Knowledge and Communities (Resources for the Knowledge-Based Economy,)

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Implementing knowledge-based development in small communities is a multidisciplinary endeavour; all the work needed will be carried out by a team of engineers, economists, ecologists, analysts with many years of experience in as many as diverse projects as possible. The study examined five sources of sustainable, knowledge-based development of small communities subsequently detailed din Table The Project Vision was: Selecting a number of agreed projects that will demonstrate the advantages of the approach and the potential of knowledge-based development of the focal area;.

Know-how transfer to the local people, complementary to what expertise is already present in the focal area.

1. Introduction

This led to the application of some modern tools for strategic management of small communities;. Evaluating, where possible, the success of the Project by comparison to national or EU practices, etc. Initially, the communes of Ilisesti and Balaceana were envisaged but, during the Project, it attracted a number of other communities in the same County that took part, more or less actively: Scheia, Ciprian Porumbescu, Veresti, and Stroiesti.

Michigan’s Transition to a Knowledge-Based Economy

Some of these communes have more than one village. The total number of inhabitants is estimated at Once some local projects started, their immediate success acted like attractors, like a critical mass for some more communes. So, at the end of the project, there were 11 communes involved and the number is increasing. A Project Advisory Board was set up that included mayors of the above mentioned communes but also specialists and even a priest. The role of the PAB was essentially a honorific one — members of the PAB were in no way remunerated for their participation but their contribution was essential because:.

They are aware of the traditions, ethnography, particularities of the area, how to preserve them, how to take the most out of them;. They know who are the best local specialists, skilled persons that could contribute to a given part of the project;. They have the authority and legitimacy to guide and censor the Project team on its way. Bank subsidiaries present in the area that are in the first line of crediting local business for starting new projects;.

Contrary to what someone could expect from a local community, lost in a beautiful landscape in the rural area of Bucovina the historical name of the region , there was no need for instructing local people in order to carry out a meticulous and painstaking SWOT analysis. Young educated people took part with great interest in the action and produced high value documents for the initial diagnostic of the area.

Little intervention has been made elimination of some repetition, reformulation of some findings. Most of the suggestions of this Table can be found in SWOT analyses conducted in other communities so Table 2 may be considered representative for what happens in all the focal area. There is a marked interest for the Project, illustrated by the celerity and level of detail of the SWOT submitted by local specialists to the Project Team;. There are good traditions that must be revived so that they will contribute to social cohesion farming, traditional food and drink, habits, fairs, etc.

Communities could become self-sufficient energy, resources and provide other regions with ethanol from potatoes, wind energy, traditional products;. There are social aspects that need special attention early-leave of the educational system, separation of families and parents going to work abroad. In the process, some issues were dropped, some others were moved from one category to another, some others were rephrased.

A single table resulted after intense interactive work and discussions. It was an excellent opportunity for the local specialists to meet and learn to work together for the benefit of the communities. This was one of the most important intangible benefits of the Project. First, local specialists were asked to give each SWOT finding 2 scores, in the interval 1 — One that answers the question: The other, answering the question: An aggregate score has been subsequently derived, based on the two scores given to each SWOT finding, using the formula:.

The resulted aggregate scores are in the same interval 1 worse — 10 best. The formula, inspired from chemical engineering series of resistances to heat or mass transfer ensures that a SWOT finding will result highly opportune and feasible only if both Score 1 and Score 2 are high, because the aggregate score calculated with this formula is less than the lowest values of Score 1 and Score 2. Using these aggregate scores, the SWOT findings, reformulated and detailed as options for local development during interactive analysis, were classified in 4 categories, in the same way the options for cleaner production are usually classified:.

A-type options that could be easily implemented in the short term and are relevant for the local communities. B-type options, requiring some investment but being relevant for the community;.

C-type options, requiring large funding and large time horizon for implementation;. These options are presented in Table 3.

Knowledge-Based Development in Small Communities - Efficient Management Based on Local Expertize

They are organized in 4 main chapters infrastructure, profit generation, social cohesion, and institutional framework. Table 3 includes some particularities:. The concern of local specialists for energy and environment core themes of any EU strategy is obvious and well structured;. Large number of business ideas shows that local people are at current with community potential, to sustainable products e.

