1. International Conference on Leading beyond the Horizon: Engaging the Future (ICLBH-2011),
28 – 30 July 2011
Annamalai University, India.
Why are we here?
The nature, development, dissemination and implementation of
knowledge.
de Run, Ernest Cyril
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
Greetings,
I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. I am honored and humbled by this invitation
that you wish to hear from an academician cum administrator from across the sea. I struggled
for a topic of interest for some time and finally decided of speaking to you from my heart, to
encourage you to do more than what you have done and at the same time to extol you on what
you have done.
As we gather here today, as academic and perhaps even practitioners, one matter of concern
comes to my mind, as to why we gather. Why a conference? I am aware of the standard reasons
provided by many, including myself, but am more concerned as to the nature of knowledge, its
development, dissemination and perhaps even its sharing and final outcome between
academicians and practitioners.
I have been to India a couple of times and I am impressed by the fact that there seems to be a
closer network, working together, and relationship between faculty and business, academician
and practitioner. Please do correct me if I am wrong, but I believe all academia needs this
closeness with the business world, just that perhaps this relationship can be developed further.
Yet I have never really seen the end results of such closeness aside from job creation. I always
wish for more.
The nature of knowledge
Among the many reasons we have conferences is to share our knowledge through the
presentation of our work, the creation of networks, and the necessary public relations to build
and develop the institutions name and regard among the community. But to whom do we share
our information and as to how much of our information is understood and actually worked on.
This brings me to the first point that I raised earlier, the nature of the knowledge created.
In India in 2009, there were 378 universities, over 20,000 colleges and about 10 million students
pursuing higher education in India (Anonymous, 2009). The numbers are huge, impressive.
Nevertheless, what new knowledge have I heard in the field of business, that has been
1

2. transmitted to the world, that has been created in the business arena. Maybe, perhaps, the
inverted pyramid model.
All knowledge stems from either the conception of reality or the perception of reality. Most
scientists seek to describe reality by using perceived observations to develop generalized
concepts. We have deductive and inductive methods of understanding knowledge. All this is
described under the term Epistemology, meaning knowledge science, which looks at the nature
and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:
 What is knowledge?
 How is knowledge acquired?
 How do we know what we know?
There is many types of knowledge, but what is of concern here is known as “Knowledge that,”
“Knowledge how,” and “Knowledge by acquaintance.” For example: in mathematics, it is
known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers and knowing
a person (e.g., oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g.,
addition). In the inverted pyramid example the “knowledge that” most of India’s customers are
from the lower income group is well established. This then creates a need for a “knowledge
how” and a “knowledge by acquaintance.” There is a need for knowing how to work with the
two variables, low income and large purchase demand probability and the relevant
acquaintances needed to create new knowledge. This new knowledge must then be usable for
industry. Here lies the dilemma for academicians in business and in many non-Western
countries.
Why a dilemma. Let us look at the filing of patents in India. Patents are an indicator of the
creation of new knowledge. In 2007, the total number of patents granted increased by 8X (since
2006) and stands at 15,262. Now let’s do a comparison with China that provides a different
perspective. The State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) received a total of 245,161 20-
year patent applications in 2007. SIPO received approximately the same number of 20-year
applications in 1997 as the Indian Patent Office did in 2007-08 (Anonymous a, n.d.).
The development of knowledge
If we use filing of patents as a proxy for new knowledge, the data seems to indicate that India is
far behind. Knowledge is like a wave. So many books have used this term to describe knowledge.
Knowledge flows and as it does the very nature of knowledge changes. In Malaysia there have
been calls for a K-Economy, which has yet to transpire. At the very least there is an
understanding that the knowledge that exist, is not sufficient as everything has changed.
