Knowledge-based Activities Research Articles

Entrepreneurial activity and attitude in the United Arab Emirates

The paper provides an overview of entrepreneurial activity and attitude in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the purpose of facilitating stakeholders to create new knowledge-based activities. The paper takes a multifaceted nature of entrepreneurship to reveal the range of environmental conditions that affect the attitudes and activity of Emirati entrepreneurs. These appear to be important components in producing a dynamic economy which facilitates socially significant activity, employment and wealth. To realize this development, the paper makes a number of recommendations from building entrepreneurial readiness in schools to endorsing regulatory reform, bankruptcy laws and investor protection. Moreover, a ‘one size fit all’ approach that has been taken in the past requires re-examination to meet the requirements of regional variations and gender differences within the Emirati population.

Practising childbirth activism: A politics of evidence

The literature on childbirth organisations focuses on their critique of medical definitions of birth practices, their efforts to promote ‘natural’ or ’normal’ birth, their espousal of choice rhetoric and their relationship to feminism. It says little, however, about the practices these organisations use to achieve their aims. Our study of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal and France explores the centrality of knowledge-based activities to childbirth activism. Through these activities, we show, organisations (i) elicit the emergence of a concerned public through constituting evidence about women’s experiences of childbirth and obstetric practices; (ii) produce evidence about obstetric practices from women’s perspectives; (iii) articulate this vision of obstetric practices with a critical appraisal of scientific literature; and (iv) make visible international networks of actors who share similar concerns and conceptions. Drawing upon our empirical data we propose the notion of evidence-based activism in order to capture the specificity of birth organisations’ modes of engagement and to describe what they bring about. Through evidence-based activism childbirth organisations get involved in policy making and become recognised as legitimate stakeholders; reframe the issues at stake; open debate with other stakeholders; and bring about changes in the health system. Knowledge-based activities also shape the missions and objectives of the organisations.

Students' satisfaction with a dental summer programme and importance of influencing factors for choosing dentistry as their career

To study the students' satisfaction with the week-long summer programme and the importance of common influencing factors (IFs) for choosing dentistry as their career. Anonymous questionnaire was given to all 214 participants in July of 2011 and 2012. Demographic information including gender, age and education level was collected. The students were asked about their satisfaction with the programme with separate ratings for learning experiences, including hands-on workshops (HOW); clinic observations (CO); problem-based learning tutorials (PBL); and lectures (L). They also rated the relative importance of the ten common IFs. The Friedman test was used to study the order of their preferences of the programme's activities. The Chi-square test was used to study the influence of their demographic factors on the importance of the IFs. A total of 208 students returned their questionnaires. The majority were below the age of 18 (81%), and 44% were studying in an international school. Most of the students (96%) were satisfied with the programme overall. They liked the HOWs and COs more than the PBL tutorials and Ls. 'Altruism' and 'medical/health care career' were the two most important IFs overall. 'Altruism' and 'past experience with dentist' were considered more important by those aged 18 or above. 'Past experience with dentist' and 'working with hands' were considered more important by the international school students. Most participants were satisfied with the summer programme. They preferred practical, skill-based activities to knowledge-based activities. The importance of some IFs was associated with age and education system.

The Territorial Impact of the Knowledge Economy: Intangibles and Regional Inequality in Great Britain

Knowledge-based activities are an important source of national and regional competitiveness. In the UK and other European Union countries knowledge industries represent not only one of the fastest growing sources of new jobs, but also account for an increasing share of Gross Value Added (GVA) and exports. Nonetheless, there are also indications that the actual importance of the knowledge economy still remains understated. Within the conventional System of National Accounts, expenditure on intangible assets, such as research and development or human and organizational capital, is not considered either as part of GVA or as investment. In the UK, Marrano et al. (2009) report increased market sector GVA figures by as much as 13% in 2004 after treating intangibles as investment. Considering that expenditures on intangibles vary considerably across regions, it is likely that the territorial impact of this aspect of the knowledge economy has remained largely unreported so far. Spatial inequalities in the investment in intangibles should result in sharper inequalities in regional output. This paper aims to address this issue, first by adjusting the UK regional GVA series for investment in intangibles and second by exploring the trends in regional economic convergence during the period 1991–2004.

