Reflections

		Weightless Wealth Research Reflections
Reflection is one of the most important activities of mankind, yet he/she never spends enough time doing it. I will use this page to reflect on issues and developments in the field of intellectual capital, knowledge-based economy and academic organizational research: What is knowledge valorization? We can only talk and think about knowledge through metaphor Knowledge valorization as treatment of symptoms and not causes
	What is knowledge valorisation? top
	The term ‘knowledge valorization’ is a relatively new term in the discussion about the need to turn knowledge into value in the knowledge-based economy. Its origins can be traced back to the discussions within the bureaucracy of the European Commission about the Lisbon Agenda and the debate about policy measures to turn the European economy into the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. Knowledge valorization is a new term but does it add something to the vocabulary we already have to talk about the issues of the knowledge-based economy? We use related terms like ‘exploitation’, ‘commercialization’, and ‘value extraction’. Valorisation is a French word which means ‘to make useful, to use, to exploit’. Knowledge valorization can therefore be understood as the process of making use of knowledge. However, the term ‘knowledge valorization’ is often used in a more narrow sense within the context of the discussion about the ‘knowledge paradox’. This paradox describes the situation that exists in many countries in Europe, where there is a lot of knowledge – especially within universities and Technology Research Organizations – that is not used. For example, Wubben et al. (2005, p. 4) define knowledge valorization as “The formal transfer of knowledge resulting from basic and applied research in universities and research institutions, and from applied research and development in companies, to (other parties in) the commercial sector for economic benefit.” Knowledge valorization is seen as the transfer of knowledge from one party to another, a transfer that needs to result in economic benefit. This focus on transferring knowledge gives the term a slightly different meaning from the other terms mentioned above. ‘Knowledge commercialization’ can be understood as the process of making money from knowledge with or without a knowledge transfer. ‘Knowledge exploitation’ can be understood as creating value from knowledge, not necessarily monetary value, and is therefore similar to the concept of ‘value extraction’. Sullivan (2000, p. 226) defines it as: “Value extraction involves converting the created value into a form that is useful to the organization. This often involves converting a firm’s innovations into cash or some form of strategic positioning.”
	We can only talk and think about knowledge through metaphor top
	We talk about “sharing knowledge”, “developing knowledge”, “ packaging knowledge”, “selling knowledge” and it seems to make sense to somebody else. The reason is that we are very familiar with concepts like sharing, developing, packaging, and selling from the physical world of resources. What happens when we talk about knowledge in this way is that we unconsciously apply the KNOWLEDGE AS A RESOURCE metaphor and map characteristics of a physical resource (e.g. that it can be shared, developed, packaged and sold) to the concept of knowledge. We do this all the time and we can hardly escape from it. We do it when we talk about time (“ I don’t have enough time”); we do it when we talk about love (“give me all your love”); we use metaphors whenever we conceptualize abstract concepts. So metaphor is crucial in the way we construct reality. Recently I made this breathtaking discovery reading a fabulous book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999): Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. This book puts an end to more then 2000 years of epistemological and ontological discussions about what is reality and how can we know it. Say goodbye to Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Kant, Popper etc. We now finally know that people construct reality, using conceptualizations that are mostly based on metaphors that come from our bodily experiences. As a result the correspondence theory of truth is false, the folk theory that things have an ‘essence’ is false (so don’t ever ask me again what the definition of ‘knowledge’ is; ask me what useful conceptualizations of knowledge are), and the idea is falls that we understand things by simply naming them correctly. This is not to say that ‘ everything goes’. It is still possible to check if some statement is true, providing that we define truth as ‘ the degree to which something is successful in practice’. This is also not to say that people are not able to understand each other. On the contrary, because we all have similar bodily experiences, we can very well understand each other using metaphorical conceptualizations.
	Knowledge valorization as treatment of symptoms and not causes top
	This use of the term ‘knowledge valorization’ as a process of knowledge transfer between parties is based on a specific view on knowledge. Knowledge is an abstract concept that can be viewed and conceptualized in many different ways. In order to think and communicate about knowledge we use various metaphors to conceptualize it (Andriessen, 2006 forthcoming). In the definition of Wubben et al. knowledge is something that can be transferred from one party to the other. This makes sense to us because we commonly conceptualize knowledge as a ‘thing’ that can be created, stored, transferred, sold and used. This KNOWLEDGE AS A THING metaphor is one of the most common used metaphors in literature to think and talk about knowledge. Alternative readings of this metaphor are the KNOWLEDGE AS A RESOURCE metaphor that is used to highlight that knowledge can be ‘stored’, and can be used in a process with an ‘input’ and an ‘output’, and the KNOWLEDGE AS A PRODUCT metaphor that highlights that knowledge can be ‘traded’ on a ‘market’ with ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’. Metaphorical reasoning allows us to make sense of phenomena on an abstract level (the target domain: ‘knowledge’) by using characteristics from a basic level (the source domain: ‘things’, ‘resources’ or ‘products’) and is inescapable. Metaphorical reasoning is invaluable in creating new understanding and meaning. The conclusion that the concept of knowledge valorization is based on specific metaphors for knowledge, therefore, is not meant to be in any way derogatory. However, we need to be aware that metaphors highlight certain aspects and ignore others. Knowledge valorization as transfer of knowledge highlights that sometimes knowledge is discovered in one context (universities, research institutions, and R&D units) and turned into money in another context (the commercial sector). It highlights that some knowledge can be transferred because it can be made explicit. It highlights that some knowledge can be used as an input resource that can be transformed into an output. However, knowledge valorization as transfer of knowledge ignores other characteristics of knowledge including that knowledge is often difficult to elicit and therefore difficult to transfer, that the creation and use of knowledge often happen at the same time, and that therefore the buyer and seller are often the same and the difference between input and output disappears. The idea of knowledge valorization is based on the metaphor of KNOWLEDGE AS A THING and this particular view results in a particular way of looking at the current problems around turning knowledge into value. It conceptualizes the problem of turning knowledge into value as a problem of transfer between supply and demand. This way of defining the problem leads to specific solutions, aimed at for example matching supply and demand (‘knowledge broker’), supporting demand (‘subsidizing’), or increase the fit of the supply (‘knowledge transfer’). What you see is what you get: the way you define a problem determines the solutions that you see. However, we must be aware that this problem definition may not be the best definition in every case. Specifically it ignores the way knowledge is created. Within the European context it is useful to discuss the traditional linear way knowledge is created within universities and research institutions (Vasbinder and Groen, 2002). In the linear model there is basic research, performed by scientists and often financed by the government, and there is applied research in which commercial companies apply the knowledge in practice. The quality standards and the reward mechanisms that are used in the context of universities and research institutions are aimed at scientific ‘rigor’ (defined in a very specific way) and not ‘relevance’. This focus on rigor is an important underlying cause of the lack of use of knowledge. The concept of knowledge valorization takes the linear model for granted and ignores the problem of scientific standards and reward mechanisms. To a certain extent it is a treatment of the symptoms and not the causes.
If you feel inspired or triggered by these reflections, please email me.