Rooney, D. and Mandeville, T. “The Knowing Nation: A framework for Pubic Policy in a post-industrial Knowledge Economy"

I read this article as part of my class 7 preparation and here is my summary and critique --

Summary: This article focuses on the role of government and policy makers in the historical background of post-industrial era and knowledge economy; it argues that a nation's government or policy makers should adopt a particular policy framework and use such framework to develop national policies on various aspects and drive the nation’s participation and development in the knowledge economy.

The authors argue that knowledge management and intellectual assets are crucial to a nation's competitiveness and its people's well-being in the current economic environment, and a nation's government and policy makers should take a leading role in promoting the growth and management of the nation's knowledge by making various national policies based on a knowledge-orientated framework.

The authors further specified three different levels that such national polices can have effects on:

1) Externally towards other countries – national policies are needed to drive internationalization and promote knowledge creation and learning from the wider world; this can be done through making policies of free trade, open global market, immigration and so on;

2) Internally within the nation – policy makers need to take a systematic view towards a nation's knowledge enterprises and facilitate individuals, governments, bureaucracy and industry to work towards the creation, dissemination, acquisition and processing of knowledge. This can be done through making policies regarding education, organizational cooperation, technology and innovation and so on;

3) At a personal level – national policies are needed to support the growth and utilization of individual's knowledge assets and competencies for the benefit of the community; such policies include appropriate education investment and employment policies as well as policies that aim to establish an open, free, democratic society where individuals can collaborate on knowledge creation and accept alternative views and ideas.

Critique: this article paints a rosy picture of a knowledge nation in and ideal world. It is logical to draw on organizational knowledge management literature and apply the same principles on a national level, however the authors didn't really describe or give much details of such public policy framework, or how such framework can be built or formulated. It also seems that this article was written purely from a knowledge management prespective rather than from a public policy prespective. Nevertheless this article takes a systematic view towards knowledge management at a national level; it connects and aligns national policy making with various aspects of knowledge economy and should be a good introductory paper on the topic of knowledge management and public policy.