Vocabulary

to maximize productivity – максимизировать производительность

economy of scale – экономия на масштабах

to migrate – мигрировать; migration – миграция; internal migration – внутренняя миграция

Spread knowledge and put it to work

A challenge for Central Europe

by Johannes Linn

The 18^th century poet Alexander Pope wrote that “a little learning is a dangerous thing”. Today the evidence suggests that knowledge is more important to people’s well-being than capital, labor and the other factors that make our economies grow.

With the European Union on the verge of expansion toward the East, acquiring and using knowledge and new information technologies are crucial to the pre-accession countries of Central Europe if they are to catch up with living standards in the present EU states.

During the 1990s, economies surged ahead as new technologies were applied. Ireland’s focus on education and information technologies was key in changing this once rural economy into Europe’s largest exporter of computer software. Finland transformed itself in a single decade from a distressed exporter of wood and paper into a knowledge-intensive economy.

These examples hold important lessons for the countries of Central Europe. Most of them lag well behind EU member states in knowledge indicators like enrollment in tertiary education, computer availability, the presence of Internet host sites, and expenditure on research and development.

Companies and products will have to compete in the single EU market and around the world. High rates of growth will be needed to meet public expectations about rising standards of

living. So the pre-accession countries are focusing more attention on the application of knowledge to their economies.

An economic and institutional framework that promotes the efficient use of knowledge and encourages entrepreneurs is essential. Low inflation, good fiscal and monetary policies, and regulations that encourage investment and technology transfers are prerequisites of the knowledge economy.

Free trade creates demand for technology. Foreign direct investment fosters technological change. Efficient banks and a solid financial sector determine a country’s ability to fund innovative companies. Clear intellectual property rights provide incentives for research and development, and promote knowledge sharing. Competition ensures that new domestic and foreign firms can enter the market and bring with them knowledge and technology.

As Ireland has shown, an educated and skilled population is vital in developing the skills to create, share and use knowledge to its full potential. This requires an education system attuned to the needs of firms and responsive to changing demands.

Also important is a dynamic information infrastructure to facilitate the communication, dissemination and possessing of information. Extending access is essential, particularly to reliable wireless communications, the Internet, satellite networks, data storage centers and broadcasting facilities.

Several of the countries of Central Europe are developing knowledge economy strategies. If they are to work, the countries must go much further than simply investing in communications and information technologies. They need an economic and institutional framework that gives people the required skills, and funding of local centers of innovation that guarantee the flow of fresh ideas.

International Herald Tribune

Notes

1. knowledge-intensive – наукоемкий

2. enrollment in tertiary education – количество студентов в высших учебных заведениях

3. host site – собственный сайт в интернете

` Vocabulary

knowledge – знание; knowledge-intensive – наукоемкий; knowledge indicators – показатели образовательного уровня населения; to apply knowledge to economy – применять знания в экономике; knowledge economy - информационная экономика; prerequisites of the knowledge economy – предпосылки создания (существования) информационной экономики; knowledge economy strategies – методы, приемы информационной экономики

to have (to extend) access to smth – иметь (предоставить) доступ к чему-либо; accession – доступ, вступление; pre-accession countries – страны, готовящиеся вступить в ЕС

educated and skilled population – население с высоким уровнем образования и квалификации

dissemination and possessing of information – распространение и владение информацией

Assignment

Make up a summary of the text in Russian.

What’s Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge?

The rise of the computer and the increasing importance of intellectual assets have compelled executives to examine the knowledge underlying their businesses and how it is used. Because knowledge management as a conscious practice is so young, however, executives have lacked models to use as guides.

To help fill that gap, the authors recently studied knowledge management practices at management consulting firms, health care providers, and computer manufacturers. They found two very different knowledge management strategies in place.

In companies that sell relatively standardized products that fill common needs, knowledge is carefully codified and stored in databases, where it can be accessed and used – over and over again – by anyone in the organization. The authors call this the codification strategy. In companies that provide highly customized solutions to unique problems, knowledge is shared mainly through person-to-person contacts; the chief purpose of computers is to help people to communicate. They call this the personalization strategy.

