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Yet, we are still in a transition from the decline of a mass-production economy to the rise of value from knowledge. Value from efficiency and scale is no more a competitive differentiator.
The major significance of the new age is value from innovation that comes from the life-blood of knowledge in action. Shared knowledge and collective intelligence have replaced the three traditional pillars of value creation: land, labor, capital - with knowledge essentially of the type incorporated in machines and other tangible assets.
Knowledge entrepreneurs (KE) are those who create value in the boundaryless knowledge markets through the infinite resource of knowledge that they put into action with the purpose of making advancements in the society, the economy and the environment (Box 1).
Box 1 - Knowledge entrepreneurs:
Main characteristics
• Knowledge creators and knowledge processors.
• Trust builders.
• Founders of companies intensely based on knowledge and embedded in borderless knowledge markets.
• See creativity of staff and the capacity of innovation as the primary production factors.
• Treat customers as partners and knowledge workers as revenue creators.
• Manage the environment in which knowledge is created.
• Create informal networks of alliances: "Knowledge entrepreneurs rarely act alone. Entrepreneurs are traditionally seen as individualists. Knowledge entrepreneurs usually emerge from a network of complementary ideas and people (Leadbeater, 2000).
• Forge and handle relationships that are sideways (i.e. where there is no authority and no orders).
• Tear down the man-made barriers (cultural, institutional and geographical) that prevent knowledge sharing.
• Build bridges to different communities and countries.
Main characteristics
• Knowledge creators and knowledge processors.
• Trust builders.
• Founders of companies intensely based on knowledge and embedded in borderless knowledge markets.
• See creativity of staff and the capacity of innovation as the primary production factors.
• Treat customers as partners and knowledge workers as revenue creators.
• Manage the environment in which knowledge is created.
• Create informal networks of alliances: "Knowledge entrepreneurs rarely act alone. Entrepreneurs are traditionally seen as individualists. Knowledge entrepreneurs usually emerge from a network of complementary ideas and people (Leadbeater, 2000).
• Forge and handle relationships that are sideways (i.e. where there is no authority and no orders).
• Tear down the man-made barriers (cultural, institutional and geographical) that prevent knowledge sharing.
• Build bridges to different communities and countries.
Box 2 - Knowledge markets
Knowledge markets are now poised to expand their role as a motor for economic development. They are likely cast in the role product markets played all through the industrial era.
Knowledge markets are now poised to expand their role as a motor for economic development. They are likely cast in the role product markets played all through the industrial era.
Knowledge markets are a conceptual market space in which bits are traded across the continents in a broad range of content that would include:
• Knowledge and information systems.
• Customer knowledge and support.
• Knowledge arbitrage and exchange.
• Expert exchange.
• E-learning exchange.
• Intellectual property.
• Economic and business intelligence.
The Internet, the submarine fiber-optic cable and the communications satellite are the infrastructures that make possible the access to knowledge markets.
A great variety of offers (richness) and the amplitude of connectivity (reach) give the participants an unlimited capacity to weave relationships and profit from their advancements.
The cross-border strategy pursued by KE makes them agents of cultural integration. The fact that one of the scarcest resources in a knowledge-based economy is the organization's ability to create new knowledge, makes KE adept at tapping into the global talent pool of the creative class that includes professionals, artists, musicians, scientists, economists, architects, engineers and managers.
Actions pursued by KE are influenced by the context in which they are embedded. In fact, the deeper and broader the social interactions among KE, the more value for innovative advantage can be put together.
KE tend to cluster in knowledge sensitive zones crossing geographical and boundaries where ideas flow from the point of origin to the point of need or opportunity. These zones are the epicenter of three forces that empower the innovation process: creativity, science and advanced info structures and infrastructures. Dubai Knowledge Village is a leading initiative in the Gulf Region for the creation of a knowledge cluster-based urban development.
The emerging knowledge innovation zones entice knowledge entrepreneurs, who become their elected citizens. Altogether, knowledge clusters and their most advanced spatial representation as knowledge innovation zones, populated by knowledge entrepreneurs, show a uniquely human twenty-first century urban ecology driven by innovative advantages.
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Dr. Abdullah Abonamah, Director of the ITI at Zayed University
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