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This chapter considers the challenges of applying engineering practices to knowledge. Knowledge cannot be managed like other forms of capital because it is tacit and intangible. Research has identified economic properties and behaviors that set it apart from physical and financial capital. The authors translate the economic typology of human, structural, and relational capital to Blackler’s four forms of characterizations: embrained, embodied, embedded, and encultured. Knowledge elicitation techniques are discussed, and aligned with Blakely’s four forms of characterizations.

This chapter explains how and why the knowledge economy will increase the demand for knowledge engineering. It defines and traces the evolution of knowledge engineering. It identifies the two components of knowledge engineering – elicitation and representation. It discusses the increased importance of tacit knowledge, specifically know-what and know-how, for organizations and companies. The increased demand for knowledge engineering calls for increased number of knowledge engineers. Knowledge engineering will expand beyond its current homes in systems development and cognitive science. The MASK methodology is an important intermediary between formal knowledge engineering and the methods needed to develop natural language and conceptual modeling for the knowledge economy.