Quadruple Helix and Knowledge Management: Partnerships, Data Management and Regional Development

Abstract

This paper summarises aspects from the doctoral thesis "Regional Development in Romania and Finland. Examples from Remote and Sparsely Populated Areas". It reffers to regional and rural development processes within cross-sectoral partnerships quadruple helixes. Knowledge management is a component of regional and rural development, generally and of local development processes and project management particularly. It is insufficiently acknowledged and accounted for. There are numerous cases when involuntary knowledge management occurs while carrying on regional or rural development, therefore the specific processes related to knowledge creation and management are conducted without awareness, harnessing less a more efficient functioning of the activity. At a very general level, social structure consists of the uneven puzzles of social subsystems facilitating or hindering different kinds of interactions (Giddens 1984). The conceptual model takes over Giddens' consideration about sub-systems, therefore it also assumes that each of them has different degrees of structuration and there are different kinds of interactions to be considered (Aldea-Partanen 2007). The theoretical framework employed accounts for concepts associated with regional development such as knowledge creation and management, innovation, sustainability, social networks and social capital, quadruple helix, and place-based development. Other terms, related to the policy framework, are considered in a critical manner: main available policies are briefly examined, at different levels, connecting them to elements from the theoretical framework. Policy implementation and evaluation tools, such as project cycle management are summarised and critically reviewed. This paper focuses on the way knowledge management may be used for knowledge based regional and local development. This paper provides a review of concepts related to knowledge management in regional development processes.