Free Access
| Issue |
E.J.E.S.S.
Volume 14, Number 2, 2000
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 143 - 155 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/ejess:2000114 | |
DOI: 10.1051/ejess:2000114
European Journal of Economic and Social Systems 14 N
2 (2000) pp. 143-155
The division and organisation of knowledge
Brian J. Loasby
Department of Economics, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland.
Abstract:
Hume demonstrated the impossibility of proving any general empirical proposition, and turned to the
question of how people acquired `knowledge'. Adam Smith postulated a human need to make sense of phenomena
by imposing patterns, which are replaced when they systematically fail; this process is accelerated by
specialisation, which leads to a differentiation of locally-efficient frameworks of thought and action.
Thus the division of labour results in the division of knowledge -- both `knowledge-how' and
`knowledge-that', or capabilities -- and a consequential increase in the total knowledge in a community.
Marshall added a principle of variation within an evolutionary cognitive process, and also the need for
multiple forms of organisation. Learning is not a distinctive activity but a characteristic of human
existence; it requires frameworks, or institution, which are themselves subject to evolution. Penrose
analysed the growth of knowledge within a business, Richardson focussed on the importance of similarity
and complementarity across capabilities, and the consequential need for linkages between businesses. Firms
need both internal and external organisation; in an important sense, learning is collective as well as
individual.
Keywords:
Division of labour, evolution, cognition, learning, frameworks.
Correspondence and reprints: Brian J. Loasby
E-mail: b.j.loasby@stir.ac.uk