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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2026–09–21
five papers chosen by Laura Nicola-Gavrila, Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Roshan Ghadamian (Institute for Regenerative Systems Architecture) |
| Abstract: | Charitable transfer of intellectual property is a structurally underdeveloped mechanism in philanthropic finance, and part of the reason is methodological. Qualified-appraisal standards address conventional IP — patents with licensing histories, software with market comparables — and give no systematic guidance for assets whose value lies in their cost of production, their option potential or their social utility rather than in a transaction history. Pharmaceutical companies, universities, technology firms, media organisations and government research bodies hold knowledge assets of substantial appraised value that generate near-zero commercial return, carry maintenance cost, and are inaccessible to the research commons. This paper calls them stranded knowledge assets. 🔴 The methodological gap is not the whole obstacle. 170(e)(1)(B)(iii) reduces the deduction for a contribution of any patent, copyright, trade secret, know-how or software by the whole of its built-in gain, so a donor who developed the asset deducts adjusted basis — nominal for research expensed as incurred — whatever the appraisal finds. Every asset class treated here sits inside that provision. â–¶ A valuation methodology is therefore necessary and not sufficient, and its decisive use is to supply the measure a relief provision would operate on. The paper specifies four methods — Cost-to-Recreate, Comparable Licensing Value, Option Value and Social Value Discount — across five asset classes. â Three of the four are the valuation profession's own approaches applied where each one's normal input is missing; the contribution is what substitutes for each absent input, and the discipline keeping the substitution honest. âš ï¸ Two recommendations are administrative; the third asks Congress for relief from the (e)(1)(B)(iii) reduction and for a measure of realised public benefit other than donee income. â 170(e)(4) already grants that relief for constructed scientific equipment given to a research organisation, on conditions this framework satisfies one for one. The word excluding the assets treated here is "tangible", and the operative ask is that documented production cost stand where adjusted basis stands. 🔴 A framework for assets with no market price is a deduction-inflation instrument unless built not to be. The conservation-easement precedent is worse than usually stated: those appraisals purported to be qualified appraisals and inflated value anyway, so compliance with the standard is not itself a safeguard — which is why the safeguards here attach to each method rather than to the appraiser's credentials. |
| Keywords: | stranded knowledge assets, charitable IP transfer, qualified appraisal, cost-to-recreate, option value, social value discount, knowledge commons, deduction abuse |
| JEL: | H25 K34 O34 L31 D64 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:evk:wpaper:vuc |
| By: | Nicolas Jullien (MARSOUIN - Môle Armoricain de Recherche sur la SOciété de l'information et des usages d'INternet - UR - Université de Rennes - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - UR2 - Université de Rennes 2 - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], LEGO - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion de l'Ouest - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IBSHS - Institut Brestois des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], IMT Atlantique - DI2S - Département Interdisciplinaire de Sciences Sociales - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]); Karine Roudaut (LABERS - Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherche en Sociologie - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - IBSHS - Institut Brestois des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UBO EPE - Université de Brest, UBO EPE - Université de Brest) |
| Abstract: | This article examines whether collective and voluntary practices of online knowledge production, such as Wikipedia and free/open-source software (FOSS) projects, can genuinely be considered commons in Elinor Ostrom's sense. It argues that it is contributions, rather than access to knowledge, that function as the regulated, subtractive resource, in the projects developed and managed by a collective. In these projects, which succeeded in attracting contributors, contributors compete for publication spaces and peer attention, creating the need for governance systems analogous to those in traditional commons. It shows that digital knowledge projects exhibit structural parallels with physical commons, such as hierarchical bundles of rights, differentiation between users and contributors (who consume the subtractive resource), and policymakers, as well as the centrality of monitoring and rule-making to sustain cooperation. Digital infrastructures (e.g. knowledge artifact modularity, algorithmic tools, and platform architectures) facilitate large-scale participation while enabling scalable monitoring and nested governance structures. These technologies also facilitate community formation, where membership is achieved through sustained contribution and recognition rather than pre-defined boundaries.The article concludes that not all open or collaborative digital projects qualify as commons; only those in which a community collectively governs access to the subtractive resource do so. It also raises open research questions concerning sanctions, conflict resolution, multi-layered governance and the evolving relationship between digital commons, institutional frameworks and their socio-technical environments. |