The concern of the same specialists about how to add value to local resources is also a noticeable. There are all kind of options A, B, C, and D for generating benefits from natural resources. This shows that the limiting step to the economic, sustainable development of the communities is not the lack of ideas or expertise but the funding and an encouraging business environment and an articulated marketing policy;. There are some domains not covered by local specialists: This should be a signal of concern for high-schools and universities, to pay attention to real needs of communities and adapt their curricula accordingly;.

The social aspects are also important. Local communities understand the risks generated by parents leaving children and look abroad for work, the early leaving of schools or the increased number of criminal acts. Unfortunately, this constitutes a national concern as hundred of thousands of Romanians work abroad. There is no coherent approach to support families having members far from home.

The only good part of this situation is that these workers come home with a life experience, knowledge and some savings that could be of great help for the community;. The institutional dimension is very well represented Commune Meetings, Church to get more involved in the social life.

Based upon the mentioned aggregate scores, a short list of options emerged Table 4. A-options have been adopted by local authorities and institutions and will be implemented in the near future. Their implementation does not need the help of the Project Coordinator. The many business ideas especially C-options will constitute the priority for future business development in the area because they are generated and endorsed by local specialists and managers and, as the analyses carried out during the project, they are sustainable solutions for the problems in the communities.

Option 5 needs a special training programme that will be devised by local specialists, teachers, retired experts, in order to identify and centralize all the environmental problems that confront each community, to analyze their consequences and to increase the awareness of local people. It is important that discussions should take place in the months to come with the County Environmental Protection Agency and the Local Environmental Guard. Option 6 represents a very tough issue though its solution could be simple.

Local families without children or single people have expressed their availability to take care of the children left alone by parents working in Spain, Italy or elsewhere but, though the problem is pressing at national level several cases of suicides were recorded all arrangements need a detailed case-by-case auditing and a formal, legal approval of child protection authorities. Option 7 is the task of local experts that know best what differentiate local products from similar products of other areas.

In the subsequent paragraphs, the implementation of Options 1, 2, and 3 will be detailed. The paragraph details how the sustainable strategy of local communities was set up during the Project. In interacting with local experts and decision-making authorities, all the elements needed to set up a sustainable strategy for the community were detailed. The Vision identifies what local authorities and stakeholders will value most about the community. Example of Vision phrases suggested to local authorities were:. A Mission Statement defines what should be the community primary objective. Its prime function is internal and its prime audience, the community leaders and community representative people.

The Mission Statement communicates what the local community represents and how would it contribute to its welfare. The strategic objectives must come out from the SWOT and subsequent analyses and must be accepted by the majority of the local people. Contribution and critics are more than welcome at this stage, in order to set up a list of objectives understood by all community representatives in the Project.

Strategic objectives must address the three pillars of sustainable development economic, environmental, and social and also be aligned to the 4 perspectives that constitute the horizon of local communities:. These four perspectives have been taken from the celebrated Balanced Scorecard developed by Kaplan and Norton [ 24 ], completed to take into account the three pillars of sustainable development.

Such an approach leads to a specific structure of the associated strategy map, illustrated in Table 5. At the intersection of lines with columns one will find in each cell one or more strategic objectives for the sustainable development of the community. Table 5 already includes some examples of strategic objectives but the final ones will be devised by local communities, after intense consultation and interaction with the local people. Arrows may be added to the map in Table 5 , interconnecting objectives and showing how one issue determines the fulfilment of another.

Also, a system of classification can be adopted e. It was stressed that the number of strategic objectives should be kept at a minimum possible Of course, a community could have more than 25 objectives, addressing more specific matters but the majority of them could probably be added to the list of operational objectives.

Such a structure of the strategic map commits the experts and the policy makers at the community level to address all the essential aspects of their community, its structure, its connections, its capabilities and its future, but also the 3 factors that should be considered in any sustainable development process. Once they chose to organize their strategic objectives in this way, these objectives must fill in every cell, in order to show the dedication of local decision makers to set up a comprehensive strategy that covers all the issues. Also, they must be relevant and make sense for the local people, answer to their expectations.

Filling in just a page, the map is a powerful vector for communicating the strategy, the intentions of local community representatives to all stakeholders, to all interested persons or organizations. It constitutes the most visible part of the strategy, submitted to public scrutiny. Detailed actions plans meant to identify and mobilize all resources needed in the accomplishment of a given strategic objective;.

If need be, some of these elements could be confidential or made available to a limited number of people e. Each strategic objective should be accompanied by one or more key performance indicators KPIs. Devising a list of KPIs constitutes the most difficult and delicate operation in the implementation of the strategy. They form the metrics of the strategy, the essential tools for evaluating how progress is made.

