reliant on their abundance of natural resources than the intellectual capacity and quality of human capital. Recent debate on transforming production based economy to knowledge based economy has give raise to the interactions between three major players i.e. the government; the university; and the industry. Earlier studies assumed that their presence would encourage greater knowledge intensive economic activities. However, recent observations indicated that this model is incomplete since the interaction between these three entities without the presents of a bridging agent may result in a weaker bond; and the connection among these organisations are rarely equals. These gaps and inequalities could be, we believe, overcome through the insertion of a fourth pillar in the mould of society represented by the non-governmental organizations. The fourth pillar provides sufficient influence and voice of the people since they provide avenues for communications between authorities and the people whom are influence by their decisions.