Proceedings of the International Conference Theory and Applications in the Knowledge Economy

Book excerpt: Foreword TAKE 2016 is a dream that came true. In about six months, a group of friends and colleagues put together in an upcoming and very dynamic university a conference with 9 streams, 3 keynotes, and 3 special sessions. 60 papers presented, 6 posters and around 80 participants from 20 countries. This is awesome! I would like to deeply thank Aveiro University, the GOVCOPP research centre, the conference committee, the keynote speakers, the special session convenors, the stream leaders, the reviewers, the authors, and the administrative people for all their work and support. I want to have two special words one for Blazenka Knezevic without whom the website would not have been possible, the other for Gaby Neumann for work in these Proceedings. Scientifically, TAKE seems to be as important and new and far reaching. We don’t have shortage of models regarding the knowledge economy but we decisively lack to explore the relation between theory and practice. TAKE is a step in exploring that difference. We know that “Exact sciences find the best answers and social sciences give the best questions” (J.C. Spender) and we also know that “Knowledge Management is more preached by scholars than done by practitioners” (Aino Kianto). We assume the first idea and try to overcome the second. Hopefully TAKE 2016 will be a great success. Thank you for everything.