The development of knowledge societies in 19 OECD countries between 1970 and 2002

Abstract

The use frequency of the term `knowledge society' to characterize present Western societies is disproportionate to the clarity of its measurement and the availability of longitudinal and cross-national evidence. The author develops a conceptualization of the knowledge society that enables the study of its development in cross-national and longitudinal perspective. This conceptualization is then applied to an analysis of 19 OECD countries between 1970 and 2002. Three main sets of findings are proposed. (1) In all 19 countries a clear trend towards the knowledge society is observable. (2) From an employment perspective, societies were and still are mainly knowledge-mediation societies but are increasingly becoming knowledge-management societies; from a value-added perspective they are better described as knowledge-infrastructure societies. (3) However, developing knowledge societies di fer enormously in terms of their sectoral structures – within and outside the knowledge sector.

Bildungs- und Sozialpolitik: Die zwei Seiten des Sozialstaats im internationalen Vergleich

“…Die Arbeitsmärkte entwickelter Gesellschaften haben sich durch tiefgreifende Prozesse der Deindustrialisierung nachhaltig verändert. Nicht mehr die materialorientierte und körperliche Arbeit ist für den Wertschöpfungsprozess bestimmend, Kennzeichen der heutigen Wissensgesellschaft sind vielmehr Fähigkeiten im Umgang mit Informations-und Kommunikationstechniken und ein Metawissen für die Beschaffung, Verwendung und Produktion von Informationen (Rohrbach 2007). Damit wird der Bildungsstand der breiten Bevölkerung zu einer zentralen wettbewerbsrelevanten Ressource.…”

O Desenvolvimento Baseado em Conhecimento no contexto das cidades: uma análise do caso de Monterrey

“…Nesse sentido, surgem as redes de conhecimento que promovem o intercâmbio de ideias e fomentam um cenário de inovação, não somente em corporações, mas em outros ambientes, como as cidades e as comunidades (SERAFIM, 2011). A sociedade do conhecimento, como entendida no seu princípio, dentro de uma perspectiva econômica, é aquela em que os setores que utilizavam o conhecimento de forma intensiva eram os que mais contribuíam com o crescimento da economia (ROHRBACH, 2007). Méndez, Michelini e Romeiro (2006) propõem uma caracterização do conceito como uma abordagem do desenvolvimento capaz de gerar e aplicar diversas formas de conhecimento para melhorar a competitividade econômica, o bem-estar da população, a sustentabilidade ambiental, maior participação do cidadão nos assuntos públicos e uma governança eficaz.…”

Introducing the Complexity of Educational Diversification

“…Another challenging perspective is arising from the theorizing of the knowledge society. Such visioning leads to policy driven operationalization (Rohrbach 2007;Kantasalmi 2015), but, so far, we know little about how the knowledge society relates to the schooled society (Baker 2014). In this book, Chapter 4 points to the shortcomings of our understanding of knowledge society and offers detailed contemporary analysis of the development in distribution of school credentials in the context of complex regional issues of Belgium.…”