Knowledge Society

Cosa è la conoscenza pubblica? Chi e in che modo la produce? Come ha a che fare con la democrazia? Attraverso la riflessione sociologica gli autori provano a rispondere a questi interrogativi mettendo in discussione la neutralità della descrizione dei fenomeni sociali con cui le istituzioni sono chiamate a interagire. I contenuti dei diversi capitoli alimentano un dialogo tra le dinamiche di trasformazione della conoscenza pubblica e le suggestioni emerse nel corso di un’esperienza locale di programmazione nell’ambito delle politiche giovanili. Dai laboratori nelle scuole al mapping collaborativo, il lavoro sul campo è stato svolto nella prospettiva di favorire un apprendimento istituzionale, ibridando i significati attribuiti alla realtà dalle istituzioni pubbliche e quei saperi non codificati che le persone maturano nel corso della propria esperienza di vita. Molti quesiti restano aperti, ma dalla loro formulazione si intravedono le tracce per favorire una redistribuzione di poteri decisionali tra gli attori locali. Barbara Giullari svolge attività di ricerca sulle trasformazioni del lavoro e dei sistemi di welfare al Dipartimento di Sociologia e Diritto dell’Economia dell’Università di Bologna dove insegna Programmazione dei servizi sociali sul territorio. Gianluca De Angelis è ricercatore sociale, assegnista di ricerca all’Università di Bologna e collabora con istituti di ricerca nazionali e internazionali sui temi delle disuguaglianze, del lavoro e della sua organizzazione.

Creativity and innovation are main sources of development leading to both: wealth generation and job creation. While creativity produces knowledge, innovation makes practical utilization of it to provide value. This paper questions the contribution of higher education (HE) research to creativity and to innovation. It provides a background that identifies the various issues concerned; and it emphasizes the different types of research versus HE research considerations. It recognises the low share of HE in funding and in performing research; and it also stresses the opportunities enjoyed by HE to do better in both: creativity and innovation. It addresses various potential considerations including: HE-government and HE-business cooperation platforms; in addition to new research degrees and other potential arrangements. In this respect, it highlights experience from Saudi Arabia. The paper hopes to activate worldwide sharing of ideas on the future role of HE research in world development.

Planetar denken heißt, die Erde als Planeten ernst nehmen: vom Erdkern bis in den interplanetaren Raum, von der Nanosekunde bis zur Tiefenzeit, vom Elementarteilchen bis zur Erdmasse. Stehen Wechselwirkungen zwischen unserem Heimatplaneten und uns im Zentrum, nimmt ein planetares Wissensparadigma Gestalt an. Es geht einher mit der Relationierung menschlicher Existenz im Universum und der Relativierung der anthropozentrischen Sichtweise. So rücken Fragen der Bewohnbarkeit und Gastfreundschaft in den Vordergrund-und die Schaffung neuen Wissens bedeutet stets auch die Schaffung neuer Welten. Dieses Buch spricht alle mit dem Universum und dem Menschen befassten Wissenschaften an.

International migration is a historical phenomenon, which only recently has gained increasing importance, representing a focal point on the political agenda in most countries. One of the reasons is the deep transformation occurring in last decades, both at global and local level, of the role played by its protagonists that are turning to be transnational agents. This is especially true for the skilled professionals, who migrate internationally. As a matter of fact, international human capital mobility is now regarded as “brain circulation” rather than “brain drain”: this new concept concerns individuals who maintain frequent and continued social, economic and political ties with their country of origin, exceeding thereby the territorial and cultural boundaries. In this scenario, China is one of the main sending countries of highly-skilled migrants, through which it can built economic and academic relations with other economic and technological advanced countries. Recently, Chinese policy makers have started to consider the brain drain phenomenon as an opportunity for the transmission of business and technological know-how, as well as tacit knowledge that is hard to find through official channels. This article intends to contribute to the scientific debate on the subject, highlighting the international relevance of the so-called Overseas Chinese Professionals (OCPs), investigating their spatial distribution and features. Besides, the paper will examine the emerging returning flow and the challenge that the country will have to cope with in the next future to impose itself as a innovative leading economy

Information technology (IT) is playing an increasingly important role in both business and individuals’ private lives. It is also consuming ever greater amounts of energy; therefore, it is a significant source of CO² emissions. Thus, environmental and energy conservation issues have gained attention in recent years. The reality of rising energy costs and their impact on international affairs coupled with the increased concern over the global warming climate crisis and other environmental issues have shifted the social and economic consciousness of modern society. This paper discusses different aspects of green computing and its impact in India.

