ISSN : 2824-9712
Volume 1, Numéro 2 / décembre 2022
Editorial
The journal Development Innovation Management and Knowledge (DIMS) is a journal of the Maghreb Technology Network "Maghtech" (Maghtech.org). It is an international scientific journal whose mission is to disseminate research results related to the issue of "Strategies to promote development driven by science, technology, innovation and knowledge in the Maghreb countries" and in the South in general. Issues such as transfer, technological mastery, innovation and the knowledge economy often involve economic processes, but also social, cultural and political factors that act simultaneously. But more generally, it deals with issues related to the economic and social development of the Maghreb sub-region, but also with issues related to the company and its management style. It is thus a question of linking the central issue to the mutations of the world economy and in particular to the processes of globalization which are constantly undergoing changes themselves, in particular, as a result of the imperatives of sustainable development, and to various shocks, including the current health crisis, but also to the imperatives of competitiveness. The themes targeted by the committee are "development" with three levels of analysis and three disciplinary fields that often intersect and enrich each other. The three dimensions are the macro-economic dimension, which involves all aspects of public policy, innovation and knowledge, the meso-economic dimension (the territory and the sector) and the micro-economic dimension (the company). These issues still suffer from a number of deficits in the South and are little analyzed by researchers, particularly in the Maghreb countries.
The objective of the journal is to provide a support and a reference for the advancement and dissemination of high-level research results in the fields of economics, management and sociology on central issues linking science, technology, innovation, knowledge and development. The journal is based on the operating principles of the Maghtech network, supporting both demanding research and collective research involving several authors and several teams.
It favors multidisciplinary approaches, combining theoretical contributions and empirical studies including those of practitioners. Proposals presenting original points of view and based on a rigorous methodology that is the subject of a significant theoretical contribution in the academic circle and that offers an empirical contribution are privileged.
Contributions are expected to be based on clearly explained empirical and theoretical approaches, founded on an epistemology and methodology that correspond to academic requirements. Articles by experts referring to their experiences and practices as actors may also be accepted, provided they are based on rigorous reflexivity. Manuscripts on qualitative or quantitative methodology, monographs, etc. are also accepted, provided that the article is not submitted to more than one journal.
The journal aims to be as independent as possible of any political or economic influence, and will select articles on the basis of peer review according to recognized principles of anonymity. The journal is supported by an editorial board and a scientific committee.
All submissions must meet internationally recognized ethical standards of authenticity, probity and respect for the intellectual property of others. Articles must be free of plagiarism or reproduction of ideas, schemes or data without respecting the rules in force.
Summaries and journal issues are freely available on the maghtech.org website and full articles can be downloaded under an open access license based on the principle that making research freely available to the public promotes a greater global exchange of knowledge. The indexing partners are the universities of Lille (France), the University of Oran2 (Algeria), the University of Rabat (Morocco), the University of El Manar (Tunisia) and finally the University of Nouakchott (Mauritania). In addition, there are the Africalics and Globelics networks.
The Journal is published in two issues per year and accepts, for the moment, articles in both languages (French/English).
Introduction
This second issue of the journal is a special issue on the theme of the knowledge economy. The Maghtech network has invested a lot in this issue both at the theoretical level and in relation to developing countries. A complete team was dedicated to this issue in the case of Algeria: it was affiliated with the Centre de Recherche Appliquée au Développement (CREAD). Half a dozen books and nearly fifty articles have been published by members of the Maghtech network dealing directly or indirectly with this theme of the knowledge economy, in addition to a dozen theses. This special issue is therefore a continuation of the work done previously. It is composed of eight works that represent the main pillars of the knowledge economy: institutions, research and innovation, training and digital.
The attempts at endogenization that have been made over the last fifty years have for the most part had limited results, marking the exhaustion of the neo-liberal growth model, which is largely marginal to the spheres of knowledge and innovation. The new paradigm of the knowledge-based economy (knowledge economy) seems to provide the foundations for a new growth regime in Algeria. Its acceptance and application remain, however, laborious. In addition to the intrinsic limits it may suffer from, multiple constraints persist: the aim of this work is to examine the trajectory adopted by Algeria for its insertion in the knowledge economy, to analyze the difficulties and to highlight the assets that the country holds for a new growth regime outside the rent sphere and for the definition of an equitable development and a sustainable economic and social change.
