The knowledge‐based development agenda:a perspective for 2010‐2020
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055721111171582 |
| Pages | 358-377 |
| Published date | 16 August 2011 |
| Date | 16 August 2011 |
| Author | Kostas Ergazakis,Kostas Metaxiotis |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
The knowledge-based
development agenda:
a perspective for 2010-2020
Kostas Ergazakis
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, and
Kostas Metaxiotis
Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece
Abstract
Purpose – In the context of today’s knowledge economy, development policies that are mainly based
on knowledge as a primary source of wealth and added-value are increasingly adopted by cities and
countries. This tendency is becoming much more common due to the global financial crisis. Thus, the
knowledge-based development field has been in a state of important progress during the last decade.
This paper seeks to discuss and highlight the major issues of knowledge-based development. By doing
so the paper aims to present an agenda for future research directions for the present decade of
2010-2020.
Design/methodol ogy/approach – The paper presents an agenda for future research by
co-instantaneously presenting the status in relation to the major pending issues of the
knowledge-based development field. This is accomplished through a wide-scope literature review
and qualitative scoring of knowledge-based development (KBD) categories.
Findings – The main finding is that research is needed in four main directions: development of
holistic and unified approaches for the practical formulation of citizen-centric knowledge-based
development strategies; knowledge-based urban planning; knowledge-based development assessment
and metrics; practical aspects of implementation of knowledge-based development approaches.
Research limitations/implications – Research in the paper is based on a wide literature review of
the most important and added-value available resources in the KBD field and in qualitative scoring of
research categories. Use of empirical components such as citation analysis, field surveys, knowledge
network analysis as well as for a specific approach regarding the scoring system would be needed in
future research.
Originality/value – The discussion and issues presented in the paper should be of value not only to
researchers and practitioners but also to cities and countries willing to design efficient and effective
knowledge-based development strategies.
Keywords Knowledge, Knowledge-based development,Research agenda, Knowledgeeconomy,
Knowledge management, Emergent strategy
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
During the last years, we have witnessed the rise of knowledge-based economy as main
driver of global and local economic development (Yigitcanlar, 2009). Carrillo (2006) has
identified the twenty-first century as the “century of Knowledge Cities (KCs)” since
urban regions and KCs have become centers of knowledge generation,
knowledge-based economy and knowledge-based development (KBD). In the context
of the new knowledge area, concepts of knowledge, innovation and creativity have
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VINE
41,3
358
VINE: The journal of information and
knowledge management systems
Vol. 41 No. 3, 2011
pp. 358-377
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0305-5728
DOI 10.1108/03055721111171582
become primary factors of production and development (Durmaz et al., 2008). In this
context, “knowledge-based urban development” has gained popularity as a powerful
strategy for sustainable economic, social and urban growth, and for the post-industrial
development of cities (Yigitcanlar and Velibeyoglu, 2008).
However, the process of planning and implementing KBD approaches is neither
quick nor simple. This seems to be already understood by the research community,
which the last few years has begun to concentrate its efforts in order to develop
appropriate frameworks, methodologies, tools, systems, metrics etc, so as to evolve the
whole KBD field. In this respect, there are currently many research efforts as well
practical approaches which are in progress and, consequently, create many pending
issues to be addressed in relation to the KBD field. This paper attempts to present an
agenda for future research, by co-instantaneously presenting the status in relation to
the major pending issues of KBD, that will be in the centre of interest during the new
decade of 2010-2020. This is accomplished through a wide-scope literature review and
qualitative scoring of KBD categories. The discussion presented on these issues should
be of great value not only to researchers and practitioners but also to cities and
countries willing to design efficient and effective KBD strategies.
Section 2 presents the current status regarding four major fields of KBD, as well as
the most important future research streams, based on literature review. In section 3, a
synthesis of results is presented based on three criteria: existing research volume,
existing research maturity, and research difficulty. Finally, section 4 discusses the
main conclusions.
2. KBD research agenda
Figure 1 illustrates the major streams of KBD research, based on a comprehensive
review of the literature related to KBD. The main goal of this paper is, by reviewing
Figure 1.
Major streams of KBD
research
The KBD
agenda:
a perspective
359
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