The aim of this work is to review a specific learning analytics method - sentiment analysis - in the field of Higher Education, showing how it is employed to monitor student satisfaction on different platforms, and to propose an architecture of Sentiment Analysis for Higher Education purposes, which trace and unify what emerges from the literature review. First, a literature review is carried out, which proves the widespread and increasing interest of the communities, of both scholars and practitioners, in the use of sentiment analysis in the field of Higher Education. The analysis, focused on three different e-learning domains, identifies weaknesses and gaps, and in particular the lack of a unifying approach which is able to deal with the different domains. Secondly, a prototype architecture – LADEL (Learning Analytics Dashboard for E-Learning) - is introduced, which is able to deal with the different e-learning domains. Some preliminary experiments are carried out, highlighting so...

abstract: In recent city planning, references to the concepts of the so-called creative class and the creative city are often to be found. How do those references affect the actual planning? My research on the cities of Dublin (Ireland) and Gothenburg (Sweden) shows that Richard Florida's concept of the creative class serves as a point of reference in both cases. Although the cities have specific ways of integrating the concept in their planning, they have one thing in common: the promotion of knowledge-intensive economies. That comes along with a specific understanding of creativity: it is understood as innovation. Two examples show that knowledge-intensive economies are decidedly used to enhance and/or convert certain neighborhoods. In that sense, promoting the creative economy affects both urban space(s) and the perception of the inhabitants. Therefore, governing a city by use of specific ideas has an impact, not least on the built environment. The discussion of the so-called creative cities has by now reached the city planning institutions of most of the Western European cities. Often, especially in bigger cities, the concepts creative city and creative class serve as programmatic elements of city development strategies. But so far, in sociological research, one question remained mainly unanswered: What impacts do these strategies have on the (built) environment? Meaning, what expressions does the focus on the creative class find, what places and spaces emerge and disappear in the course of this transformation? And obviously: What kind of places emerge through the work done by and for the creative class – and who are the actors? My paper presents modes of governance and the impacts that such development strategies have on cities. Empirical research in the cities of Dublin (Ireland) and Gothenburg (Sweden) shows: In both cases, it is explicitly referred to Richard Florida's concept of the creative class and his analyses on the relationship between cities and this class. Additionally, an orientation as creative city is present, but with different emphases. I will only briefly summarize Florida's main ideas before turning towards my case

Der Beitrag entwickelt folgende zentrale These: Um 1900 'begann unsere Gegenwart‘ insofern, als in den Städten der Übergang in eine moderne Mediengesellschaft erfolgte.
Deren kompetenteste Nutzer waren Kinder und Jugendliche.
Bemühungen, die Heranwachsenden vor ‚Schmutz und Schund‘ zu bewahren, thematisierten zentral, dass die neue Medienumwelt Heranwachsenden den unkontrollierten Zugang zu Wissensbeständen eröffnete, die als „erziehungswidrig“ galten. Diese Konstellation besteht
in Grundzügen bis heute, und viele aktuelle Reaktionsmuster gehen auf den Schundkampf der Kaiserzeit zurück. Die Kulturanthropologin Margaret Mead hat ein Modell entwickelt, das den Konflikt um die Regulierung des Wissenszugangs in den historischen Wandel der Generationenbeziehungen einzuordnen ermöglicht.

