The ‘knowledge-based economy’ and the relationship between the economy and society in contemporary capitalism

Abstract

According to the main theories of the knowledge-based economy (KBE), the recent transformations of capitalism are the origins of a general societal change. Managerial theories consider KBE to be a series of win-win mechanisms that simultaneously favour firms, workers and consumers. The cognitive capitalism theory perceives in the development of cognitive capitalism signs of the formation of a post-capitalist economy. This article discusses the main features of these two theoretical orientations and identifies some core ambivalences in KBE. The relationship between the market and society in KBE is marked by a dialectical process. The former incorporates mechanisms of potential economic valorization generated by informal social relationships. To this end, it must internalize actors, practices and cultures that are partially in conflict with it, given that it must make ever greater attempts to bring the overall process back within the ownership regime. One thus witnesses a reduction of the barriers between firms and society, that can simultaneously engender a more subtle dominance of the former over the latter, or the growth of autonomy, self-organization and peer cooperation among social actors. This second possibility relies entirely upon politics and collective action.

Evolución del concepto producto y servicio en la biblioteca: organización orientada al servicio e intensiva en conocimiento

“…El mejor ejemplo es el libro de Bourne (2003), denominado A history of online information services que, en realidad, es una historia del desarrollo de los primeros sistemas de información, que en la mayoría de los casos está pensado para ofrecer un servicio, por ejemplo, bibliotecario y de información; sin embargo, este último no está restringido al ámbito digital, sino que tiene diversos tipos de servicios que integran un alto nivel de conocimiento, pero que no es concebido en su origen como servicio, sino como producto. Desde Bell hasta autores recientes quienes plantean una sociedad de la información o del conocimiento consideran que se esta se caracteriza por estar centrada en el servicio con un importante componente tecnológico (Caruso, 2016;Martin, 2017;Webster, 2014). Regularmente, en la literatura de Bibliotecología y estudios de la información se asevera que la particularidad de la biblioteca radica en ser una organización orientada al servicio (Gray, 2012;Hicks, 2014), sin establecer las razones ni por qué es diferente de las que están orientadas al producto.…”

Territorial knowledge governance : Pursuing sustainability in agriculture and food clusters

“…Two shifts are particularly pertinent here. The first one is the transition from industrial capitalism to knowledge capitalism (Caruso, 2016). While industrial capitalism also heavily relies on knowledge for product development and marketing, knowledge capitalism is fuelled by an order of knowledge in which the way capitalist forms of innovation and production are organised themselves are subject to knowledge processes.…”

“…Two shifts are particularly pertinent here. The first one is the transition from industrial capitalism to knowledge capitalism (Caruso, 2016). The second shift is the alternation between market and institutional logics.…”

“…The economy increasingly has become knowledge-based (Caruso, 2016;Powell & Snellman, 2004;Moulier-Boutang, 2011). This knowledge-based economy is defined by 'the systematic and permanent mobilization of knowledge in order to analyse the result of actions and to design new actions to be undertaken' (Crevoisier & Jeannerat, 2009: 1223.…”

“…This warrants a more fundamental understanding of capitalism and its dynamic nature, because this provides the context in which sustainable development has emerged and will develop further. In particular, the transition from industrial capitalism to knowledge capitalism (Caruso, 2016), in which the role of knowledge and human sensibility in the labour process intensifies profoundly (Scott, 2013), is a relevant development. In knowledge capitalism, knowledge, ideas and values have become much more at the heart of the economy than before.…”