Places for knowledge-based activities in the African medieval knowledge city of Timbuktu

Efficient and effective use of urban places is among the secrets of creating a holistic knowledge city. This seems to be a key lesson for African cities seeking to transform themselves into knowledge cities. However, the dominant geographies of knowledge-based urban development research and policy in recent years have strong bias on developed and emerging countries together with a focus on the application of information and computing technologies (ICT) as a tool for future development. Furthermore, they have largely focused on the development of a section of the city such as knowledge precincts, business incubators; science and technology parks and knowledge-hubs. This paper asserts that far from being the so-called ‘dark continent’ Africa’s scientific and literary accomplishments were far ahead of most of the other continents at the medieval time and may have some lessons for contemporary societies. Focusing on Timbuktu, ‘the city of knowledge’, an attempt is made to define and distinguish Timbuktu’s gradual development approach from the current quick-fix global approach to knowledge city creation. After discussing the methodology used in the research, the paper identifies the city’s important places for knowledge development activities that were the key to its extraordinary achievements. Then it draws up lessons that could prove invaluable for the emerging African countries that seek to use knowledge city as a tool to guide their future development.

The impact of knowledge sharing on firm performance: an empirical investigation of information technology firms

In the knowledge run economy, firm’s ability to implement knowledge-based activities becomes increasingly vital for the sustenance of competitive advantage. To foster this process, the role of knowledge sharing is very crucial. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of task characteristics along with mutual trust in the knowledge sharing process. The data has been collected from 239 project managers working into the knowledge intensive service economy. The level of mediation of knowledge sharing on team performance and finally firm performance has been examined along with the moderating effect of trust. Result shows that knowledge sharing mediates the effect of task characteristics on firm performance. The key implication of the study is that service organisations should design service roles and allot resources appropriately for better knowledge sharing and improved firm performance.

Knowledge work difficulty factors: An empirical study based on different groups of knowledge workers

The determination of the difficulty factor in knowledge work can be important for improving the performance of knowledge workers. In this article a regression model for investigating the difficulty of knowledge based activities (KBAs) is proposed. Four factors are considered in the model: Uncertainty, Variability of information, Amount of information and Level of skill and expertise. An empirical study based on 119 jobs from three different groups of knowledge workers (i.e. managerial, professional and clerical) shows that there are significant differences between the difficulty of the KBAs in managerial, clerical and professional jobs, and that managerial KBAs are more difficult than the KBAs of the other two groups. Furthermore, regression models indicate that Level of skill and expertise is the most influential factor in the difficulty of the KBAs in each of the three groups.

Knowledge Strategy

Knowledge strategy is defined as the set of guidelines and philosophies that guide an organization’s knowledge-based activities, such as knowledge gathering, development, storage, and utilization. Much of the early literature describing knowledge strategy suggests that its role in the organization is to drive, and be driven by, organizational structure and the human resources and technology strategies. This paper derives a model that places the firm’s knowledge strategy as a mitigating factor between the decisions made by management and the manner in which they are communicated to the rest of the organization. The present research is an update to a previously published paper and extends the research that first generated the metaphor of the KS as a lens.

Knowledge-based development and knowledge-based economy - a case study of Dubai

Many cities around the have world developed a vision, mission and strategies to seek a development that labelled them as knowledge-based cities. Amongst the Middle East economy, Dubai is the centre of the attraction. Dubai’s development in the past few decades has been characterised by its great economic transformations inspired by its visionary leaders. Dubai has made a tremendable success to be labelled as knowledge-based economy. Dubai seeks to transform itself into a knowledge-based society and economy by the year 2010. This paper studies how Dubai is able to transform their economies towards the knowledge-based economy given their inherited but obsolete and newly acquired technological and human assets. This paper also studies how the transformation of Dubai during has affected knowledge-based activities, in particular software, electronics and other information and communication technology sectors.