The post-industrial societies are going through the phenomenon of growing need and dependence on knowledge, distinctively, scientific knowledge. Knowledge is getting more and more associated with technology and being fed into the economy. The advanced nations are geared up to generate and disseminate the latest variety of knowledge. The workers in the economy are expected to develop high skills and update their knowledge base regularly. This has given these societies the name ‘Knowledge Society’ for their dependence on and extensive use of knowledge.
The educational sphere of the KS is changing its configuration and coming more and more under the vortex of economic need.  The education policy of its members is also being guided by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), chiefly an economic organisation. (OECD,2007)
However, it is surprising when a developing and agrarian nation like India takes up the same challenge under the guidance of the National Knowledge Commission which wants to transform India into a KS. It wants changes in its educational policy which fits in with the KS concept though the circumstances which led to the development of KS in the West are not present in India. This essay focuses on the question whether India will be able to become a KS just by changing the education policy or is it looking towards a new model of KS altogether. In doing so it presents the UNESCO point of view which claims every society has the potential to become a KS. Finally, the essay looks at the ‘KS’ as a perception as well as a phenomenon and attempts to contextualize India in the KS argument.

The integration of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within the cultural domain creates what is commonly known as e-culture. The need to create an e-culture environment arose from the undeniable fact that the cultural heritage of a nation defines it and therefore, should be disseminated to all, regardless of their location and their disability. This article discusses an e-culture

Many studies show that unsafe behavior is the main cause of construction accidents. Safety education and training are effective means to minimise people's unsafe behaviors. Apart from traditional face-to-face construction knowledge sharing, social media is a good tool because it is convenient, efficient, and widely used. We applied both social network analysis and sentiment analysis to investigate knowledge sharing on Twitter. Our study is a novel attempt to understand social structure of "construction safety"-related twitter networks and the opinion leaders. We selected and analyzed 6561 tweets of three users' networks on Twitter-"construction safety", "construction health" and "construction accident". We found that three networks had low density and many isolated vertices, which showed that users did not actively interact with each other. The opinion leaders in this study were mostly organizations or government agencies. The top one is "cif_ireland", the Irish construction industry's representative body, the Construction Industry Federation. 3200 Tweets of the top opinion leader were analyzed through graph metrics calculation, cluster analysis, sentiment analysis, and correlation analysis. The opinion leader used Twitter as a medium to disseminate the latest safety news. Thus, we may use Twitter to stimulate people's interest on construction safety topics, share construction safety knowledge, opinions and ideas. Besides, our results showed that sentiment valence had no correlation with number of favorites or retweets. Nevertheless, there was a positive correlation between favorites and retweets.

The purpose of this article is to improve understanding of internationalization as a strategic response to the catalysts of globalization and the knowledge society.  The paper will attempt to critically identify and interpret how the aforementioned elements are being recontextualized and translated into responsive internationalization policies and systemic institutional change.  The article takes a critical analysis approach on current internationalization efforts and provides a conceptual framework for developing a performance indicator set through a combination of institutional change theory (North 1990) and the Delta cycle for internationalization (Rumbley 2010).  Recommendations on future research areas are made at the conclusion of the article.

The Arab world stretches from the Indian Ocean in the
East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Twenty Arab
countries occupy the southern and eastern shores of the
Mediterranean and border the Red Sea.
It is an area of historical importance, as it is the birthplace
of the world’s three Abrahamic religions. For centuries, the
region was a hub of groundbreaking science. It is of
contemporary strategic importance owing to its location
and a wealth of subterranean natural resources, essentially
in the form of oil and natural gas – 32% of the world’s
known natural gas reserves are to be found in the region –
as well as phosphate: Morocco alone possesses more than
half of the world’s reserves.
The region encompasses remarkable cultural similarities as
well as highly distinct political and economic systems with a
heterogeneous social fabric. Its peoples share a commonality
of language, history and religion but their societies are at
variance in terms of natural wealth, governance, currency,
traditions and socio-economic systems.
The period since the UNESCO Science Report 2005
appeared has been one of mixed fortunes for Arab
countries. The region has witnessed continuing political
upheaval and military conflict in the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan. The oil-exporting
Arab states of Kuwait, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have enjoyed a
short-lived downpour of revenue resulting from the hike
in international oil prices to a peak of more than US$ 140 a
barrel in July 2008. Conversely, oil-importing countries
such as Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco have faced fiscal
difficulties due to their mounting national energy bills, a
situation compounded by the associated rise in the cost of
imported food commodities.
The subsequent plummet in oil prices, which fell to about
US$ 40 by the end of 2008 before recovering slightly in
2009, has brought this exceptional situation to an end.
It has also highlighted the volatility of oil prices and the
need for Arab oil-exporting countries to diversify their
economies in future.
Notwithstanding these difficulties, the same period also
witnessed renewed interest on the part of many Arab
countries in reinvigorating science and technology (S&T)
and higher education, with the launch of a number of topdown
initiatives to support education and research. Some
of these will be highlighted in the present chapter. A
handful of countries have also approved plans to allocate
more resources to research and development (R&D),
among them Egypt, Tunisia and Qatar.
The current global economic recession may not affect
Arab states in the immediate term, as the banking sector
in the majority of Arab states is highly regulated and only
loosely linked to international money markets. However,
the economic fallout will ultimately be felt by all,
negatively affecting foreign direct investment flowing into
Arab countries and real estate markets. This will cause a
slowdown in economic growth and a rise in
unemployment in the region. Arab countries reliant on
exporting goods and services to the USA and European
Union (EU) and those that normally receive aid from these
quarters may suffer. Even before the economic recession
emerged in the last quarter of 2008, unemployment in the
Arab world was higher than in any other part of the world,
at around 12%. Young job-seekers constitute over 40% of
the region’s unemployed (UNESCWA, 2007).
Despite the international economic uncertainty, Arab
states will have no choice but to stimulate science,
technology and innovation (STI), together with the
education sector, if only to overcome some lingering
problems like food, water and energy insecurity. Arab
countries can also learn from the remarkable socioeconomic
progress of countries such as Brazil, China,
India, Malaysia and Mexico, due in part to S&T.