A company’s choice of knowledge management strategy is not arbitrary – it must be driven by the company’s competitive strategy. Emphasizing the wrong approach or trying to pursue both can quickly undermine a business. The authors warn that knowledge management should not be isolated in a functional department like HR or IT. They emphasize that the benefits are greatest – to both the company and its customers – when a CEO and other general managers actively choose one of the approaches as a primary strategy.

Harvard Business Review

Notes

1. intellectual assets – интеллектуальные ресурсы

2. to codify knowledge – кодифицировать, систематизировать знания; codification strategy – стратегия, направленная на систематизацию знаний, информации

3. standardized products – стандартизированная продукция

4. highly-customized goods – товары, выполненные по индивидуальному заказу, в соответствии с пожеланиями заказчика

5. personalization strategy – стратегия личного контакта

Brain Teasing

Managing “knowledge workers”

In the early industrial age, men in white coats would walk around factories with watches and clipboards measuring the time it took workers to perform specific tasks. These “time-and-motion” experts set out to measure labour productivity, and thence to improve it. The sort of jobs they were measuring, however, no longer enjoy such a premium in the places where they measured them: less than 10% of today’s jobs in America are in manufacturing, and less than 15% of those in Britain.

Workers of the western world are now employed largely in service industries, where they are paid for their brain rather than for their brawn. Many of them can be called “knowledge workers” – between a quarter and a half, estimates Thomas Davenport, who is a long-time observer of the species.

Knowledge workers, he says, are those whose “primary tasks involve the manipulation of knowledge and information.” These people are the creators of wealth in western economies today, yet scarecely anybody is measuring their output and seeking ways to improve it. Somebody should, Mr Davenport argues. Finding ways to improve the productivity of knowledge workers, he says, is “one of the most important economic issues of our time.” He is not the first to say this. Peter Drucker, who invented the term “knowledge worker” more than 35 years ago, said then that “management’s new role” is to “make knowledge more productive”.

Little has happened in the intervening time, partly because this is not an easy task. There are no time-and-motion studies that can measure how many thoughts go through knowledge workers’ heads or the value of their creative output. Does that therefore mean that companies must (as most of them have until now) leave these valuable assets entirely to their own devices, to work as each of them sees fit while they, their employers, merely stand and wait?

Mr Davenport shows that the answer to this question does not have to be yes. Some companies have tried to make their knowledge workers more productive. Hewlett-Packard, for instance, was one of the first to create a sort of electronic “yellow pages” directory of experts inside the company, together with their expertise. Research has found that the computer programmers with the biggest offices are the most productive, and that e-mail is a better medium for complex negotiations than instant messaging.

By looking at the ways in which different workers use knowledge, Mr Davenport begins to build a framework within which companies can start thinking about how to make the process more productive. It is not yet – and may never be – a very tidy framework, and it ranges from the best technologies that gather and disseminate information which knowledge workers need, to the sort of workplace best suited to people who are very mobile and who, by definition, need to concentrate a lot. But it is a bold attempt to address a pressing issue. What a pity that the author felt the need to conform with formulaic management books and end each chapter with a “summary” and a number of blobbed “recommendations”. Knowledge workers don’t like being patronised; Mr Davenport should know that.

Thinking for a Living: How to Get

Better Performance and Results from

Knowledge Workers. By Thomas H.Davenport

Harvard Business School Press

The Economist, 2005

Notes

1. knowledge worker – высококвалифицированный и образованный рабочий; рабочий, владеющий обширными знаниями

2. to perform specific tasks – выполнять те или иные виды работ

3. to measure labour productivity – оценивать производительность труда

4. to leave these valuable assets…to their own devices – предоставить самим рабочим искать пути совершенствования такого ценного достояния компании, как производительность

5. the sort of jobs…no longer enjoy such a premium – те виды работ уже не имеют первостепенной важности

6. blobbed “recommendations” – не очень четкие или ясные “рекомендации”