Greg Hearn

Handbook on the knowledge economy

The central motivation for assembling the contributions in this Handbook on the Knowledge Economy derives from the observation that many in government and business seem to have taken up the challenge of putting in place whatever is needed for a knowledge-based economy or a knowledge-based organization but very few appear to be inclined to explain what knowledge is or how it works socially, organizationally or economically. While there are good reasons for this situation, not knowing what knowledge is or how it works in any detail is problematic for those who are charged with managing or facilitating it. Policymakers would not consider constructing monetary policy without the input of some detailed knowledge of economics. Managers would not implement an information system without detailed input from knowledgeable information systems experts. Similarly, good knowledge of knowledge should be seen as essential for knowledge management and knowledge- related policy.

Applications and implementations of new media in corporate communications: An action research approach

Advances in new media and web technology are making it easier for organizations and their employees, suppliers, customers and stakeholders to participate in the creation and management of content. It is therefore, useful to understand how a corporate communication strategy can leverage these trends. Purpose; this paper discusses the take-up and use of new media in organizations, highlighting a current approach to implementation issues. Methodology/approach; we review and explore new media in organizations from three ecological layers: the social, discursive and technical, addressing who is communicating, the communication content and new media technology used. Findings; the paper recommends a customer-centered approach to implementing new media adoption in organisations using action research. Practical implications; new media and Web 2.0 services can be employed to work in tandem with conventional communication tools such as phone, fax and corporate intranets. Such a hybrid approach enables organizations to maintain and strengthen existing stakeholder relationships, but also reach out and build relationships with new stakeholders who were previously inaccessible or invisible. Research limitations/implications; academic literature is lagging behind the pace of technological change, and evaluation studies are limited.

Networked Individualism of Urban Residents: Discovering the communicative ecology in inner-city apartment buildings

Certain patterns of interaction between people point to networks as an adequate conceptual model to characterize some aspects of social relationships mediated or facilitated by information and communication technology. Wellman proposes a shift from groups to networks and describes the ambivalent nature inherent in an egocentric yet still well-connected portfolio of sociability with the term ‘networked individualism’. In this paper, qualitative data from an action research study of social networks of residents in three inner-city apartment buildings in Australia are used to provide empirical grounding for the theoretical concept of networked individualism. However, this model focuses on network interaction rather than collective interaction. The authors propose ‘communicative ecology’ as a concept which integrates the three dimensions of ‘online and offline’, ‘global and local’ as well as ‘collective and networked’. They present their research on three layers of interpretation (technical, social and discursive) to deliver a rich description of the communicative ecology they found, that is, the way residents negotiate membership, trust, privacy, reciprocity, permeability and social roles in person-to-person mediated and direct relationships. They find that residents seamlessly traverse between online and offline communication; local communication and interaction maintains a more prominent position than global or geographically dispersed communication; and residents follow a dual approach which allows them to switch between collective and networked interaction depending on purpose and context.

Value‐creating ecologies: understanding next generation business systems

Purpose: This paper sets out to describe and illustrate an emerging shift in the conceptualisation of value creation in business, namely the emergence of value ecology thinking.----- Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines shifts in the understanding of value creation in key business, economic and innovation literature and focuses on developments in creative industries at the forefront of technology and innovation – film, TV, computer games, e-business, mobile phones – to illustrate how business increasingly creates value through ecologies.----- Findings: This paper identifies five important shifts in the conceptualization of value creation by highlighting a growing prevalence in the literature of several ecological metaphors used to explain business processes, namely: the shift from thinking about consumers to co-creators of value; the shift from thinking about value chains to value networks; the shift from thinking about product value to network value; the shift from thinking about simple co-operation or competition to complex co-opetition; and the shift from thinking about individual firm strategy to strategy in relation to value ecologies.----- Originality/value: This paper synthesizes emerging trends in the literature in relation to value creation and defines the concept of a value-creating ecology. In the process it sheds light on the structure of next generation business systems.

Transdisciplinarity for creative futures: what barriers and opportunities?

The call to ‘creativity’ has become increasingly familiar as a catch‐phrase of higher education policy. Much current academic and policy discussion, however, is based on assertions of the importance of ‘more creativity’ without any clear sense of what the implications are for the disciplinary cultures that organise knowledge work within universities. This paper explores ways that transdisciplinarity can assist in making creativity more evident in the teaching and research activities of universities. It draws on transdisciplinary activity in the Creative Industries Faculty of one Australian university to explore this issue. The argument put here is that a transdisciplinary knowledge environment has a greater capacity to inform creative work futures. Such an environment is not so easily created in practice, as the paper demonstrates by elaborating lessons learnt from a transdisciplinary re‐structure within the authors’ own university context.

FROM VALUE CHAIN TO VALUE CREATING ECOLOGY: Implications for creative industries development policy

The metaphor of a “value creating ecology” is developed to describe the operation of the creative industries. This encapsulates three important trends, namely the shift from consumers to co‐creators of value; the shift from thinking about product value to thinking about network value; and the shift from thinking about cooperation or competition to thinking about co‐opetition. Underlying this metaphor is recognition of the need to consider both public mechanisms as well as the market when framing creative industries development policy. Policy implications for human capital, urban policy and sectoral infrastructure are described.

The future role of government in knowledge‐based economies

In this article, we draw together aspects of contemporary theories of knowledge (particularly organisational knowledge) and complexity theory to demonstrate how appropriate conceptual rigor enables both the role of government and the directions of policy development in knowledge-based economies to be identified. Specifically we ask, what is the role of government in helping shape the knowledge society of the future? We argue that knowledge policy regimes must go beyond the modes of policy analysis currently used in innovation, information and technology policy because they are based in an industrial rather than post-industrial analytical framework. We also argue that if we are to develop knowledge-based economies, more encompassing images of the future than currently obtain in policy discourse are required. We therefore seek to stimulate and provoke an array of lines of thought about government and policy for such economies. Our objective is to focus on ideas more than argument and persuasion.

The Relationship between Andragogical and Pedagogical Orientations and the Implications for Adult Learning

Current literature suggests that the relationship between andragogy and pedagogy is based on a continuum. This study found that the relationship of andragogical and pedagogical orientations, measured by the Students Orientation Questionnaire, is more correctly represented as being oithogonalorat right angles to each other. Such an orthogonal relationship reflects the complexities involved in adult learning. The paper discusses implications for both the learning process and for future research.

Defining Generic Professional Competencies in Australia: Towards a Framework for Professional Development*

This study examines the extent to which there are competencies which are generic to professions in Australia. The seven professions of accountancy, architecture, human resource management, marketin...

Phenomenological Turbulence and Innovation in Knowledge Systems

Most considerations of knowledge management focus on corporations and, until recently, considered knowledge to be objective, stable, and asocial. In this paper we wish to move the focus away from corporations, and examine knowledge and national innovation systems. We argue that the knowledge systems in which innovation takes place are phenomenologically turbulent, a state not made explicit in the change, innovation and socio-economic studies of knowledge literature, and that this omission poses a serious limitation to the successful analysis of innovation and knowledge systems. To address this lack we suggest that three evolutionary processes must be considered: self-referencing, self-transformation and self-organisation. These processes, acting simultaneously, enable system cohesion, radical innovation and adaptation. More specifically, we argue that in knowledge-based economies the high levels of phenomenological turbulence drives these processes. Finally, we spell out important policy principles that derive from these processes.