"Just as there are typical cities of the industrial society (such as Manchester in the 19th and early 20th century) and the service society (e.g. New York’s Manhattan of the late 20th century), so there exist or will exist in future typical cities of the knowledge society. Following Manuel Castells (1989), we will call such cities “informational cities” (Yigitcanlar, 2010). When Castells published his book on such cities in 1989, he could not have known how existing informational cities would look like (since the internet had not happened yet at the time), but the theoretical foundation for dealing scientifically with informational cities had been laid. Such a city includes a cognitive infrastructure which is based on the infrastructure of information and communication technology (ICT) and consists of a knowledge infrastructure with regard to scientific knowledge and the institutions thereof (Carillo, 2006), as well as a creative infrastructure with regard to “copyright-based industries” or a “creative economy” (Florida, 2005). Referred to Castells “space of flows” builds the main infrastructures in informational cities. This concerns both the ICT infrastructure and the cognitive infrastructure. Today, we have informational cities in front of our eyes: Singapore, Seoul and Dubai set themselves the explicit goal of creating such cities (and are very far along the way); London, New York, San Francisco (and environs) and Shanghai predominantly bank on high-tech industry and services and are modifying their regions into informational cities. Today– at the beginning of the 21st century–we can use Castells’ theory to analyze this development.
The aim of this article is to develop a theoretical framework that allows quantifying the degree of informativeness of a city. We work with a framework of six groups of indicators:
• Infrastructures (ICT infrastructure and cognitive infrastructure as groundwork for knowledge cities and creative
cities),
• Position in the world city hierarchy,
• Structure of the labor market (including analysis of job polarization),
• Mix of companies,
• Political willingness to establish an informational city,
• Weak location factors (e.g., leisure facilities, shopping malls).
In this article, we give a brief overview how the indicators of informational cities could be measured, using mainly the
example of Singapore."

Der Aufsatz untersucht, wie die Zeitgenossen die Angebote der mit neuen Medien und Verbreitungsformen verbundenen großstädtischen Massenkultur um 1900 wahrnahmen, wie sie sie einordneten und bewerteten. Die zentrale These lautet, dass eine Veränderung in Deutschland großes Unbehagen erzeugte: Die mit dem Übergang in die Mediengesellschaft außerordentlich erhöhte Zugänglichkeit von  Wissen, und zwar insbesondere die neuartige Sichtbarkeit von Wissen im öffentlichen Raum. Sie forderte die tradierte Ordnung der Generationen heraus, in der eine kontrollierte und regulierte Weitergabe ausgewählten Wissens an die nachwachsende Generation vorgesehen war.  Nun sahen sich viele Erwachsene einer "Disziplinlosigkeit" der Wissenstransfers gegenüber, für die sie oft die mediale Populärkultur verantwortlich machten.