Gender wage differentials in the Malaysian services sector

The Malaysian economy has undergone dramatic changes moving from a heavy dependence on agriculture to an increasing reliance on the manufacturing and services sectors. These days, the services sector has become the most important source of Malaysian economic growth. Most sub-sectors in the service industries have been transforming toward more capital-intensive and knowledge-based activities that require additional skilled-labor. An increase in demand for this type of labor will subsequently raise wages. However, it is observed that because women are perceived as being less productive compared to men they are always less preferred by employers despite being equally educated. This perception of employers may not be true and, as such, bears the element of discrimination against women. This paper attempts to examine this issue using 887 executives in three selected services sectors – education, health, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – from a survey conducted in 2007/2008. They comprise 315 males and 571 females. The results show that almost all incorporated human capital variables have a significant positive effect on wages for male and female workers. These variables also play an important role in reducing gender wage differentials. However, discrimination prevails, as shown by a high percentage contribution of unexplained variables to gender wage inequality. Key words: Gender wage differentials, discrimination, services sector.

Can a knowledge‐based cluster be created? The case of the Barcelona 22@ district

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to evaluate the local policy that has promoted the formation of a cluster of knowledge‐based activities in the city of Barcelona. After decades of economic and industrial stagnation in a district called Poblenou, in the year 2000 the City Council of Barcelona implemented a plan to renew the area's urban and economic structure. Under the development plan, knowledge‐based firms were encouraged to set up in the area and thus to create a cluster of advanced activities. This paper examines the success of this local policy and aims to determine whether cluster amenities have played a part in attracting knowledge‐based firms. First, we evaluated the cluster implementation via a ‘difference‐in‐differences’ analysis, comparing the increase in the percentage of knowledge‐based firms in this specific area with the increase of these firms in other local areas. Second, to determine whether the cluster amenities are an important element in attracting knowledge‐based activities, we perform a multivariate regression to see if cluster amenities (as valued by firms in a survey) do have an effect on the decision of knowledge‐intensive firms to locate in the district.El propósito de este artículo es evaluar la política local que ha favorecido la formación de un conglomerado de actividades basadas en conocimiento en la ciudad de Barcelona. Después de décadas de estancamiento económico e industrial en un distrito llamado Poblenou, el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona implementó en el año 2000 un plan para renovar la estructura urbana y económica de la zona. Siguiendo el plan de desarrollo, se animó a las empresas de actividades basadas en conocimiento a que se establecieran en este área, creando con ello un conglomerado de actividades avanzadas. Este artículo examina el éxito de esta política local e intenta determinar si los servicios de conglomerado han jugado un papel a la hora de atraer a empresas de actividades basadas en conocimiento. Primero, evaluamos la implementación del conglomerado por medio de un análisis de diferencia en diferencias, al comparar el aumento del porcentaje de empresas de actividades basadas en conocimiento en este área específica con el aumento de estas empresas en otras áreas locales. Segundo, para determinar si las amenidades de conglomerado son un elemento importante a la hora de atraer actividades basadas en conocimiento, realizamos una regresión multivariante para observar si las amenidades de conglomerado (así valoradas por las empresas en una encuesta) afectan a la decisión de las empresas basadas en conocimiento de ubicarse en este distrito.

Outsourcing in Knowledge-Based Service Firms

This paper reports on empirical work recently conducted on outsourcing among knowledge-based and other service firms in Iceland. The results show that knowledge-based firms outsource on a larger scale and more human resource functions than other service firms. However, they do not have a more strategic vision towards outsourcing, nor do they outsource more low knowledge-based activities than other firms. The study gives support to the resource-based view of the firm, and is in line with former studies of knowledge-based firms. The firms in the survey tend to keep their core competencies and employees in-house, and at the same time they outsource other functions that they consider non-core, such as peripheral and administrative tasks, or IT that requires technical specialization. The more innovative firms rely on outsourcing from best in class suppliers regarding training and counselling. The contribution of this study to the theory of outsourcing is that the non-routine tacit knowledge base related to firms’ core competencies is not limited to knowledge-based firms, but to a large portion of service firms as well.

