The knowledge economy: emerging organizational forms, missing microfoundations, and key considerations for managing human capital

Abstract In this paper we outline an increasingly predominant, “communal,” perspective of the emerging knowledge economy and explore its emphasis on various nonmarket mechanisms of production. Although the communal perspective suggests organizational forms, governance mechanisms, and knowledge processes that may facilitate knowledge creation and knowledge transfer, we argue that it misses the seemingly contradictory trends of organizational disaggregation and the foundational importance of market mechanisms in knowledge creation. We contrast and partly reconcile these two perspectives of the knowledge economy and highlight key considerations related to the microfoundations of knowledge and human capital management. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.