Still in this first section, Larbi Hanane, for his part, focuses his rich reflection on the new regime of accumulation based on knowledge by asking the direct question is there any effective impact on the Maghreb economies? According to him, the emerging technical system announces a transition to a new regime of accumulation based on knowledge, talents and technicality. The "knowledge workers" who increasingly occupy the front of the scene catalyze these social changes in progress. The heart of the system is driven by new productions in biotechnology, microelectronics, information and communication technologies, new composite materials and nanotechnologies. They interact, combine, generate new fields of knowledge and positive externalities on knowledge technologies and improve scientific research methods. They show a progression of intellectual work in the creation of value. The main input of this system becomes knowledge. It is acquired through learning and, even better, through collective learning. New forms of organization and knowledge management reduce the costs of learning, technological resources and the learning mix. For the past four decades, Maghrebian economic actors have been witnessing changes on a global scale after having lived through two decades of slow post-independence economic construction in a Keynesian-Fordist atmosphere. Internationalization, globalization, transfer and unraveling of technological packages, Washington Consensus, shocks of the financial sphere, revenge of ultra-liberalism, innovative feats and adventures, patrimonial capitalism, etc. Never before in economic history has a period seen such an avalanche of events. The corollaries follow, including institutional restructurings, vast economic territories are created or completed, new paradigms of thought in sight, changes in the behavior of sedentary and nomadic people.
The period announces, among other things, the transition of the economic world to a new regime of accumulation by renewing the technical system (TS) and its main productive force. This one is momentarily diffused by the ST and is the key of its access. To appropriate it is possible thanks to a multi-millennial practice of the human intelligence: the learning. During this transition, the world gives the image of a scene with demiurges and followers. The latter are by nature perfectible through the effort of learning. The Maghreb suffers from its distant economic entities. Its access to the emerging technical system is ransomed by its transformation into an economic space, obliged purpose, a promotion of the knowledge and a technological mastery. Prior to this comes the exercise of a coordination to improve its educational and learning system in joint ventures, including SMEs, in search of reinforced supervision (strategic vision, rational management, ICT) to co-evolve with future innovations and the globalized mind map by a collective learning in a world full of uncertainties. From this context, we can draw some lessons for the Maghreb, sadly trapped in its economic self-fragmentation despite a solid historical and cultural heritage and an awareness of the collective future.
The third contribution in this conceptual stream is proposed by Nnaoma Hyacinth IWU. His paper entitled "Can African Academic Knowledge Production Transform into Knowledge Economy for Global Market Competitiveness? The debate on knowledge production in Africa raises serious questions among academics, as academic institutions have a compelling need to innovate in terms of technologies and human behaviors adapted to global competition. Emerging from the clutches of colonialism, postcolonial African scholars in the humanities and social sciences have accused European Enlightenment thinkers of universalizing knowledge expressed in the spirit of domination and using it as a reference to classify societies as developed, modern or underdeveloped and archaic. The problem lies not so much in identifying Euro-centric knowledge production, but in finding an appropriate theoretical model that can reorient knowledge production towards a knowledge economy of Africa. Caught in the trap of knowledge poverty and economic development, African scholars educated in the emerging Eurocentric development paradigm rationalize African failures to catch up on the basis of internal contradictions in accordance with Enlightenment thinkers. Unfortunately, Africa seems to be descending on an escalator that is going up, which pulls the demand for an academic program that can place Africa in the competitiveness of the global market down. Some questions emerge: Are African academic programs demand-driven? What kind of research methodology underlies research in Africa? How have African universities structured their evaluation criteria? Our point is to argue that the African historiographic explanation that has been detached from any positive contribution to humanity and scientific innovations is only part of the explanation. The substance lies in methodology and theory. The identification of an appropriate research methodology and theoretical model will not only domesticate existing technology, but will stimulate indigenous science and technology for competitiveness in the global marketplace. It is this gap that we want to fill in this article.
