The Knowledge Economy in an EntrePreneurial Society

The Kok Report suggested that in the future up to 30 per cent of the EU’s workforce would be directly employed in the production and diffusion of knowledge in the manufacturing, service, financial and creative industries and a much larger share of the workforce would need to be knowledge based in the new emerging economic structures. (Kok Report, 2004)

An entrepreneurial society has been described as consisting of, novelty, originality creativity, challenge, and diversity within an environment of change and constant growth. (Author).

In addition, the factors that help to shape the knowledge economy (and thereby support an entrepreneurial society) can be described as; increased knowledge intensity, increased ability to store, process and easily transfer data, globalisation & near universal communication, predominance of liberal economic policies and open competition, a growing flow of goods, services, capital and people and an increased inter-dependence of economic activity.

Brinkley considers that the knowledge economy is based on creating, evaluating, and trading knowledge. In a knowledge economy, labour costs become progressively less important and traditional economic concepts such as scarcity of resources and economies of scale cease to apply. (Brinkley, 2006). The UK DTI adds that they consider that a knowledge economy is ‘one in which the generation and exploitation of knowledge has come to play the predominant part in the creation of wealth (DTI, Competitiveness White Paper 1998).

What is new about the knowledge economy as it may apply to the subject of this research namely the place of the Entrepreneurial Personal Learning Environment, this could be outlined (provided during a lecture at Salford University by Christos Kalantaridis) as.

?       Information Revolution

?        Flexible Organisation

?        Knowledge, Skills and Learning

?        Innovation & Knowledge Networks

?        Learning Organisations & Information Systems

?        Global Competition & Production

?        Strategy & Competitive Advantage

?        Clustering in the knowledge economy

?        Economics of knowledge

?        Systems of Creation, Production & Distribution

?        Divergence and Concentration

(Source - Christos Kalantaridis, Salford Business School, November 2009)

The Kok Report continues; ‘the knowledge society is a larger concept that just an increased commitment to R&D. It covers every aspect of the contemporary economy where knowledge is at the heart of value added from high tech manufacturing and ICTs through knowledge intensive services to the overtly creative industries such as media and architecture’ (Kok Report, 2004)

According to the ESRC ‘economic success is increasingly based on upon the effective utilisation of intangible assets such as knowledge, skills and innovative potential as the key resource for competitive advantage. The term ‘knowledge economy’ is used to describe this emerging economic structure” (ESRC, 2005).

Rowthorn & Ramaswarny tell us that ‘the stock of ideas and knowledge is a global stock that firms and organisations can access from around the world via the Internet: globally engaged firms use more knowledge and have access to a wider stock of knowledge through their suppliers and customers (Rowthorn & Ramaswamy, 1998)

The UK office of National Statistics suggests that the growth of knowledge intensivity is growing at a rapid and rate and will form the majority segment of economic activity in the future.

U.K exports of knowledge-based services.     

                                                               1995     -        2005

Business services                                10.9                30.7

Financial services                                8.6                24.8

Computer services                               0.8                  5.8

Communications                                  1.0                  3.0

Cultural/media                                       0.7                 2.0

Government                                         1.4                  2.0

Royalties/licences                                 3.9                  7.3

Knowledge services                              27.3                75.6

Non knowledge services                       23.3                35.5

Total services                                     50.6                111.1

Figure 5 - U.K exports of knowledge-based services (Office for National Statistics)

All of these insights into the new knowledge economy suggest that the future is in the hands of the nimble, the agile and the knowledgeable. All places which the newly minted TechnoPreneur can gain residence. The concept of the Entrepreneurial Personal Learning Environment is as has been mentioned above an essential element of the entrepreneur’s adaptation to the demands of the knowledge economy and their own inherent ability to develop the ‘entrepreneurial society’ and their own place within it.

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