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.

Rooney, D. and Schneider, U. “The material, mental, historical and social character of knowledge.” In ...

Type of paper: concept paper, chapter in book about knowledge economies

Audience: academics

Focus: Explanation of knowledge or knowing to provide scaffolding with which to plan.

Summary: Identifies social constructivist and subjective paradigm as promising, but not enough. Better explanation is from evolutionary theory (Gebser and Mithen): underlying prelinguistic consciousness / intelligence remain basis of evolutionary developments: magic → mythic → modern, which thus still rely on imagination, intuition, analogy and metaphor, ie tacit knowing.

Knowledge is context dependent communication; knowing identifies gap and bridge building; a social process.

Rooney sets out a model of knowledge (p26):

1. Social-relational context: the social architecture in which knowing occurs.

2. Interpretive-relational context: sense-making.

3. The knower.

4. The situation: not only the personal, cognitive, sociological and phenomenological locations and shapers of knowledge, but also the historical, spatial and physical elements of knowledge systems, and beliefs, moods and attitudes.

5. Enactment of knowledge: fallibly intentional and directed use of knowledge, ie, it is messy, ir/rational, un/intentional.

Individual snapshots may appear random, but patterns over time may emerge. Knowledge management should not focus on outcomes, but on kawanatanga of the process and context of knowing.

Critique: While I have difficulty with evolutionary theories this one is persuasive. Many of these concepts are similar to Brenda Dervin's work, and familiarity is indicated through use of Dervin's terminology: sense-making, gaps, bridges. Rooney follows evolutionary theory with quote from Vygotsky, a social constructivist. Critical and phenomenological theory also have small parts to play within the model. Bhaskar appears to be a major influence. Key problems with the model are that it so big and has so many parts that the system is the model; and there are no measurements. Otherwise it is very appealing.

Wiig, K.M. (2007). Effective societal knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(5), 141-156.

Type of paper: Conceptual paper.

Audience: Academics and practitioners.

Focus: Nations must create societal knowledge management to enable and benefit its citizens; author suggests principles and framework.

Summary: Strong societal IC → effective participation in global knowledge economy, which is what all nations want. Knowledge is considered part of broader concept of intellectual capital and the terms are used interchangeably (p154).

Critique: This article places SKM as a holy grail of public administration and the panacea to all our woes. For example, it appears from Figure 2 and Wiig's commentary that increased literacy causes increased annual personal income, although I would suggest that both are caused by political stability, and only achieve high numbers when combined with established, government funded infrastructure.

Another difficulty I have is with Wiig's initial statement of limited government (p142):

The article emphasizes building competent people, profitable enterprises, effective cities, and desirable societies. Such developments result less from central planning and design – they primarily result from actions of people and organizations with detailed localized knowledge of needs and opportunities. Instead of specific prescriptions for how to build capabilities, the emphasis is on a knowledge-focused framework to foster environments, culture, and infrastructure.

Yet further on the government is required to provide literacy, education, effective cities, and national plans, social incentives (ie, tax breaks), best practices, R&D for national intellectual capital.

Other stand out points are that Wiig's utopia requires urbanisation, individual-based, western culture.

In the end the principles and frameworks suggested are (p151):

Hence SKM uses approaches developed and perfected in the private sector. Most management, organizational, and operational principles are similar. KM-related technology is also the same.

This assumes the private sector has perfected knowledge management.

This was written after NZ's “Knowledge Wave” programme, which was the government's attempt to emulate Ireland, and which hasn't made much impact.