Should the Knowledge- Based Economy be a Savant or a Sage?

Wisdom and Socially Intelligent Innovation. D. Rooney and B. McKenna. Prometheus. Vol. 23, No. 3, Sept 2005.
Type of paper – article
Audience – academics, Public policy professionals.
This article explores the idea that knowledge without wisdom leads to social dysfunction and cataclysm, making public policy the context of their enquiry. They explore the Aristotelian idea of practical wisdom and briefly acknowledge an Eastern perspective (the Chinese “I Ching” and Persian philosopher Avicenna). The authors use the taxonomy devised by an eighteenth century Aristotelian (Giambattista Vico) that provides a framework of four intellectual types ranging from the Savant (imprudent) to the Sage (wise people) to explore how the administrative complexities of contemporary life can be approached from a knowledge point of view. They postulate that a knowledge economy managed without wisdom is deficient and can lead to cataclysmic outcomes (they cite the dot-com crash, I am thinking of the GFC) and that policy level discourse must contain social and ethical considerations, or the “knowledge” is wanting. Otherwise we are at the mercy of rationalist, functionalist, utilitarian and technocratic driven short term gains.

The article is very technical in its philosophical approach and is a hard read. However the argument is compelling. The savant approaches ethics slowly and most often fails. The sage has both practical and theoretical wisdom and makes plans for the long term. This they argue is a humanistic approach and is better for social policy in complex technological societies in the long term. Perhaps this assertion has been proved correct by the economic events of the past year?

Effective societal management

Here are article commentaries on Karl Wiig's model, with which I disagree as being too western-centric and simplistic, and David Rooney's model, which I find appealing, but the model is the size of the system.

Summary on Effective Societal Knowledge management

Summary on Effective Societal Knowledge management

Article summary for Week 5, Class 7.

Group: Bullet Express – Pennie Sawkins, Helen Ng Lam, Ian Blood Worth,
Torrance Mayberry, Vijay Rao.

Audience: Academics, Knowledge Management Professionals, Public policy makers.Abstract:

This article summarises the Effective Societal Knowledge management, (Wiig -2007). It is a conceptual paper for building strong social knowledge management practices in nations around the world. This article highlights how knowledge based economies can contribute the development and growth of nations around the word.

The article surfaces the use of knowledge and knowledge management from society, perspective to provide acceptable conditions for citizens and business to participate in knowledge based economy.

Description:

At the grass root level, public /Citizens are seen as the key knowledge carriers and form groups within the society. The educational institutions form the basic foundations and fundamental building blocks in providing knowledge, and increasing literacy in cities, towns, national and global level. The knowledge obtained through academic qualification and practical experience is valuable asset at personal, group, society, local, national and global level. This has also improved the quality, security, social status in personal life and in communities (Polany Levitt, 2006, Prescott-Allen 2001, Wiig 2007).

Today, countries and governments globally have acknowledged the growth and development of country’s economy flourish through literacy and knowledge. Many under developed countries face challenges to spread literacy and knowledge due to social, economy, religion and geographical location. Organizations and Government bodies have to identify the key factors affecting knowledge based economy relative to requirements, task, awareness, issues, decision and governance. To balance the Society knowledge management, local bodies and governments have used various literacy programmes, mass media to educate and spread literacy and knowledge publically. Asian and other underdeveloped countries are battling to eradicate the illiteracy; through community learning, adults’ literacy programmes, volunteer programmes, free children education programmes, sponsored by World Organizations.

An effective multi – tier societal knowledge management system should be established, to focus; need and drive and society forward at various levels. The diffusion of knowledge through social service and non profit organizations has been successful in improving the social, health and economic conditions. The evolutionary ICT technologies have reduced the barrier of distant education and knowledge sharing. The use of innovative technologies has increased the market competition in small and big enterprises both locally and globally and contributes to economic growth at organizational and country levels.


Review:

Knowledge management from societal perspective is important to foster knowledge-related activities at all levels of society. It is important to build, maintain, and make the best use of the country’s broad knowledge assets to improve the quality of citizens, society’s welfare, with effective institutions, profitable commercial and industrial enterprises and personal success.


References:

Wiig (2007) Effective Societal Knowledge Management. Journal of Knowledge Management (Annual Special Issue on Knowledge-based Development), 11 (5), 141-156

Knowledge management in the public sector: stakeholder partnerships in the public policy development

Summary
This paper discusses the importance of the Knowledge Management in the public sector. The government has come to realise its importance since it plays a major role in coming up with a good public policy. A public policy is said to be effective through enhance decision making within public services. Developing a knowledge-based partnership is considered to be a critical success factor in creating, disseminating, transferring and applying the knowledge between the public sector and stakeholders. This is the KM process that needs to be practiced by the government and stakeholders to achieve greater participation and knowledge sharing. This is very important as the paper has stressed that knowledge is a core strategic asset. The partnership can result in coming up with issues as there will always be different views, misunderstanding and value-based disagreements. To have the desired results, communication must be knowledge-effective and providing a feedback will help resolved these issues. Both the government and stakeholders have their own capacity to develop a good public policy. Therefore, it is important to have an active participation in decision-making and to form a knowledge-based within partnership. This increases the collaboration that must be guided by KM goals and strategies. In this way, this can lead to effective and efficient means of sharing and transferring of knowledge. Thus, public policy becomes more effective.