Outsourcing in the service based industries: an analysis using transaction cost economics and knowledge-based view

While intense global competition drives firms to move knowledge-based activities offshore to take advantage of inexpensive foreign labour, there are increased costs with monitoring and managing activities located in distant locations. Additionally, certain knowledge types may be more difficult to transfer and assimilate across national borders. Both transaction cost economics and the knowledge-based view focus on important but separate issues related to offshore outsourcing. In this paper we combine both theoretical views and offer five propositions which we test using the data from two exploratory case studies. Finally, we discuss our results and give implications for future research.

Knowledge, Space, and Economic Governance: The Implications of Knowledge-Based Commodity Chains for Less-Favoured Regions

As an increasing amount of manufacturing employment has relocated to the Global South, the developed economies of the Global North have sought new ways of competing within the global economy. In part they have done so through the promotion of the so-called ‘knowledge-based economy’ (KBE) constituted by innovations and new markets in high-tech industries like telecommunication, information technology, and the life sciences. A KBE discourse has become a central plank of policy at the national and European levels. This raises a series of questions, however, about the ability of less-favoured regions to compete for knowledge-based activities, given existing conditions of uneven development and the unequal distribution of knowledge assets between regions in the developed economies. In this respect, particularly critical to regional outcomes are the forms of economic coordination and governance that emerge in knowledge-based commodity chains. Engaging with recent debates concerned with global commodity chains, this paper builds on the idea that economic governance is increasingly alliance driven, entailing a diverse set of geographies and trust-based relationships between a variety of organisations that include small innovative firms, large multinational corporations, and national (and subnational) policy actors. These forms of governance open up new opportunities for less-favoured regions, although these continue to be constrained by already existing power relations between regions.

A SERVICE ORIENTED FRAMEWORK FOR CONTEXT AWARE KNOWLEDGE ENHANCING

The understanding and applying of knowledge can be difficult if it is isolated from the context under which the knowledge is generated and managed. Despite the importance of contextual information, there has been limited support for utilizing context in existing knowledge management solutions. This paper presents a set of integrated services for context aware enhancing of knowledge and knowledge management: monitoring services monitor human computer interaction to implicitly capture their interactions with the explicit or implicit data; context extraction services extract activity centric knowledge context from the monitoring data, as well as support users to manage their knowledge-based activities; knowledge enhancing services enhance knowledge and knowledge management by taking into consideration the context and topic of the knowledge-based activity. The services are provided in a loosely coupled service oriented framework which can be easily integrated with existing information and knowledge management systems to maximize its usability and extendibility.

Towards hybrid therapeutic strategies in intellectual disabilities.

Introduction Early intervention (EI) may be defined as the set of knowledge-based clinical activities with the intellectually disabled (ID) child and her/his family between birth and approximately six years that intends to eliminate, prevent, or compensate for the developmental delays and deficits of the condition. The strategy is to take advantage of the earlier ages to activate, promote, and optimize neurobehavioral structures and processes which would remain underdeveloped due to adverse neurogenetic effects on the ontogenesis. There are several justifications for carrying out systematic intervention. In the case of a congenital ID condition, assuming early diagnosis, it is advisable to initiate intervention in the weeks following birth in order to reduce as much as possible the delays in the socio-personal, physical, and cognitive aspects of development. Human ontogenesis is highly cumulative. Earlier acquisitions serve as a basis for further developments. The sooner the basic structures are in place, the better the prognosis for additional progress and the higher the probability, assuming continued training, that advanced levels of development as allowed by the condition will be reached. A second reason is that brain plasticity is larger during the first years of life, and this also applies to children with ID therefore supplying a more fertile receptive ground for intervention. The two reasons above suggest that EI is likely to be more cost-effective than any intervention carried on later in life which is not to say that the latter is devoid of value or that intervention with children with ID should be discontinued after six years of age. Guralnick (1997, 2005) has reviewed current knowledge underlying a number of development-enhancing dimensions, concluding that decades of both small- and larger-scale studies indicate that an affirmative answer is warranted to the question whether we are capable of altering individual development through EI programmes. Guralnick (2005) reckons that comprehensive EI programmes have proved able to prevent much of the decline in cognitive development for children with Down syndrome (DS) occurring during the first years. Although demonstrating longer-term effects present difficult methodological challenges, long-term outcomes years later have been documented as well for several developmental pathologies including DS. Guralnick (2005) also suggests directions for future research and practice, among them specifying better subgroups of children and families in research and evaluation studies (etiological and genetic specificity), identifying better the specific components of intervention responsible for producing sought -after effects, calibrating the intensity of intervention, and assessing better patterns of interaction between subgroups based on child's and family characteristics and programme components. But why, it could be asked, should one devoid so much attention to EI and future prospects at a time where, due to the conjunction of fetal diagnosis and abortive practices, the occurrence of babies with DS (and other genetic causes of ID if not today probably tomorrow) is decreasing in a number of Western countries ? Should we not better concentrate our energies on caring for adults with ID who, given the marked increase in their life expectancy, will be more prevalent in coming years than ever in the past? We should certainly pay much attention to this last issue and launch more research and clinical works intending to clarify several of the most urgent problems arising as a consequence of a longer living in persons with ID , such as a propensity towards earlier physiological aging and a higher susceptibility to Alzheimer disease in persons with DS. In my opinion, how ever, the case for EI is far from being closed for reasons that will become apparent in the rest of the paper. Let's take a look at the present-day attempts with animals at genetic therapy in the case of experimentally induced pathological conditions akin to some genetic conditions of ID in humans. …

