Customer Reviews

The Knowledge Economy

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This reader includes basics by Drucker and Reich regarding a world economy based on knowledge rather than tangible assets. Some readings point to how competitive advantage will be created. They raise questions about the ability of many countries to cope with the future without adequate higher education. The legal and social implications are profound, expecially if the divide widens between those that have and those that have not. Most articles are non-technical; only one requires a professional economic background. I have used it in an MBA class, and the students enjoyed it. (It seems British authors are included.)

This book is a collection of articles by different authors dealing with the knowledge economy. I began reading this book hoping to find some answers to some of my thoughts on the changing economy and the first article by Mr. Drucker blew my mind away. I LOVED IT.

The book is separated into different sections:

1. The Changing Economic Landscape
2. Knowledge as the Economic Force of Growth and Change
3. Measuring and Managing the Intangibles of Knowledge
4. Learning Organizations in the Global Knowledge-Based
Economy
5. Society and Public Policy: Government, Education, and
Training in the Knowledge-Based Economy

Some authors included Robert Reich, Peter Drucker and Lester Thurow. I found another article by Stan Davis and Jim Botkin to be very interesting also.

I found that the first article in each section tended to be the most interesting within each section. I don't know if it was intentionally designed this way or not but, at the end of the day, I found at least 3 articles in this book or about 90-100 pages total that completely stimulated my mind.

I believe every educated person should take an economics course, more specifically one that teaches them the importance of their career path on the impact to the society in which they live in. We are moving into a world where economic distribution is becoming more skewed towards the knowledge worker and one where societies based on knowledge will increasingly generate greater wealth than other countries.

We are moving into a world where wealth creation is biased towards the creation of knowledge and how that knowledge is manipulated to create additional knowledge. Nations that continue to dominate their economic agenda based on natural resources and industrialization may do decent but they will continually fall behind the fastest growing countries. Why is it that the CRB has DECLINED over the past 20 years and not risen? After all, is demand for such products not greater than ever? Why is it then that such countries aren't the economic powerhouses? If you seek answers to such questions this should be an interesting read for you. Don't expect every article to excite you...But what few nuggets you find will truly enrich your knowledge.