Influencing for Results: Bees, Beekeepers and Norwegian Pesticide Legislation

Many who are worried about the disappearance of pollinating insects, question the role of pesticides and point to the need for stricter legislation regulating the use of these chemicals. This article studies the years between 1933 and 1953, when legislation regulating the use of pesticides against insects and weeds was established in Norway. It analyses how knowledge about effects of pesticides circulated from Norwegian honeybees, to their beekeepers and their network. It suggests that the actors’ position and standing influenced what knowledge they put into circulation and what knowledge they suppressed. A knowledge hierarchy meant that some actors were powerful enough to influence the discourse on toxicity, established in those years.

Internal and Consulting Information Flows in the Process of Knowledge Accumulation

Practical applications of knowledge management are hindered by a lack of linkage between the accepted data-information-knowledge hierarchy with using pragmatic approaches. Specifically, the authors seek to clarify the use of the tacit-explicit dichotomy with a deductive synthesis of complementary concepts. The authors review appropriate segments of the KM/OL literature with an emphasis on the SECI model of Nonaka and Takeuchi. Looking beyond equating the sharing of knowledge with mere socialization, the authors deduce from more recent developments a knowledge creation, nurturing and control framework. Based on a cyclic and upward-spiraling data-information-knowledge structure, the authors' proposed model affords top managers and their consultants opportunities for capturing, debating and storing richer information – as well as monitoring their progress and controlling their learning process.

Knowledge Hierarchy of Social Work and Gender Studies in Spain

This article explores the gendered nature of social work and some of the consequences this has in academia, research, and professional practice in Spain. The authors examine the connections between social work and gender studies in academia in Spain, reflecting on the position these disciplines occupy in the current hierarchy of knowledge and the knowledge production system. The impact of the university reforms under the European Union’s (EU) Bologna plan is analyzed in the context of the commercialization of knowledge. The obstacles that prevent the value of these disciplines from being recognized are discussed, linking the academic dimension to the professional dimension and also illustrating how today’s situations of social exclusion require further research and specialized training in social work and gender.