The knowledge that our grandparents, no, perhaps even that of our parents may no longer be
viable now, what more of the future. I am amazed at the gadgetry and immense development in
the mobile phone sector alone in Malaysia, what more about other sectors. I used to create
notes for my students on a computer and give out notes. At the best I used Overhead
Projectors, with the plastic slides. Occasionally the specialized overhead projector that projects
from paper, a rarity because of its cost, was used, with oohs and aahs from the audience. Now I
use email, Morpheous (similar to Blackboard), Facebook, Skype (yet to use the I-phone) to relate
to my students and outside world. Sometimes the Luddite in me screams out to stop this
onslaught of machinery.
2

3. Castells (2000) states that knowledge is not an object but a series of networks and flows. This
ties in with how our brain works, via nodes that are activated through a trigger, stimulating a
wider network of files that have been kept in memory. The creation and acquiring of new
knowledge is a process and not a final product as when it is produced it is by then obsolete as
new knowledge is again created. Manuel Castells believes that knowledge is produced not in the
minds of individuals but in the interactions between people. This view by Castells gives me the
spirit to continue to meet in conferences.
In order for knowledge to be created one needs an idea, time to do research, and a source of
funding for the research project. Meeting in conferences are good because by meeting with
others, through the interaction with others, particularly those that do not see the world as you
do, will stimulate and create new ideas. I can also personally assure you that having new ideas
alone is insufficient. One needs time. Time to contemplate, read, and actually do the research is
extremely necessary. In social sciences, this may either be a qualitative or quantitative
approach, or even both. As for source of funding, in our field of research, the initial sums are
rather small and most of the research can even be completed with a smaller amount as
compared to the pure sciences.
At the same time academia seems to forget other kinds of knowledge that don’t fit in the snug
definition of academia, such as hands on experience, quality improvement through minor
changes, the informal grapevine and hearsay, beliefs, superstitions and others of the like. All
provide knowledge. If we want it to fit academia, then a scientific method must be applied. The
scientific method refers to the various techniques used to investigate phenomenon in order to
acquire new knowledge, or to correct or to integrate this new knowledge in previous
knowledge. The method used must be empirical and measurable and follows the principles of
reasoning. The initial basis of the scientific method was the hypothetico-deductive model that
encourages one to use their own experiences, form a conjecture, and deduce a prediction from
the explanation and test. This is now formalized into a pragmatic schema: Define a question,
Gather information and resources (observe), Form an explanatory hypothesis, Perform an
experiment and collect data, testing the hypothesis, Analyze the data, Interpret the data and
draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis, Publish results, Retest.
Sadly, we as academicians are very keen to publish results, never to retest and republish.
Perhaps the blame should not be on academicians but also on editors of journals such as myself.
Journals don’t like to publish replications, especially if the replication supports the original
treatise. But this is how knowledge is created, the continuous testing of what is known. As Plato
puts it, new knowledge must be burnt in the fire of its predecessor, and it will turn to charcoal,
that will fan the flames for the successive new knowledge. So perhaps if a journal will not
publish your replication, bring it first to a conference and get it beefed up with the comments of
your colleagues and friends in the business world before taking it to the world.
The dissemination of knowledge
I sit in our University’s Research and Development committee. Every time we meet, there are
countless of applications for funds, some even demanding for money as their research is
essential. Every time we in the committee have to ask, what is the outcome of the grants given
and who knows what you did? The nomenclature for a university is the requirement of a
publication, preferably in an indexed journal, and later to be cited, as we believe that this equals
3

4. dissemination of knowledge. If not in an indexed journal, preferably in an indexed conference. If
not, at least in a refereed journal and a refereed conference. If not, then where was your
knowledge disseminated and furthermore, how was it utilized?
I however disagree with this nomenclature, or at the very least would like other methods of
dissemination to be considered. This is why I like India and Indian universities. There is a higher
level of interaction between academicians and practitioners, but from what I perceive still
lagging behind the openness of countries such as New Zealand. Nevertheless with this
interaction, there are some forms of dissemination aside from the basic nomenclature.
