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The technological development enabled by modern science brought a development from industrialization to the post-industrial service- or knowledge-economy (Bell 1974; Touraine, 1971). Manuel Castells (1996; , 2000; , 2001; , 2004; Himanen, Castells, & Torvals, 2001) has proposed to name this society the network society, because according to his research, the economic and informational global networks are the decisive new condition. Three characteristics come to the center of societal and economic activities: information flows and informational work are at the center of productivity, location plays on a minor role as all activity has become global (within the global network of nodes), and most distinctively activities are organized in project based networks which form and dissolve according to timely needs.
In today's society, the ability of the knowledge workeri (Drucker, 1967) to identify, learn and apply new knowledge relevant to the specific project at hand, as well as relevant to his specialization and his organization as a whole is of central importance. Drucker proclaims: "Increasingly, command and control is being replaced by or intermixed with all kinds of relationships: alliances, joint ventures, minority participations, partnerships, know-how, and marketing agreements-all relationships in which no one controls and no one commands. These relationships have to be based on a common understanding of objectives, policies, and strategies; on teamwork; and on persuasion-or they do no work at all" (Drucker in (Gurteen, 2006)). It is in this context that the concept of knowledge entrepreneurship is explored within a balanced complexity science approach.
Given the claimed primacy of knowledge as an economic resource, it has a relatively short history as unit of analysis. In fact Hull (2002) depicts that the emergence of knowledge as a relevant scientific indicator was strongly connected to the development and rise of neo-liberalism in the 1930's. Hull's paper argues that only after knowledge became politicized as the decisive factor in economics and wealth creation, did it move to the center stage of society. It was in the fierce debate about the advantages of the market economy over a planned economy that Hayek produced his famous knowledge problem. The argument is that, in order to make the optimal decision regarding what goods to produce etc. the central planning authority needs all the knowledge about the demand, the resources, etc. because this is practically impossible, a central planning institution will always produce less optimal output than a free market.
Thereby Hayek was the first to define the key question of productivity of a system as 'the more general problem of how knowledge is acquired and communicated' (Hayek, 1949, p. 46). He also distinguishes between 'knowledge' and 'relevant knowledge' and considers, ''the conditions under which people are supposed to acquire the relevant knowledge and the processes by which they are supposed to acquire it; (p. 48). It is in this context that Hayek creates and invents (Hull, 2002) the 'problem of the division of knowledge'. According to Hull, it was this move that initiated the 'sociology of knowledge - the social science of the ways groups and societies produce and distribute particular types of knowledge' (p.19).
Figure 1.3 - The influence of Knowledge on Performance
Other famous intellectuals and scientists - e.g. Popper, Polanyi, and Mannheimer - collaborated with Hayek to defend the western societies and their capitalist markets against the Soviet ideology. And it was through that movement that knowledge in its relation to performance (see Figure 1.3) was more and more on the radar of economist and management researchers. In the next section the concepts of 'The knowledge creating company' (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995), organizational learning (Senge, 1990) will outline the more recent development and findings about knowledge in organizations.
i For him this condition leads to empowered individuals, who collaborate with others to reap synergies: 'In the knowledge society the most probable assumption and certainly the assumption on which all organizations have to conduct their affairs is that they need the knowledge worker far more than the knowledge worker needs them.' (ibid)
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