Knowledge-intensive Economy Research Articles

The impact of internet and e-commerce on the evolving business models in the financial services industry

The financial services industry has changed profoundly because of a new delivery channel (the internet), the explosion of e-commerce and the emergence of a knowledge-intensive economy. This paper explores the major technology and change drivers of the finance industry. It also suggests ways to develop an overall internet and e-commerce strategy for the financial services industry.

Designing Work Within and Between Organizations

The design of work has been and will continue to be a central problem challenging organization theory and practice. The system of arrangements and procedures for doing work affects all workers every day throughout the world. Work is changing dramatically. In an increasingly global and knowledge-intensive economy, work design is no longer contained within an organization; it often transcends the boundaries of organizations and countries. These changes call for a renewed research focus on work design. Building on configuration and complexity perspectives, we propose a framework for studying work design. We argue that three issues require attention to advance the knowledge of work design: (1) defining the boundaries of work systems, (2) examining how the system is nested in a hierarchy within and between organizations, and (3) determining interactions between the elements of a work system. We propose a method of frontier analysis for identifying equifinal designs—the set of equally effective work designs for different combinations of inputs (situations or contexts) and outputs (performance criteria). When work designs are examined longitudinally, these methods permit an examination of adaptation processes on changing fitness landscapes, suggesting how work systems may increase, decrease, or sustain their relative performance over time.

Unpacking the mysteries of change: mental modelling

Achieving growth is the number one priority in global business. Today's top business leaders acknowledge that their human resources and their capacity for change are important factors in achieving growth in a competitive business environment. Most leaders are keen to transform their organizations, but they also recognize that they have limited organizational capability to do so effectively. In a knowledge intensive economy, the essential lever for most change initiatives is the mental model of the individual organizational member. Change initiatives that combine externalized representations of organizational mental models and organizational dialogues enhance change capabilities. Such externalization and dialogue function best when the change process addresses how the company has created value through past successes, how it creates value and uniqueness for its present customers, and how it should change to create stakeholder value in the future.

From genes to therapeutics: educating the government and the public on biomedical sciences-a Singapore experience.

Singapore has a highly developed economy and has been recognized to have one of the best business environments in Asia. Her success is based largely on focused developments of key industries in traded services and manufacturing sectors. The challenge for Singapore is to utilize her small human resource to transform the present economy to a more knowledge-intensive economy. Singapore has recently embarked on the ambitious goal of developing Biomedical Sciences as an industry. Educating the government and the public on various aspects of this new industry was identified as one of the essential steps towards this goal. The challenge was to inspire non-biologists to embrace the life sciences. This review describes how a series of workshops were developed to address the needs and the challenges of educating the public and the government.

Is intellectual capitalism the future wealth of organisations?

This article examines the future of intellectual capitalism. It is concluded that intellectual capital has the potential to become the primary wealth creator in most business organisations. The premise for this conclusion is that the knowledge intensive economy experienced by most companies today makes it increasingly difficult to gain a competitive advantage through traditional and tangible competitive weapons alone. It is however clear that the business case for intellectual capitalism must demonstrate sustained earnings as a result of investments in intellectual matters, and it remains to be seen if this will happen in all industries. Intellectual capitalism also needs to mature as a system before intellectual capital will be more measurable, accountable, risk controllable, thereby more manageable, but the progress of such work is slow for the time being. The most important challenge for intellectual capitalism is to develop the necessary organisational platform of social capital, on which intellectual capital can grow. Business leaders wanting to capitalise on their organisation’s intellectual assets, must develop the culture of their organisation. This is not easily done, and cannot be achieved by investing in another knowledge management system or waiting passively for standard setters to come up with new accounting methods for intellectual capital.

Capitalism, Complexity, and Inequality

Under capitalism there is a potential for increasing socioeconomic complexity and greater specialization of skills. 1 One implication is that there is a potential for increasing inequalities of wealth, income, and power on both a national and international scale. What follows is an updated, broad-brush account of possible future developments in a knowledge-intensive capitalist economy. They can themselves be manifest in different ways, in a number of quite different institutional frameworks (Hodgson 2001).

Globalization and Economic Restructuring in Ontario: From Industrial Heartland to Learning Region?