Should education have any use? The question seems hardly worth asking, let alone answering. Yet this apparently absurd topic constitutes the major issue that has dominated debates about higher education in Britain for the past two hundred years. What is perhaps most remarkable is that such a controversy should have managed to sustain itself into such extreme old age; that indeed it reasserts itself even now. It is true that not even Oscar Wilde dared to assert publicly, at least, that universities should be like art- that is, perfectly useless. But to suggest that universities should be useful, that they should teach practical forms of knowledge, has been for many to go too far.

In an effort to carve a distinct place for social facts without lapsing into a holistic ontology, John Greenwood has sought to define social phenomena solely in terms of the attitudes held by the actor(s) in question. I argue that his proposal allows for the possibility of a “lone collectivity” that is (1) unpalatable in its own right and (2) incompatible with the claim that sociology is autonomous from psychology. As such, I conclude that the relevant beliefs need to be held by more than one person.

Knowledge management is currently changing significantly. KM effectively uses the right information and communication technology (ICT) and social interaction. New ways that exist in the virtual world make it possible to support knowledge and the process of acquiring it because to create knowledge and the process of sharing knowledge in a virtual world environment takes into account the social aspects needed. With the use of web 2.0 technologies, the main communication media in Second Life in the form of text, voice, instant messaging (IM), email and blogs can be maximized. By conducting exploratory analysis on "second life" research that contributes to a general understanding of how technology can be used to support or activate KM in education. College Student and lecturer can participate in teaching and learning processes, while academic staff supports the University business processes. A result provides factors that effects increase and impairment on student score, framework of 4 Pillar Solution Model for Second Life Education is formed and evaluation knowledge sharing maturity using COBIT 4.1 Framework and Maturity Level Classification using CMMI Model.

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.

Every profession has a core body of knowledge (BoK) that at the very least, uniquely defines and differentiates that  profession within the crowded global landscape of all professions, particularly those that are closely related in terms of purpose, educational and skill requirements, intended audience or market, and tools and practices. Ultimately, a profession's BoK is what legitimizes the profession as a true "profession" in the U.S., as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor.

This article was originally published in the March, 2008 edition of 'Forum' magazine of the Association Forum of Chicagoland. It was targeted at the stakeholders (professional members, leaders, staff, affiliated vendors, ...) of associations/societies that support a designated profession. Although not specifically targeted at them, this article can also provide food for thought for academic fields, industry associations, and other types of organizations within the tax-designated "not-for-profit/NFP/non-profit" sector. However, many in this sector prefer to call it the "social sector" because the social purpose of the organization is much more important to us than its tax status. It also aligns better with the concept of the NGO - non-government organization, used in Europe and a few other areas.

It can also be employed on a universal scale to differentiate and enhance the potential value and interrelationships of professions or specialties by governmental bodies, educational institutions, businesses, and even the public. A dramatic example of the need for a better differentiator between professions/specialties is the American healthcare system, that almost everyone agrees needs a major overhaul. Obamacare is just a baby step or experiment in this direction. It's still a long way from making sense of all the specialties, providers, practices, technologies, services, fees, funding models ... as one critical key to beginning to solve the dilemma of the world's highest healthcare costs (more than double or triple the costs in comparable countries) delivering very poor results (in terms of public health, when compared to those comparable countries).

Typically the BoK of a profession is viewed from the limited perspective of the association function who leads the association's initial attempt to define the BoK of the profession it supports, as evidenced by the typically narrow focus of that project, for example: credentialing standards, exam content, education curricula, web content, best practices, research findings,.... Without something to connect and guide these perspectives toward a common direction, they are likely to sub-optimize the strategic potential of their profession's BoK. This article presents a different approach to BoK based on a belief that the ultimate strategic potential of BOK emerges out of being envisioned, leveraged, shared, and managed as the most valuable asset of the association and the profession it supports!

