Knowledge

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Knowledge

Answer 1

Knowledge triangle

The knowledge triangle refers to the interaction between research, education and innovation, which are key drivers of a knowledge-based society. In the European Union, it also refers to an attempt to better link together these key concepts, with research and innovation already highlighted by the development of the Lisbon Strategy and, more recently, lies behind the creation of the European Institute of Technology (EIT).

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Answer 2

Knowledge value

The idea that knowledge has value is ancient. In the 1st century AD, Juvenal (55-130) stated “All wish to know but none wish to pay the price". In 1775, Samuel Johnson wrote: “All knowledge is of itself of some value.”

In the 19th century, Coleridge (1825) stated that : “The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object.” Auerbach (1865) asked: “What is all our knowledge worth?" although he proposed no answer. Largely the same ideas are already expressed in the term intellectual capital or the more ancient knowledge is power - given that power is a value in its own right.

Only towards of the end of the 20th century, however, was the value of knowledge in a business context generally recognized. The idea has since become something of a management fad, although many authors indicate that the underlying principles will become standard business practice. It is now understood that knowledge about how to produce products and provide services as well as their embedded knowledge is often more valuable than the products and services themselves or the materials they contain. Although measuring the value of knowledge remains elusive, describing its flow through value chains is a step in the right direction.

Firestone was the first to relate knowledge to business when he noted that “Thought, not money is the real business capital.” Alvin Toffler (1990) proposed that knowledge is a wealth and force multiplier, in that it augments what is available or reduces the amount needed to achieve a given purpose.

In comparing knowledge and product value, Amidon (1997) observes that knowledge about how to produce products may be more valuable than the products themselves. Leonard similarly points out that products are physical manifestations of knowledge and that their worth depends largely on the value of the embedded knowledge.

Davis (1999) further notes that the computer chips in a high-end automobile are worth more than the steel, plastics, glass, or rubber. However, Davis and Botin (1994) indicate that awareness of the value of knowledge exceeds the ability of many businesses to extract it from the goods and services in which it is embedded.

Measuring the value of knowledge has not progressed much beyond an awareness that traditional accounting practices are misleading and can lead to wrong business decisions (Martin, 1996). Amidon (1997) points out that the shift from tangible to intangible assets will revolutionize the way that enterprises are measured and that there is an entirely new way to value economic wealth.

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Answer 3

Knowledge worker

Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include software engineers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, public accountants, lawyers, and academics, whose job is to "think for a living".

Knowledge work can be differentiated from other forms of work by its emphasis on "non-routine" problem solving that requires a combination of convergent, divergent, and creative thinking. But despite the amount of research and literature on knowledge work, there is no succinct definition of the term.

Mosco and McKercher (2007) outline various viewpoints on the matter. They first point to the most narrow and defined definition of knowledge work, such as Florida's view of it as specifically, "the direct manipulation of symbols to create an original knowledge product, or to add obvious value to an existing one", which limits the definition of knowledge work to mainly creative work. They then contrast this view of knowledge work with the notably broader view which includes the handling and distribution of information, arguing that workers who play a role in the handling and distribution of information add real value to the field, despite not necessarily contributing a creative element. Thirdly, one might consider a definition of knowledge work which includes, "all workers involved in the chain of producing and distributing knowledge products", which allows for a very broad and inclusive categorization of knowledge workers. It should thus be acknowledged that the term "knowledge worker" can be quite broad in its meaning, and is not always definitive in who it refers to.

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Answer 4

Knowledge-based theory of the firm

The knowledge-based theory of the firm considers knowledge as the most strategically significant resource of a . Its proponents argue that because knowledge-based resources are usually difficult to imitate and socially complex, heterogeneous knowledge bases and capabilities among firms are the major determinants of sustained competitive advantage and superior corporate performance.

This knowledge is embedded and carried through multiple entities including organizational culture and identity, policies, routines, documents, systems, and employees. Originating from the strategic management literature, this perspective builds upon and extends the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) initially promoted by Penrose (1959) and later expanded by others (Wernerfelt 1984, Barney 1991, Conner 1991).

Although the resource-based view of the firm recognizes the important role of knowledge in firms that achieve a competitive advantage, proponents of the knowledge-based view argue that the resource-based perspective does not go far enough. Specifically, the RBV treats knowledge as a generic resource, rather than having special characteristics. It therefore does not distinguish between different types of knowledge-based capabilities. Information technologies can play an important role in the knowledge-based view of the firm in that information systems can be used to synthesize, enhance, and expedite large-scale intra- and inter-firm knowledge management (Alavi and Leidner 2001).