The Europeans have their own written paper on what is and how to disseminate information
(Anonymous b, n.d). Their definition reads as:
The term dissemination is legally defined as “the disclosure of knowledge by any appropriate
means other than publication resulting from the formalities for protecting knowledge”.
Dissemination can, therefore, be seen as the means by which research results are presented
and made known and accessible to a broad public and/or to specific research communities.
Publications in the course of a protection right application, for example the obligatory
publication of an invention after filing a patent application or the publication of a Community
Design in the Community Design Bulletin after its registration, are not sufficient and do not
constitute dissemination.
If I spoke to a businessman in the street, that I found a high correlation and statistically
significant Hierarchical Regression, indicating a strong and positive relationship between
variable X1 and variable X2, moderated by variable X3, would he or she not stare at me. Would
he or she not wonder why I am wasting my time with such language? Would he or she even
bother to entertain me then and in the future?
What I am trying to arrive at is the manner in which this knowledge that we have should arrive
at the public that we aspire to use that knowledge. My PhD supervisor carried out various
studies on marketing orientation and performance and published from there. Not satisfied, he
created a CD that has some simple questions and when answered, the computer will describe
the condition of the business, in simple layman terms. He then sold this to companies and
government bodies, as a management tool to measure their marketing & service orientation
and performance. The knowledge gained from his studies was disseminated to the businesses.
Businesses knew what my supervisor knew from his studies, and businesses applied his new
found knowledge.
As an academician, I must publish. Even though Malaysia has yet to come to the stage such as in
America, we are hurtling there at light speed. Soon, we must publish, or we will perish. New
words have crept into our vocabulary, such as citation index, h-index, Socsci, KPI and others.
Partly for this reason, I worked with Prof Kim Shyan Fam, to create Marketing in Asia Group
(MAG) at http://www.magscholar.com in order to help academics to publish in the new journals
that we created, to attend conferences that we created, to get to know one another through
the website and hence expand networks and to be trained in academic matters. Our website has
become the place where we highlight our findings, such as our studies on journal rankings.
4

5. This is dissemination for me, not only journal publication, conference proceeding, or book
publications. It is how the knowledge that you have created reaches the target group that you
want to use your knowledge. I am aware of the various proprietary issues, but even this can be
worked out. Yes, by all means publish in a journal but place the abstract in your University’s
website and your own personal website. Think of how the knowledge that you created can be
applied in the industry that you research. I did a few papers on the telecommunication industry,
focusing on the customer service (de Run & Thang, 2007), and send copies to all the
telecommunications service managers in Malaysia. I received a few phone calls and discussed
with them my research and hope for further collaboration. I have also done studies on cues in
advertising, a paper presented here is a replication of past studies but in the Indian context, and
have been invited to advertising companies to talk to them on their work, sharing and
confirming my own work with the actual practitioners.
It is your own initiatives utilizing various methods and ways to disseminate your knowledge,
through the course of self-organized conferences, workshops, training sessions, seminars and
self-published websites, publications, press releases, multimedia CD-ROMs, TV and others. If
you and your university do not inform the public of what you have done, then the knowledge
gained is wasted. It is not enough just to talk about your knowledge, but more importantly to
make it accessible and usable.
A good example of making knowledge accessible and usable is what has and is being done in
Bario, in the interior highlands of Sarawak, by the Faculty of Information Technology, Universiti
Malaysia Sarawak through its e-Bario project (see http://www.ebario.org/). The project brings a
multitude of scientist, particularly in information technology and also the social sciences to Bario
and helps to develop an IT based system to help develop the community there. All the
knowledge that is known by the academics is passed to the people there, to be used for their
betterment.
The implementation of knowledge
It must be acknowledged that the explosion in academic knowledge has formed the basis of the
knowledge society. In a knowledge society, there has been a shift in valuing applied knowledge
over academic knowledge. Academic knowledge is associated with narrow disciplines such as
mathematics and philosophy, whereas applied knowledge knows how to do things, and hence
by definition tends to be multi-disciplinary. Perhaps this is why the e-Bario project tends to work
well, as it is a culmination of various disciplines, from IT to Tourism. However, blue sky research
is essential as it is the basis for all knowledge. Only from these fundamental researches can a
person, company or organization gain applied knowledge.
