Revolutionary account of the transformative potential of the knowledge economy Adam Smith and Karl Marx recognized that the best way to understand the economy is to study the most advanced practice of production. Today that practice is no longer conventional manufacturing: it is the radically innovative vanguard known as the knowledge economy. In every part of the production system it remains a fringe excluding the vast majority of workers and businesses. This book explores the hidden nature of the knowledge economy and its possible futures. The confinement of the knowledge economy to these insular vanguards has become a driver of economic stagnation and inequality throughout the world. Traditional mass production has stopped working as a shortcut to economic growth. But the alternative—a deepened and socially inclusive form of the knowledge economy—continues to lie beyond reach in even the richest countries. The shape of contemporary politics on both the left and the right reflects a failure to come to terms with this dilemma and to overcome it. Unger explains the knowledge economy in the truncated and confined form that it has today and proposes the way to a knowledge economy for the many: changes not just in economic institutions but also in education, culture, and politics. Just as Smith and Marx did in their time, he uses an understanding of the most advanced practice of production to rethink both economics and the economy as a whole.

This volume synthesizes thinking on knowledge management and intellectual capital from a broad range of sources and identifies how human resource management can make a value-added contribution.

The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. This book explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality.

With a farm of pigs as his abacus, Arthur Geisert uses elements of a search and count game to bring Roman numerals to life in this unintimidating math-concept book. First, the seven Roman numerals are equated with the correct number of piglets. Then the reader may practice counting other items—hot-air balloons, gopher holes, and more—as the remarkable adventure unfolds. (And yes, there are one thousand pigs in the etching for M!)

"In the global knowledge economy of the twenty-first century, India's development policy challenges will require it to use knowledge more effectively to raise the productivity of agriculture, industry, and services and reduce poverty. India has made tremendous strides in its economic and social development in the past two decades. Its impressive growth in recent years-8.2 percent in 2003-can be attributed to the far-reaching reforms embarked on in 1991 and to opening the economy to global competition. In addition, India can count on a number of strengths as it strives to transform itself into a knowledge-based economy-availability of skilled human capital, a democratic system, widespread use of English, macroeconomic stability, a dynamic private sector, institutions of a free market economy; a local market that is one of the largest in the world; a well-developed financial sector; and a broad and diversified science and technology infrastructure, and global niches in IT. But India can do more-much more-to leverage its strengths and grasp today's opportunities. India and the Knowledge Economy assesses India's progress in becoming a knowledge economy and suggests actions to strengthen the economic and institutional regime, develop educated and skilled workers, create an efficient innovation system, and build a dynamic information infrastructure. It highlights that to get the greatest benefits from the knowledge revolution, India will need to press on with the economic reform agenda that it put into motion a decade ago and continue to implement the various policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate growth. In so doing, it will be able to improve its international competitivenessand join the ranks of countries that are making a successful transition to the knowledge economy."

The growth of technological and scientific knowledge in the past two centuries has been the overriding dynamic element in the economic and social history of the world. Its result is now often called the knowledge economy. But what are the historical origins of this revolution and what have been its mechanisms? In The Gifts of Athena, Joel Mokyr constructs an original framework to analyze the concept of "useful" knowledge. He argues that the growth explosion in the modern West in the past two centuries was driven not just by the appearance of new technological ideas but also by the improved access to these ideas in society at large--as made possible by social networks comprising universities, publishers, professional sciences, and kindred institutions. Through a wealth of historical evidence set in clear and lively prose, he shows that changes in the intellectual and social environment and the institutional background in which knowledge was generated and disseminated brought about the Industrial Revolution, followed by sustained economic growth and continuing technological change. Mokyr draws a link between intellectual forces such as the European enlightenment and subsequent economic changes of the nineteenth century, and follows their development into the twentieth century. He further explores some of the key implications of the knowledge revolution. Among these is the rise and fall of the "factory system" as an organizing principle of modern economic organization. He analyzes the impact of this revolution on information technology and communications as well as on the public's state of health and the structure of households. By examining the social and political roots of resistance to new knowledge, Mokyr also links growth in knowledge to political economy and connects the economic history of technology to the New Institutional Economics. The Gifts of Athena provides crucial insights into a matter of fundamental concern to a range of disciplines including economics, economic history, political economy, the history of technology, and the history of science.

This book provides an overview of recent, predominantly European, thinking on the issues and challenges for innovation management in the modern, knowledge-based economy. The topic is explored in four directions: the growing importance of services and of innovation in services; the growing interest in competence-based approaches of strategy and innovation; the role of technology in innovation processes; and the increasing importance of knowledge management in innovation management. Each direction is briefly introduced by the editor. The contributions come from universities and management schools in Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands and the United States.