Whether or not the Knowledge-based theory of the firm actually constitutes a theory has been the subject of considerable debate. See for example, Foss (1996) and Phelan & Lewin (2000). According to one notable proponent of the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV), "The emerging knowledge-based view of the firm is not a theory of the firm in any formal sense" (Grant, 2002, p. 135).

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Answer 5

Laity

A layperson (also layman or laywoman) is a person who is not qualified in a given profession and/or does not have specific knowledge of a certain subject. In religious organizations, the laity consists of all members who are not members of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious institutes, e.g. a nun or lay brother.

In Christian cultures, the term lay priest was sometimes used in the past to refer to a secular priest, a diocesan priest who is not a member of a religious institute. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses the term "Lay Priesthood" to emphasise that local congregational leaders are unpaid. Terms such as lay priest, lay clergy and lay nun were also once used in Buddhist cultures to indicate ordained persons who continued to live in the wider community instead of retiring to a monastery.

In the context of specialized professions, the term lay is often used to refer to those who are not members of that profession. The word lay derives from the Anglo-French lai (from Late Latin laicus, from the Greek λαϊκός, laikos, of the people, from λαός, laos, the people at large).

The word laity means "common people" and comes from the Greek λαϊκός (laikos), meaning "of the people".

Synonyms for layperson include: parishioner, believer, dilettante, , member, , novice, , proselyte, , secular, , layman, nonprofessional.

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Answer 6

Literacy

Literacy is traditionally understood as the ability to read, write, and use arithmetic. The modern term's meaning has been expanded to include the ability to use language, numbers, images, computers, and other basic means to understand, communicate, gain useful knowledge and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture. The concept of literacy is expanding in OECD countries to include skills to access knowledge through technology and ability to assess complex contexts. A person who travels and resides in a foreign country but is unable to read or write in the language of the host country would also be regarded by the locals as being illiterate.

The key to literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and culminates in the deep understanding of text. Reading development involves a range of complex language underpinnings including awareness of speech sounds (phonology), spelling patterns (orthography), word meaning (semantics), grammar (syntax) and patterns of word formation (morphology), all of which provide a necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension.

Once these skills are acquired, the reader can attain full language literacy, which includes the abilities to apply to printed material critical analysis, inference and synthesis; to write with accuracy and coherence; and to use information and insights from text as the basis for informed decisions and creative thought. The inability to do so is called illiteracy or analphabetism.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines literacy as the "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society".

Literacy is thought to have first emerged with the development of numeracy and computational devices as early as 8,000 BCE. Script developed independently at least four times in human history in Mesopotamia, Egypt, lowland Mesoamerica, and China.

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Answer 7

Methods of obtaining knowledge

Knowledge may originate or be derived from the following origins or methods:

So far processes have been mentioned by which knowledge is obtained. But, in obtaining knowledge there are two main kinds of knowledge that one can obtain.

The first is fallible knowledge. Fallible knowledge is characterized by Baron Reed as:

The intuition these formulations capture is that knowledge understood as justified true belief, is fallible, or allows room for error. If the justification for a true belief could have also justified a belief that turned out false, then it is possible that the justified true belief constituting knowledge could have been not knowledge. Another way of looking at it, but in which Reed suggests is equivalent, is to consider that justification makes probable the truth of a belief. Intuitions about knowledge that leave room for possible error thus represent fallible knowledge. It is in relation to these intuitions that the Gettier problem was initially posed by Edmund Gettier in 1963. See Epistemology. The results of Gettier's brief but forceful paper drove some people to amend the account of knowledge as justified true belief by adding a Gettier condition. Other people simply chose to endorse another kind of knowledge.

Infallible knowledge represents the intuition that knowledge does not leave room for error. In this sense, justification makes knowledge certainly true while not leaving room for error. In fact, considering the notions of fallible knowledge above, if you reject the latter clauses in either formulation (FK6 or FK7) then you are either rejecting those claims in favor of other formulations of fallible knowledge or are an infallibilist. Since infallibilism invokes notions of certainty, skeptical worries are immediately brought up. The skeptic usually aims his most devastating attacks at infallible knowledge. Consider a skeptical syllogism like so:

-1) If knowledge requires justification (imagine it does), then the justification must entail the truth of the belief.

-2) Justification never entails the truth of a belief.

--> 3) Therefore, we never have knowledge.

