| This fascinating Handbook defines how knowledge contributes to social and economic life, and vice versa. It considers the five areas critical to acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the knowledge economy: the nature of the knowledge economy; social, cooperative, cultural, creative, ethical and intellectual capital; knowledge and innovation systems; policy analysis for knowledge-based economies; and knowledge management. In presenting the outcomes of an important body of research, the Handbook enables knowledge policy and management practitioners to be more systematically guided in their thinking and actions. The contributors cover a wide disciplinary spectrum in an accessible way, presenting concise, to-the-point discussions of critical concepts and practices that will enable practitioners to make effective research, managerial and policy decisions. They also highlight important new areas of concern to knowledge economies such as wisdom, ethics, language and creative economies that are largely overlooked. Distinguished by a combination of practical relevance and analytical rigor, this Handbook provides new insights into the basic mechanisms that constitute a knowledge economy and society, and will be invaluable to practitioners and academics in diverse areas of interest, including: knowledge management, innovation management, knowledge policy, social epistemology, and development studies.
This handbook has pulled together many leading researchers from a range of knowledge studies disciplines in one convenient volume. We have also asked contributors to make their chapters as accessible as possible without robbing their content of intellectual efficacy. Not all readers will find all chapters equally accessible. Readers should not be alarmed by this. Not all chapters are aimed at the same audience. Some are aimed more at policymakers, others more at business managers, while others are oriented towards professional researchers. The main reason we have done this is that the audience for knowledge research is rather wide, which is not surprising given that knowledge is integral to all aspects and levels of human endeavour. Another reason for it is that people working for knowledge need to have a broad knowledge of knowledge even if they are not specialists in more than one aspect of it. In the final analysis, knowledge economy, knowledge management and knowledge society leaders need to understand each other because all these ‘sites’ for the application of expertise in knowledge overlap considerably.
About the Author Edited by David Rooney, Senior Lecturer, UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia, Greg Hearn, Professor of Research and Abraham Ninan, Senior Research Associate, Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Australia |