There must be a balance between leading and lagging indicators [ 24 ];. Some of the KPIs must be agreed with neighbouring communities e. KPIs must be simple to derive and must be based, if possible, on existing metrics available at the community level;. KPIs must be accompanied by transparent targets and deadlines in order to assess the progress or the flaws in the strategy. A final form of the community strategy will be produced by local authorities after consulting and interacting with all stakeholders.

The paragraph illustrates the implementation of one sustainable development option, based on local resources and expertise and addressing the energy domain.

Editorial Reviews

Forest people and timber producing companies in the Suceava County generate huge amounts of wooden waste trunks with no economic value, branches, bark, and sawdust. The local Forest Authority asked for help from local companies to solve the problem of wooden waste left in forests, along the rivers, roads, etc. This waste currently alters the state of the local environment, obstructs streams and cause floods or landslides.

During the Project, an opportunity for funding was identified, from a Norwegian Fund. With Norwegian help, a local company acquired a second-hand truck with a special crane that collects wooden waste from remote places. Local specialists managed to repair the equipment and put it back in operation, in excellent conditions. Thus, local competences helped local company to expand and add value to waste, a rather new business in the area. In addition, it solves an important environmental problem and reinserts in the economic chain a valuable resource firewood , saving important quantities of virgin resources wood is the main source of energy for local communities.

Table 6 centralizes the volume of wooden waste collected in 12 months. The benefits generated by using wooden waste as fire wood or for producing briquettes from sawdust, at a local manufacturing unit are shown in Table 7. Biomass as a fuel is a sustainable solution for the energy balance of local communities. The paragraph illustrates how a sensitive issue was sorted out during the Project, based on local ideas, resources and expertize. During the implementation phase of the Project, a second-hand waste sorting station manufactured in and a baler were identified and bought by a local company.

The equipment needed capital repair and maintenance to become operational again but this was done by using the skills and ability of local specialists. It is worth noting that the mentioned equipment was the first of its kind in the area but repairing and maintaining has been carried out smoothly by local skilled technicians.

Using the sorting station and the baler, domestic waste collected from the focal area 6 communes in the initial phase, 11 communes at the end of the Project was sorted and prepared to be taken by recyclers. Table 8 presents the benefits of recycling the domestic waste, in a public-private partnership, a novel approach for the focal area but a sound option in the view of the Europe strategy.

Table 9 shows the amounts of waste sent to recyclers in the first half of The efforts of identifying funds, equipment, retrofitting it, starting a new business are rewarding, as Table 9 illustrates. Table 9 illustrates continual efforts by local specialists and managers to diversify, to identify new smart and simple sources for adding value to the collected waste. In some cases efforts are still on the way e.

This leaves the door open for local managers to start or expand their businesses, to value locally the recycled waste available. The study showed the great potential of small community development based upon ideas, skills and efforts of the same communities, without waiting for miracle panacea from Central Authorities.

chapter and author info

Knowledge-based development means a lot more than looking for and implementing last minute cutting-edge technologies. It means working together with local people, evaluating their problems, looking for local, up-to-date, smart and efficient solutions that contribute to the well-being of communities. The role of external facilitators the Project coordinator, in this study is to provoke a substantial dialogue, to suggest possible solutions, to assess the efficiency of the solutions generated, to mobilize all local specialists, to help finding financial support, to smoothen communication and co-operation among stakeholders.

A shortlist of business ideas and development options believed to the most relevant and most suitable for the resources and know-how existing in the area;. The project underlined the need of meticulous, in-depth work and co-operation of all stakeholders, of all those called to implement the generous objectives like those in the Europe Strategy and proves that innovation should not be limited to high-speed, efficient electric cars, IT stuff or high-yield solar panels.

The approach of implementing the Europe Strategy should also be innovative and original in what regards commitment, organization, resources used, and human touch. Embed this code snippet in the HTML of your website to show this chapter. Help us write another book on this subject and reach those readers. Login to your personal dashboard for more detailed statistics on your publications.

