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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2026–01–05
six papers chosen by Laura Nicola-Gavrila, Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Kemayou, Yanick (Paderborn University) |
| Abstract: | Sub-Saharan Africa faces a structural youth employment crisis: 10–12 million young people enter the workforce annually while only 3 million formal jobs are created, leaving 77–85% in informal employment. Conventional responses, such as expanding formal Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) or adopting Northern skills frameworks, have produced disappointing results. This paper introduces highdigenous pedagogy, an approach that synthesizes high-technology capabilities with indigenous knowledge systems through aesthetic engagement. Drawing on mixed-methods analysis of 504 learner portfolio entries and task reflections from 122 participants at Kabakoo Academies in Bamako, Mali (2023–2025), we examine how aesthetic scaffolding, i.e. using learners’ existing aesthetic sensibilities as foundations for capability development, operates in practice. Quantitative lexical analysis reveals that aesthetic discourse functions across multiple registers: design vocabulary dominates task artifacts, while portfolio entries emphasize cultural grounding and self-work. Cluster analysis identifies six discourse families, with one embodying the cultural-technological synthesis central to highdigenous pedagogy. Qualitative analysis reveals three mechanisms through which aesthetic scaffolding operates: epistemological legitimation, cultural-technological synthesis, and dignified aspiration formation. These findings extend ethnocomputing scholarship by demonstrating how aesthetic engagement enables synthesis between indigenous knowledge systems and digital capabilities, and provide empirical support for recent reconceptualizations of culturally responsive pedagogy in African contexts as fundamentally concerned with decolonization through heritage restoration. We argue that approaches treating aesthetic sensibility as epistemological foundation, rather than soft skill or enrichment, may offer more promising pathways for youth capability development than conventional competency frameworks. |
| Date: | 2025–12–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:k58eh_v1 |
| By: | Juan C. Chaparro; Nataly Corredor-Martinez; Eleonora Dávalos; Leonardo Fabio Morales |
| Abstract: | The advent of digital technology and widespread internet access has transformed how firms advertise job vacancies and how job seekers conduct their searches. This paper presents a novel methodology for identifying job-related skills and knowledge from the textual descriptions of online job postings, using data from Colombia’s largest public online job board and the O*NET database. By analyzing posted wages and applying a data-driven approach to identify skill requirements, the study estimates the wage returns associated with specific skills and knowledges in the formal Colombian labor market. The findings indicate that, within a given occupation, the prevalence of certain basic skill categories such as mathematics, writing, time management, and instructing is associated with higher wage returns. Notably, most of the skill categories with significant positive returns are not occupation-specific; rather, they represent transferable capabilities that enhance performance across a wide range of tasks and occupations. *****RESUMEN: El auge de la tecnología digital y el acceso generalizado a internet ha transformado la forma en que las empresas anuncian vacantes laborales y cómo los buscadores de empleo realizan sus búsquedas. Este artículo presenta una metodología para identificar habilidades y conocimientos relacionados con el trabajo a partir de las descripciones textuales de ofertas de empleo en línea, utilizando datos del mayor portal público de empleo en línea de Colombia y la base de datos O*NET. Al analizar los salarios publicados y aplicar un enfoque basado en datos para identificar los requisitos de habilidades, el estudio estima los retornos salariales asociados con habilidades y conocimientos específicos en el mercado laboral formal colombiano. Los hallazgos indican que, dentro de una ocupación determinada, la prevalencia de ciertas categorías de habilidades básicas como matemáticas, redacción, gestión del tiempo e instrucción está asociada con mayores retornos salariales. Cabe destacar que la mayoría de las categorías de habilidades con retornos positivos significativos no son específicas de una ocupación; más bien, representan capacidades transferibles que mejoran el desempeño en una amplia gama de tareas y ocupaciones. |
| Keywords: | Online job portals, Vacancies, Occupational skill requirements, Wage disparities, Labor markets in developing countries, Portales de empleo en línea, Vacantes, Requisitos de habilidades ocupacionales, Disparidades salariales, Mercados laborales en países en desarrollo |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J31 J63 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:1337 |
