Knowledge Sharing Infrastructure and Methods for Virtual Enterprises

Abstract

The world is witnessing a dramatic increase in the availability of knowledge and information due to the proliferation of the Internet. Virtual enterprises are new collaboration models, which enable the sharing of knowledge within and across organizations over the Internet. The chapter is concerned with both providing a knowledge-sharing infrastructure to facilitate collaborative work in virtual enterprises, as well as introducing a methodology for designing groupware for enhancing collaboration in virtual enterprises. The chapter reviews a number of existing Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) techniques, such as groupware and workflow and their role in supporting such an infrastructure. It then introduces a methodology for the analysis and design of collaborative information systems with a specific objective of maintaining a shared awareness among knowledge workers in virtual enterprises. This methodology includes as its main analytical tool a conceptual model called Collaborative Process Model for analyzing knowledge-sharing requirements of the actors in enterprise environments. Finally, the chapter presents an application of the methodology to a network management/trouble-shooting case study and discusses a NOTES prototype implementation.