Chapter 8: Learning and Knowledge Capital

The authors define knowledge capital and explain why and how communities of practice (CoPs) are effective hubs for growing human, structural and relational capital. The chapter calls out the shift in a critical value proposition from creating tangible to intangible capital. The variant economic properties of knowledge are described. The authors explain how new forms of capital and properties require new forms of learning – tied not to a single job but to generating knowledge capital.

Over the past 70 years, the world has shifted from an advanced industrial economy to a knowledge-based economy. The foundation of the shift is from an economy based on physical and financial capital to an economy based on knowledge capital. Capital is defined as an asset that has enduring value for an organization. Capital is distinguished from production resources because it is not consumed in routine processes and operations. Traditionally, there have been two types of capital – financial and physical – but a third has emerged in the last 60 years – knowledge capital.