The unplanned creative city: an emerging sustainability? Crossroads between education and innovation in Santiago, Chile

Santiago, Chile's capital city, has undergone numerous changes in its urban fabric due the process of economic globalisation since mid 1980s, affecting its social, physical and economic configurations. But behind all those changes, the concentration of high knowledge-based activities has been proof critical to improve the innovation capacity of the city; in Santiago's case those are the information and communications technologies (ICT) and biotechnology, mainly clustered in central areas. Several government initiatives have encouraged new approaches to improve these technology concentrations, most of them based in the 'Technology Park' typology, disconnected from the traditional networks of knowledge. In this context, the University Neighborhood of Santiago (UNS) project could reveal some clues where to encourage future development. Thus, the unplanned formation of creative hubs in areas in regeneration is presented as two complementary processes that could lead a more sustainable approach to the future development of city historical centres.

Knowledge-intensive business services: a brief overview

In the last decade of the 20 th century knowledge has gained importance in the eco nomy. This lead to the emergence of knowledge-based activities: knowledge-intensive organizations, and particularly knowledge-intensive services. These organizations function as external knowledge source s for other organizations. Their performance depend s largely on professional knowledge. Since their performance has an impact on the success of their clients, it is i mportant to look at those factors which influence the knowledge transfer betw een service provider and client organization. Based on theory and empirical research, the paper addresses the specifi c aspects of knowledge transfer from knowledge-intensive business service organizations to client organizations. ISSN: 1804-0527 (online) 1804-0519 (print)

Situierte Analyse, dynamische Räumlichkeiten

Situated analysis, dynamic spatialities. Starting points, perspectives and potentials of a time-geography of the knowledge based economy. This article explores methodological and conceptual links between economic geography and time geography with regard to a suitable analysis of the knowledge based economy. Starting from three key concepts of time-geography - ‘project’, ‘path’ and ‘diorama’ - the article develops a systematic typology of four different approaches to a time-geography of knowledge-based activities: ‘Paths of learning and innovation’, ‘microcosms of learning’, ‘work-life balance’ and ‘work/life city limits’. The article concludes that a stronger integration of time-geographic reasoning would deepen our understanding of the complex interrelation between structure and agency.

Knowledge Strategy and Its Role in the Organization

Knowledge strategy is defined as the set of guidelines and philosophies that guide an organization’s knowledge-based activities, such as knowledge gathering, development, storage, and utilization. Much of the early literature describing knowledge strategy suggests that its role in the organization is to drive, and be driven by, organizational structure and the human resources and technology strategies. The present research utilizes semi-structured interview data to determine that knowledge strategy is less of a formal structure and more of a lens through which knowledge-based decisions are viewed and focused, resulting in organizational actions that align with the knowledge strategy of the organization.