Table of contents
INTRODUCTION
MCDONALDIZATION AS THEORY OF GLOBALIZATION
THE NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND THE ACADEMIC PRECARIAT
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
EFFICIENCY: MORE PEOPLE IN LESS TIME AND IN A CHEAPER WAY
CALCULABILITY: THE RACE TO THE TOP
PREDICTABILITY: TEST BENCHMARKING
CONTROL: WIRELESS EDUCATION
IRRATIONALITY: THE LOSS OF HIDDEN CURRICULUM, THE FETISHISM
OF THE CONNECTIVITY, THE RANKING EFFECT AND THE ABSENCE OF
SOCIAL OUTCOMES DATA
THE SLOW TURN
CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES

Günümüzde, toplumun gelişiminde ve dönüşümünde üniversitenin merkezi bir rolü bulunmaktadır. Modern anlamda üniversitenin Batı’da ortaya çıkışının ardından bilginin merkezi olan Kilise zamanla bu konumunu kendi içinden doğan üniversiteye bırakmıştır.
Üniversite, bilim, teknoloji, toplum etkileşimi içinde evrimleşerek bugünkü halini almıştır. Mevcut durumda üniversitenin eğitim ve araştırma olarak iki temel fonksiyonu bulunduğu ve varoluş amacının toplumsal fayda üretmek olduğu kabul görmektedir.  Bilginin tüm boyutlarıyla liberalleştiği, bireyler ve kurumların üniversite bağlamı dışında da bilgi döngüsüne katılabildiği yeni bir çağ başlamıştır. Bu yeni toplumsal bağlam üniversite için yeni meydan okumalar içermekte ve üniversiteyi bir değişime zorlamaktadır.
Üniversitenin eğitim fonksiyonu bireysel, araştırma fonksiyonu sektörel dönüşümü sağlarken, toplumsal dönüşümü sağlamak için “sosyal etki”nin üçüncü ve bağımsız bir fonksiyon olarak kurgulanması gerektiği düşünülmektedir.
Makalede, bireyin toplumsallığın merkezine yerleştiği, bir anlamda yalnızlaştığı bilgi çağında yeni üniversitenin, “sosyal etki”yi yeniden yapılandırarak iç ve dış müşterileri için bir toplumsallaşma aracı haline gelebileceği fikrini kavramsal olarak ele alınmaktadır.

The author explores the genesis of basic concepts of the knowledge society theory - their origin, relationships, an original content and problems of dating. The explication of central constructs (fundamentals) of knowledge society theories that emerged in 1940s – 1960s is presented. It is shown that the knowledge society concept takes its origin earlier than theoretical developments in the field of information and post-industrial society.

This book addresses the relationship between religion and knowledge from a sociological perspective, taking both religion and knowledge as phenomena located within ever changing social contexts. It builds on historical foundations, but offers a distinctive focus on the changing status of religious phenomena at the turn of the twenty-first century. Including critical engagement with live debates about intelligent design and the ‘new atheism’, this collection of essays brings recent research on religious movements into conversation with debates about socialisation, reflexivity and the changing capacity of social institutions to shape human identities. Contributors examine religion as an institutional context for the production of knowledge, as a form of knowledge to be transmitted or conveyed and as a social field in which controversies about knowledge emerge.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

Die Bedeutung der Freiheit für den modernen Menschen Erich Fromm setzt sich in dieser Monografie mit der Bedeutung der Freiheit für den modernen Menschen auseinander und zeigt, dass er diese Freiheit, verstanden als positive Verwirklichung des individuellen Selbst, noch nicht errungen hat. Ein Grundlagenwerk des berühmten Sozialphilosophen, in dem seine wichtigsten Positionen versammelt sind.

Theories of post-industrial society have since their earliest formulations had a questionable relation to actual processes of social change. This article explores why they nonetheless continue to hold influence. Drawing on Mannheim, it argues that theories of post-industrial society were originally formulated as utopia – hopeful speculations about the future. When their core concepts are used to describe present conditions, however, they take on the role of ideology, in
Mannheim’s sense of this term. The ideology of post-industrial society represents a specific world view in relation to work, knowledge and education. It elevates and celebrates ‘knowledge work’ and renders invisible existing forms of industry and workers’ knowledge necessary for practical work. When the present is viewed through the lens of these theories, practical work is cast as the work of yesterday and the people who do it as yesterday’s people.

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?