| By: | Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Lee, Neil; Xiang, Leiboyu |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first systematic city‐level mapping of global scientific talent, analysing the top 200, 000 star scientists across 3635 cities worldwide annually between 2019 and 2023. We use a novel Knowledge Generation Index (KGI) that combines researcher quantity with research impact to reveal extreme spatial concentration in knowledge production. Just four cities—New York, Boston, London and the San Francisco Bay Area—host 12% of the world's star scientists, while much of the Global South remains virtually excluded from frontier research. Beijing's ascent into the global top 10 represents a rare challenge to established hierarchies. Our analysis uncovers striking disciplinary variations. Resource‐intensive fields like clinical medicine cluster heavily, and traditionally dispersed disciplines are increasingly gravitating towards major hubs. Despite these differences, concentration is intensifying across most scientific fields. Even the pandemic's remote collaboration experiment failed to level the playing field. Established innovation centres continued strengthening their advantages while peripheral regions fell further behind. Overall, we find that geography remains destiny, with profound implications for innovation policy confronting widening spatial inequalities in global scientific capacity. |
| Keywords: | geography of knowledge; innovation agglomeration; spatial inequality; star scientists |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2025–12–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:130377 |
| By: | Ngoc-Sang Pham; Thi Kim Cuong Pham; Trong Tin Nguyen; Cuong Le Van |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic endogenous-growth model with an R&D sector in which the elasticity of innovation with respect to existing knowledge can be negative. We prove the existence and uniqueness of a balanced growth path (BGP) and derive closed-form growth factors, showing that productivity and output growth are semi-endogenous and population-driven. We also establish the global stability under general production function. Under testable parameter restrictions, the economy converges to the BGP. When the knowledge elasticity is sufficiently low, a Jacobian-based condition implies instability, and an N-period innovation cycle can emerge. Comparative statics are conducted to show the role of several factors, including research efficiency, elasticity of inputs and population growth. Calibrated simulations map out transitions and mark the points at which stability is lost. They make clear when innovation frictions endanger balanced growth and provide practical guidance for R&D and demographic policy. |
| Keywords: | endogenous growth, population-driven growth, balanced growth path, stability, instability, innovation, monotone dynamical system. |
| JEL: | C62 O31 O41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2025-46 |
| By: | J. Atsu Amegashie |
| Abstract: | Much of academic research has been criticized for not being socially useful. Governments sometimes only fund research on particular social issues (e.g., vaccines, renewable energy, electric vehicles). In other cases, they fund research on topics that are independently chosen by scholars. I consider a model in which the value of current research depends on random states in the future. Scientists and a government are uncertain about the future state and thus the future value of current research. The government and scientists get independent and imperfect but informative signals about the future value of research. The government can direct the research of scientists or give them the freedom to choose their research projects (i.e., non-directed research). Even if the government maximizes the social welfare of directed research, scientists do not have better information, and scientists do not maximize the social welfare of their (non-directed) research projects, I show that non-directed research results in a bigger social welfare than directed research. If the accuracy of the signal of the social value of research is high or the two future states are sufficiently different, non-directed research gives a higher social welfare than directed research. |
| Keywords: | directed research, non-directed research, scientists, signals, social value |
| JEL: | H52 I23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12304 |
| By: | Connelly, Roxanne (University of Edinburgh); Gayle, Vernon Professor (University of Edinburgh); Stopforth, Sarah |
| Abstract: | There is increasing concern across a wide range of academic disciplines that research results cannot be reproduced. This is a serious concern because research knowledge is cumulative, and it is built on incremental advances in empirical research. Improvement in computers, developments in data analytical software, and increased access to large-scale social science data resources (e.g. social surveys and administrative data) have greatly extended research capacity in the social sciences. In this chapter we discuss how the issues of transparency and reproducibility impinge on statistically orientated social science research. We outline approaches and techniques which will promote transparent and reproducible quantitative social science research. |
| Date: | 2025–12–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:974mr_v1 |