The third contribution in this conceptual section is that of Haouba and Djeflat entitled "Four levers of the knowledge economy and their impact on the priority sectoral axes of development in Mauritania", which puts forward the idea that the knowledge economy or the economy of the immaterial has been the subject, over the last three decades, of several studies linking knowledge and economic growth, including those of the OECD, UNDP, WB, and EU on the side of the large international organizations. On the research side, the first works that tried to conceptualize the knowledge economy took into account the contribution of the American economist Kenneth Arrow (1962), but through information and its obvious limits. More recently, works have attempted to conceptualize the paradigm of the knowledge economy (Stiglitz 1997, Lundvall, Foray) while others have envisaged it as a new engine of growth and development, notably through the "Knowledge for development" approach known in short as K4D (Dahlman, Rishard, Auber, Reiffers). In all these contributions, where pragmatism has dominated, due to the weight of international organizations, one essential element has been missing: the level of acceptance of economic actors who are often suspicious of the models proposed (or even imposed) by the North. This has not allowed the creation of a real "knowledge economy climate". Through an in-depth study of the case of Mauritania, the authors will attempt to identify a more appropriate approach to the dominant four-pillar model. They will show how important it is to closely link the major strategic axes chosen by the government to the appropriate model in order to gradually institute the knowledge economy paradigm in Mauritanian development policies.
In the second part, oriented towards the empirical dimension, the first contribution, that of Amina Zerdoudi raises the question of "The impact of the development of the knowledge-based economy on the competitiveness of Algerian exporting companies", but through the major actor of wealth creation: the company. More specifically, his study aims to assess the position of Algerian companies in the knowledge-based economy (KBE), which is perceived as inevitable to strengthen competitiveness and achieve economic development. The evaluation of the performance of Algerian companies is done through the four pillars of the knowledge-based economy. This evaluation is intended to shed more light on the real issues that the company must face to meet the requirements of competitiveness. To achieve its objectives, the author will rely on a field study that mobilizes a sample of twelve (12) Algerian exporting companies. The results of the study indicate that there is a positive average correlation between competitiveness and the knowledge-based economy and a positive and significant impact of KBE on competitiveness. The results of this study allow the author to provide recommendations to development policy makers in Algeria.
In the second contribution of the section, Samah Souleh raises the age-old issue of university-economic sector relations, knowing that the university is at the heart of the knowledge economy. It is one of the pillars and the higher education sector in Algeria has a strong need for change to ensure its development and continuity in the face of globalization. This inevitably involves the quality of education. Her paper entitled "Quality assurance in higher education in the context of the knowledge economy: the case of evaluation of the relationship between the university and the socio-economic sector", she shows the need for periodic self-evaluation via quality assurance tools. Taking the case of the Algerian University of Biskra, the author attempts to evaluate its relationship with its socio-economic environment via the quality assurance framework in a qualitative descriptive approach. This approach is based on the content analysis of the reports of the existing interaction structures at the university and on the author's experience as a manager of one of these linkage structures which gives him the status of a participant observer. The analysis of the results shows that the Algerian university and the university community must be aware of the challenges of the knowledge era and must make an immense effort to develop and maintain real links with the socio-economic sector.
Finally, the last contribution, that of Fethi Ferhane entitled "Digital transformation as a support to the emergence of the knowledge economy in Algeria: Examination of the issue from a sample of companies", the author notes At a time when the Algerian economy is increasingly open to international markets, thanks to economic partnerships with the European Union, and free trade agreements with Arab countries, Algerian companies are facing an increasingly exacerbated competition, which will inevitably result in failure for some, survival for others, and success for those who will take the train already on the move of the transformation. Using the Boston Consulting Group's Lars Fæste, Thomas Gumsheimer, and Matthias Scherer model as a process for implementing a successful digital transformation and a field survey involving a sample of 69 company managers operating in fifteen industries, he will examine the degree of digital transformation. Its results show that digital has not yet penetrated the strategic management sphere of these companies.
Les auteurs
Djeflat Abdelkader Professeur d’économie – Coordinateur réseau Maghtech (DIM – Clersé UMR 8019 CNRS - Université de Lille, France, abdelkader.djeflat@univ-lille.fr Ferhane Fethi Université Djillali Liabes, Sidi Bel Abbes, Algérie Hanane Larbi Professeur à l’Université Mohammed V, Rabat Haouba Ahmadou Professeur des Universités - Université de Nouakchott, Consultant, Mauritanieahaouba@yahoo.com IWU Nnaoma Hyacinth Department of Political Science Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko Ondo state (Nigeria) Souleh Samah Professeur au département des sciences économiques; Directrice du Bureau de Liaison Entreprises-Université; Directrice du Centre Des Carrières-CDC; Responsable du Club de Recherche d'Emploi-CRE. Université de Mohamed Khider -Biskra-Algérie, samah.souleh@univ-biskra.dz Zerdoudi Amina Université du 20 Aout 1955 SKIKDA, membre du réseau maghtech Algérie |
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ISSN : 2824-9712
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