Review
This paper has stressed the need for comprehensive KM within and in support of the public sector. It reveals that KM plays a vital role in the public sector for delivering an effective public policy through partnership with stakeholders. From the analysis of the issues as a cause of partnership, the commentator is suggesting to have a collaboration models between the public sector agencies themselves as well as between public sector and stakeholders. Deeper studies on KM in the public sector should be taken into consideration to look at ways of enhancing the public service delivery.

Posted by: Chariebel Enerio for Knowledge Regiment

The material, mental, historical and social character of knowledge

Article Summary for Week 5 Class 7

(Group: KMx6- Fatemeh, Skalk, Bee, Lanoi, Max, Roger)

Rooney, D., & Schneider, U. (2005). The material, mental, historical and social character of knowledge. In Handbook on the Knowledge Economy, New horizons in public policy (pp. 19-36). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Type of article: Introductory chapter in a book .

Audience: Academics, Knowledge Management Professionals, Public policy makers.

Aim: This chapter provides a framework within which the rest of the chapters sit.

Summary:
The author maintains that knowledge or the act of knowing entails a number of things.
Tacit knowledge enabled modern society to come into being. Where humans used myths, stories and shared social backgrounds more socially orientated, strategic, abstract and innovative thinking occurred / are occurring. To enable these advances humans have always used symbolic, non-verbal thought systems such as imagination, intuition, analogy, and metaphor. These thought systems are used as linking mechanism to link an observation in the physical world to a description. This enabled humans to make sense of the world around them. Mention is made that knowledge have got two states, it can be articulated and un-articulated. The point is made that for knowledge to be shared in group it has to be communicable. The communicability of knowledge is dependant on the social context. A further distinction is made between procedural and declarative knowledge and intuition. An argument is then made that knowledge sits within a social-related and an interpretative-relational contexts. Individuals, as knowers’, are also doers. Individuals need to be made aware and be helped to cooperate, contest, advocate and communicate in the interest of better knowing. The knowers’ situation is also defined by time and space. Models should take cognisance of how information is diffused in groups through mediating technologies. Enactment of knowledge is the key aspect of knowledge transfer. Knowers enact knowledge strategically, the intentions are purposeful to realise goals and objectives for now or in the future. Knowledge systems are not predictable or controllable. This is a problem for managers and public policy makers. Strategic interventions can be put in place to enact knowledge. Wisdom and attention to context would be key elements for good public policy. The author them lists nine key observations from the article.


Review:
This chapter is part of a group of chapters on the concepts of Knowledge Management. It is not an easy ready and is highly philosophical in nature. If the reader is not comfortable with this approach or have enough prior knowledge then it is easy to loose interest. Ok use is made of headings to guide the reader through the text. Care should be taken to follow the argument. The useful bit of the article is the summary at the end (p. 33) that provides in points the position of the authors on Knowledge management and policy. These bullet points in my opinion are really useful to keep in mind if one were to explore knowledge management within Government policy.

Knowledge, economy, technology and society: The politics of discourse

Article Summary for Week 5 Class 7

(Group: KMx6- Fatemeh, Skalk, Bee, Lanoi, Max, Roger)

Rooney, D. (2005). Knowledge, economy, technology and society: The politics of discourse. Telematics and Informatics, 22(4), 405-422. doi: 10.1016/j.tele.2004.11.007

Type of article: Results of a discourse analysis.

Audience: Academics, Knowledge Management Professionals, Public policy makers.

Aim: To provide data and insight on how governments sees knowledge. With the aim to show that what might be possible in knowledge societies can not be seen or realised from a technocratic view point.

Summary:
Large corpus of documents on knowledge policy. Want to show that the discourse is technocratic. Makes the point that technocrats adopts “discourses of expert knowledge” and uses these in policy statements. Asserts that technocrats have a primary concern that knowledge is an object and must be co-modified; knowledge should have a commercial and / or industrial use. Gives a brief explanation of knowledge. Computer assisted text analysis software (Leximancer) that does automated grounded analysis were being used. Documents were obtained on a number of countries and supranational organisations (OECD, EU). The results at a high level indicated that out of the 20 most important concepts, governance, technological and commercial concepts are central. There is a sharp focus on technology and business. Social concepts like access, public and medical also appear, but are of less important. Governments appear to like to work harder on technologizing the community. The technological deterministic view that technology transforms the community, creates opportunities for access and makes people creative are most often mooted. Knowledge are used a vehicle to convey vested interests. Very few document mentions social and cultural aspects. It is concluded that the value and nature of knowledge as represented in the documents are seen only in the light of technology and economy. This is useful in that it (a) points to a society that choices a political context that is technocratic as opposed to emancipatory. Technocratic discourse threatens democracy and national sovereignty. (b) being aware of the dominant discourse would make policy writers aware of aspects that are not being mentioned. And it would make these kind of statements less like smokescreens. Reflexivity, creativity and culture are essential aspects of knowing. (c) Enacting knowledge is messy. This messiness should be valued since it enriches life.

Review:
This article reports on an innovative use of text analysis. The author goes to great length to explain the validity of the tests being performed. Although statistical counts are given for the various analysis areas it is sparingly used in the document. A shortcoming of this article is that there is no list given as to what, how many documents were analysed. No indication is given or assertion being made that the number of documents are actually representative of the discourse being studied. For the maps that are represented there is also no indication as to what the different access are where the items are being plotted. Although the results are very interesting and support the main argument of the author, the presentation could do with a little bit more work. It would be interesting to do a comparative analysis on the dataset to see where, New Zealand and Australia sits in the discourse on the Knowledge society.