Having patents and rights indicate that new knowledge is there. Implementing this is not easy.
In business, the closest analogy would be commercialization and at the very least is it can be
seen as another company, institution or organization is implementing your knowledge to a real
life commercialization of a product from the knowledge you created. For Universities, the issue
is to maximize revenues from licensing faculty-created innovations but this licensing and
patenting process is time consuming and potentially a detriment (lag time can create losses).
There are many ways to implement knowledge. Licensing and patenting is only one way. I have
heard of University spin offs, lecturer creates new knowledge and the university business arm
5

6. commercializes it by themselves or through the creation of a new company or a joint venture
company, and they have far better success rates than private companies. We all know that lag in
time usually ends in financial failure as others enter and saturate the market faster. The
knowledge that we have may no longer be viable.
Faculty must be provided with incentives (time off, flexible time, or others) to participate with
commercial entities and the commercialization of their knowledge. Lecturers are encouraged to
go back to industry, even to be a salesman during semester break if that is required. Faculty
must be immersed in their environment. If you are a marketing lecturer and have never been in
a business entity marketing arm, how then can you provide new knowledge to the company?
Federal and State government should encourage universities to emphasize the number of
university innovations and the speed with which they are moved into the marketplace, not
licensing revenue. In Malaysia, the emphasis now has moved from the number of graduates that
you have to the number of graduates that actually graduate. Other changes include the
emphasis of actual commercialization of products and services instead of only the number of
patents, license, or rights that is held by a university.
In order for this to happen, there must be a body within the university to look into these issues.
At my university, we have the Center for Technology Transfer and Consultancy that looks into
the marriage between academia and practitioners. Clear cut policies on finance is detailed and
informed to all. Any new knowledge that leads to a financial reward is strongly supported.
I am acutely aware that as an academician in business, there is no new product or service that I
can create. Nevertheless, as what my PhD supervisor did, the creation of a CD, is still the
commercialization of his knowledge. Consultancy is another way of disseminating your
knowledge to be implemented by a company or a government body. And why must everything
be for money? If you have learnt a new and better way to do something, and it will be beneficial
for a community, then share it.
Conclusions
As I draw to a close, I ask back again, why we gather? Why a conference? I would like to strongly
urge you to reconsider why you are here, aside from the normal reasons. We are academicians
in the field of business in a country where in 2009, there were 378 universities, over 20,000
colleges and about 10 million students pursuing higher education (Anonymous, 2009). At the
same time, we are in a country with patents (as a proxy for new knowledge) and
commercialization (as a proxy for implementation of new knowledge) that is easily
outnumbered by many other nations. I strongly urge you to look at the nature, development,
dissemination and implementation of knowledge in the Business Schools in India so that it may
grow further.
Thank you.
6

7. Reference
Anonymous (2009). Shai Reshef Presents Keynote Address At Confederation Of Indian Industry :
Fourth University Industry Council Symposium. Retrieved on 190711 from
http://www.uopeople.org/167787
Anonymous a (n.d). Pluggd in. Retrieved on 190711 from http://www.pluggd.in/indian-it-
industry/patents-india-vs-china-local-vs-mncs-%E2%80%93-and-spineless-indian-it-
companies-1783/
Anonymous b (n.d.). Requirements and ways of disseminating knowledge. Retrieved on 190711
from http://www.eurohear.org/pdf/2_disseminating_klg.pdf
Castells, M. (2000) The Rise of the Network Society Oxford: Blackwell
De Run, Ernest Cyril & Chin Yin Thang, Florence (2007). Customer Service Personnel’s
Perceptions of Customers: The Case of a Telecommunications Firm. International
Journal of Business and Society. 8.1.48 - 67
7