Abstract:
The role of knowledge in developed countries is high. Scientific knowledge is the basis of the economy of the XXI century. Knowledge has become a new factor of production, the signifi-cance of which in competition will only increase. In the scientific literature they write about knowledge as an important competitive ad-vantage, strategic asset, but at the same time, it is extremely rare to find a clear definition of "knowledge". In scientific and business literature a large number of different interpretations of this definition are observed. In this article attempt to generalize the different points of view and to group them in approaches is made. The following attributes of the concept "knowledge" were identified: quality, relevance and descriptive characteristics. Analysis of the "knowledge" concept was conducted from the perspective of structural, in-tegrated, systematic-informational, systematic-functional, systematic-genetic, and systematic and management approaches. On the basis of this analysis there was proposed the author's defini-tion of the "knowledge" concept.