Recent contributions suggest that the current period is characterized by a paradoxical consequence of globalization in which the ever greater integration of national and regional economies into the global one accentuates, rather than minimizes, the significance of the local context for innovative activities. This paper sketches out the implications of this argument by drawing on the case of Ontario, Canada's largest province and industrial heartland. The restructuring triggered by the broader processes of globalization was accentuated after 1990 by Ontario's deeper integration into the North American economy following the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the US and its successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement. These changes forced a number of critical responses on both firms and the government of the province, as they face the challenge of becoming more innovative and adopting the characteristics of learning regions. This experience is highly relevant to regions elsewhere that are attempting to shift their traditional industrial base to a more knowledge-intensive economy.

Globalization and Economic Restructuring in Ontario: From Industrial Heartland to Learning Region?

Recent contributions suggest that the current period is characterized by a paradoxical consequence of globalization in which the ever greater integration of national and regional economies into the global one accentuates, rather than minimizes, the significance of the local context for innovative activities. This paper sketches out the implications of this argument by drawing on the case of Ontario, Canada's largest province and industrial heartland. The restructuring triggered by the broader processes of globalization was accentuated after 1990 by Ontario's deeper integration into the North American economy following the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the US and its successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement. These changes forced a number of critical responses on both firms and the government of the province, as they face the challenge of becoming more innovative and adopting the characteristics of learning regions. This experience is highly relevant to regions elsewhere that are attempting to shift their traditional industrial base to a more knowledge-intensive economy.

Economics and Utopia: Why the learning economy is not the end of history

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall we have been told that no alternative to Western capitalism is possible or desirable. This book challenges this view with two arguments. First, the above premise ignores the enormous variety within capitalism itself. Second, there are enormous forces of transformation within contemporary capitalisms, associated with moves towards a more knowledge-intensive economy. These forces challenge the traditional bases of contract and employment, and could lead to a quite different socio-economic system. Without proposing a static blueprint, this book explores this possible scenario.

Socialism against markets? A critique of two recent proposals

The debate over the feasibility of socialism has lasted for much of the twentieth century. This essay evaluates two important recent proposals for systems of socialist planning in which markets are given merely a marginal role. Beforehand, some of the key theoretical issues are placed in the context of the ‘socialist calculation debate’ that lasted from the 1920s to the 1940s. It is argued that the Austrian critics of centralist socialism rightly focused on questions of information and knowledge, and similar considerations also undermine the two recent proposals under review. However, a full appreciation of the role of learning in a knowledge-intensive economy also challenges some of the presuppositions of market individualism.

Undoing Underachievement and Promoting Societal Advancement of Women and Girls

Yewchuck and Chatterton (1990) found stereotypical attitudes of others the strongest deterrent to career success for women. Wilgosh (1993) also examined how societal expectations of girls influence their failure to realize their full potential, particularly in mathematics and sciences. This paper focuses on undoing underachievement of women and girls. It is about a unique program that brings together training in high school and college-level mathematics and sciences and better linkages between schools, post-secondary institutions and the business community. The program contributes significantly in the preparation of students for skilled, technological occupations in a knowledge-intensive economy. The Shad Valley Program is a co-educational, residential summer program offered to gifted high school students at eight Canadian universities, dedicated to building bridges between industry and education, especially in the areas of science, technology, and entrepreneurship. A fifteen year retrospective study of its applicants and participants will provide direction for schools and businesses in the identification of key personal and educational experiences that contribute to increased levels of science literacy for both male and female students.

Theories of the firm, competitive advantage and government policy

To improve the effectiveness of government policy, it is necessay to develop a good picture of what a firms in a knowledge-intensive economy is and does. In this paper, we have drawn on the recent surge of books and articles on the resource- and knowledge-based theories of the firm and their implications for competitive advantage. We would like to contribute to that discussion summarizing that debate and exploring the implications for government policy. In new theories of the firm, emphasis is placed on the crucial importance of knowledge, a production factor which is not easily imitated. Exampb of government policy which are based on these new inskhts are the recognition of the importance of demanding clients, the emphasis on the unique potential of the local business environment and the stimulation of transfer of knowledge between firms and networks instead of subsidizing project for knowledge development in isolated firms. A more realistic view of business behaviour will improve the effectiveness of policy, thereby generally improving the competitive position of firms.

The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market

The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market