| Keywords: | community, governance, digital, knowledge economics, commons |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05743297 |
| By: | Ganglmair, Bernhard; Holcomb, Alex |
| Abstract: | Partners in R&D alliances and joint ventures are rarely symmetric, yet whether asymmetry helps or hurts collaboration is not fully understood. We study how asymmetry in competitors' information endowments affects collaborative knowledge exchange. A model of word-of-mouth communication predicts a clean separation: Initiating the knowledge exchange requires that the informational advantage sac rificed be sufficiently small, while the continuation incentive is independent of the initial endowment (and asymmetry). In a laboratory experiment, we confirm the model's comparative-statics predictions and establish three results. First, initiation rates decline as initial asymmetry increases, holding the better-endowed partner's initial endowment constant. Second, conditional on initiation, the initial asymme try does not predict defection later in collaboration. Third, extreme asymmetry reduces match length and joint surplus because initiation fails, not because continu ation breaks down. The initiation-continuation separation implies that governance mechanisms targeting the formation margin (such as pilot projects, phased disclo sure agreements, or credible commitments to reciprocate) can expand the range of asymmetric partnerships that succeed, while continuation requires no special intervention. |
| Keywords: | asymmetric partnerships, cooperation, experimental economics, information sharing, joint ventures, knowledge diffusion, open innovation, R&D collaboration, strategic alliances |
| JEL: | C92 D83 L24 M21 O31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:343045 |
| By: | Butzin, Anna; Flögel, Franz; Meyer, Kerstin; Rabadjieva, Maria |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the interplay between university entrepreneurial ecosystems (UEE) and regional entrepreneurial ecosystems (REE) in knowledge-based regional development, focusing on their permeability, boundaries, and complementarities. Using qualitative data from 176 events attended by startups from UEE and REE in the German Ruhr region, the research reveals an asymmetric permeability: UEE startups frequently engage with REE events to access market knowledge and managerial skills, while REE startups rarely participate in UEE activities beyond recruiting graduates. Both ecosystems deliver similar types of entrepreneurial knowledge, such as managerial and funding insights, but differ in their emphasis. UEEs focus more on market insights linked to technology commercialisation, whereas REEs emphasise marketing knowledge reflecting closer market proximity. The findings highlight the REE's nurturing role by providing practical support and market access for the UEE startups. The study suggests fostering greater inclusivity of UEEs to benefit a broader range of founders and recommends hybrid event formats combining UEE and REE resources to enhance regional innovation dynamics. |
| Keywords: | university entrepreneurial ecosystems, regional development, knowledge transfer, entrepreneurial ecosystems |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iatdps:343531 |
| By: | McCarthy, Adam; Olugbade, Olajide |
| Abstract: | Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a live object of global governance, with expert-led institutional arrangements emerging across an international regime complex. While scholarship on epistemic communities and science-policy interfaces treats expertise as a mechanism for coordination under uncertainty, recent work in Objectual International Relations (O-IR) and Science and Technology Studies foregrounds knowledge politics, contested authority, and the co-productive character of governance. We bring these perspectives into conversation with AI governance through a reflexive workshop design using Nominal Group Technique, drawing on two expert workshops in the UK and US. Findings show that expert panels remain valued for structuring debate, coordinating knowledge, and lending legitimacy to policy action. Yet participants identified tensions around exclusion, elite and private capture, weak accountability, geopolitical constraints, and temporal misalignment between institutional processes and technological change. An object-centered analysis further shows that AI remains an unstable governance object; the knowledge required to govern it is contested and unevenly distributed; and expertise itself is politically charged and institutionally unsettled. We synthesize these tensions into two pathways: Repair and Reconfiguration. Repair seeks to stabilize AI as a governable object, standardize relevant knowledge, and secure expert authority through institutional continuity and procedural refinement. Reconfiguration seeks to keep AI contested, broaden credible forms of knowledge, and reshape expertise through participation, reflexivity, and engagement with politics. The framework provides a critical lens for assessing emerging institutional designs for global AI governance and the trade-offs they entail. |
| Date: | 2026–09–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:t72ms_v1 |