Of course, there are many arguments against the skeptic but for the focus of this article it is merely helpful to see that each of the methods for obtaining knowledge presupposes a kind of knowledge that is obtained. For more on skepticism, see Epistemology. The distinction between fallible and infallible knowledge has also received a lot of attention.

There are some interesting views about what role the genealogy of a belief can play in the formation of knowledge. Nietzsche famously critiqued the genealogy of beliefs and knowledge in both his On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic and The Gay Science. Of special interest here is section 110 in The Gay Science where Nietzsche criticizes the foundations of all knowledge. He draws a distinction between knowledge-as-preservation and knowledge-as-truth. Knowledge-as-truth is the factive sense of knowledge that most epistemologists focus on. But knowledge-as-preservation was the original knowledge that was formed merely as a means for preservation of the species. Knowledge-as-preservation can be understood as our tendency to internalize certain methods of obtaining what we believe to be knowledge. Early on in our species we had to trust our faculties of observation and reason if we were to continue living and advancing. Nietzsche's real critique comes into play when he points out that since this knowledge-as-preservation was formed from fundamental errors (the idea that these faculties are not and were never foolproof) and it underlies our knowledge-as-truth, that all of our knowledge is founded upon fundamental errors. For Nietzsche this poses a potentially huge problem for the knowledge-as-truth. If none of the aforementioned methods of knowledge acquisition can give us justification that entails the truth of a belief, then it seems we are stuck with fallible knowledge.

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Answer 8

Meta-Functional Expertise

Meta-functional expertise is the breadth of one’s strategically important knowledge. This is different from the traditional conceptualization of expertise, which is generally considered to be a great depth of knowledge in a defined area. Thus, experts are people who are distinguished as knowing a lot about a particular subject.

Meta-functional experts, on the other hand, are considered be somewhat knowledgeable in many different areas but not necessarily an expert in any single domain. Someone high on meta-functional expertise is similar to a in that they have a wide array of knowledge. However, where generalists know many different things meta-functional experts have enough depth of knowledge in each area to be considered knowledgeable by other members of their team at work.

Individuals high on meta-functional expertise are:

Groups with more meta-functional experts on them perform better because they:

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Answer 9

Metaknowledge

Metaknowledge or meta-knowledge is knowledge about a preselected knowledge.

For the reason of different definitions of knowledge in the subject matter literature, meta-information is or is not included in meta-knowledge. Detailed cognitive, systemic and epistemic study of human knowledge requires a distinguishing of these concepts. But in the common language knowledge includes information, and, for example, bibliographic data are considered as a meta-knowledge.

Meta-knowledge is a fundamental conceptual instrument in such research and scientific domains as, knowledge engineering, knowledge management, and others dealing with study and operations on knowledge, seen as a unified object/entities, abstracted from local conceptualizations and terminologies. Examples of the first-level individual meta-knowledge are methods of planning, modeling, tagging, learning and every modification of a domain knowledge. According to the TOGA meta-theory, the procedures, methodologies and strategies of teaching, coordination of e-learning courses are individual meta-meta-knowledge of an intelligent entity (a person, organization or society). Of course, universal meta-knowledge frameworks have to be valid for the organization of meta-levels of individual meta-knowledge.

Metaknowledge may be automatically harvested from electronic publication archives, to reveal patterns in research, relationships between researchers and institutions and to identify contradictory results.

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Answer 10

Sensemaking

Sensemaking is the process by which people give meaning to experience. While this process has been studied by other disciplines under other names for centuries, the term "sensemaking" has primarily marked three distinct but related research areas since the 1970s: Sensemaking was introduced to information science by Brenda Dervin in the 1980s, to human–computer interaction by PARC researchers Dennis Russell, Mark Stefik, Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card in 1993, and to organizational studies by Karl E. Weick.

In information science the term is most often written as "sense-making." In both cases, the concept has been used to bring together insights drawn from philosophy, sociology, and cognitive science (especially social psychology). Sensemaking research is therefore often presented as an interdisciplinary research programme.

Brenda Dervin (Dervin, 1983, 1992, 1996) has investigated individual sensemaking, developing theories underlying the "cognitive gap" that individuals experience when attempting to make sense of observed data. Because much of this applied psychological research is grounded within the context of systems engineering and human factors, it aims to answer the need for concepts and performance to be measurable and for theories to be testable. Accordingly, sensemaking and situational awareness are viewed as working concepts that enable researchers to investigate and improve the interaction between people and information technology. This perspective emphasizes that humans play a significant role in adapting and responding to unexpected or unknown situations, as well as recognized situations.

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