Edited by Sime Curkovic. Edited by Bernardo Llamas. We are IntechOpen, the world's leading publisher of Open Access books. Built by scientists, for scientists. Our readership spans scientists, professors, researchers, librarians, and students, as well as business professionals. August 1st DOI: The main findings of a thorough analysis of this failure, carried out by EU officials were, among others [ 2 ]: The Lisbon Strategy has helped build broad consensus on the reforms that the EU needs and generated mutually acceptable solutions, still waiting to be implemented; It is not always possible to demonstrate a causal link between Lisbon reforms and EU economic growth and jobs outcomes, in the period There are three main priorities in the new EU targets for Again, the role of knowledge is the most important; Sustainable growth: There are seven flagship initiatives to catalyze progress under each priority theme: The main lines of the present work are: Identifying the driving forces for the Project and their particularities for Romania; Defining essential concepts development vs.

Driving forces for the project Aligning the Romanian society to the quality of life standards of other EU members requires much more than a bunch of legal norms, much more than Agencies and Commissions for Development, Sustainability, Human Rights, Environment, Social Inclusions, etc. Knowledge-based development of small communities Development or growth? The findings of recent EU documents on sustainable consumption [ 15 , 25 ] are relevant for the matter: The authors believe that: Encouraging the generation of such ideas, collecting and disseminating such experience will add to the well-being of small communities even if those new ideas have little or no connections with space technology, nanoparticles or advanced ultrapure materials; Neglecting the know-how accumulated by small communities in their historical development in trying to implement the Europe Strategy would be a recipe for failure.

A constructive study dedicated to what is the level of preparation of Croatia to align to the knowledge-based society [ 18 ], as illustrated in the new EU documents gives a very comprehensive definition of knowledge-based economy: An interesting experience in how to develop a sustainable strategy for a local community [ 19 ], as a primary tool for common action, provides a number of questions discussed by local people, questions that give substance to the concept of knowledge-based approach: What is good about living in this area Chichester, UK?

What would you like to improve in the area? Taking away the limitations that exist. What would be your ideal vision of your area?

Bringing limitations back into play, what priorities would you see for your area? Evaluating the experience of the mentioned communities in EU as well as from other part of the world [ 5 , 6 , 20 ] led to a handful of results expected by local people from knowledge-based development of their small communities: You'll get controversy, breathless enthusiasm, ideas that are novel and occasionally guaranteed to send the faint of heart headed for the Mendips. Generally aimed at managers, but also of use to researchers and students in the field, the book covers many aspects of the phenomenon of communities within organisations, if your current view of knowledge focuses on the technology of intranets, or search engines, or document management, this book will prove something of an eye-opener which is likely to dramatically change your view of priorities.

Information Management Report - Feb A common Information Age myth is that technology alone will create collaboration. Instead, making it work as a business process requires getting people to share what they know across psychological, departmental and geographical boundaries. The essayists not only show concrete results for theory and action but also look at the hazards of poor communication. One argues, for example, that Xerox scientists had invented the modern PC but failed to capitalize on it because of the disconnect between engineers and management.

The writers examine ways to form communities of knowledge sharing in essays that combine hard statistical analysis with observations like this from one Silicon Valley denizen: The book teaches how organizations can empower both traditional and on-line communities and make them a cornerstone of a general knowledge management strategy. Readers will learn how communities can help unify an organization and its external stakeholders, such as customers and suppliers, and how they can critically support an e-commerce strategy.

Knowledge and Communities will help readers understand a primary vehicle for building an organization's social capital and competitive advantage. Would you like to tell us about a lower price? If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Knowledge and Communities is the first book dedicated to a major new knowledge management topic. Knowledge and Communities, a collection of authoritative articles, describes the dynamics of these groups and explains how they enable organizational knowledge to be creating, shared, and applied.

Read more Read less. Review It is mostly elegantly written, persuasive, contradictory, sometimes very funny Follow the League on Flickr. A listing of the League's Business Alliance Vendors. Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, Inc. The study shows that Michigan is trending in the wrong direction in all of these areas. Michigan is getting older and less educated compared to the country. We are at a cross roads, we can align with the trends and continue the decline, or we can reverse the trends and recreate a high prosperity Michigan. In , Michigan ranked 26th in per capita income, an unprecedented drop of 10 places in a relatively short six-year period.

It ranked 37th in the share of wages from knowledge-based industries and 34th in the proportion of adults with a bachelors degree or more. The data also shows that eight of the nine highest prosperity states are characterized by successful metropolitan areas with high concentrations in knowledge-based industries and a high proportion of adults with four-year degrees or more.

Retaining and attracting talent is the key to building a high prosperity economy in Michigan.

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