Linking E-Government with Organizational Memory through Individual Competencies

Abstract

Organizational memory or OM, is a concept that has been used to refer to stocks of data, information and knowledge to which every member of the organization has access. In the following chapter we distinguish between what we refer to as ‘Hard-OM’ and ‘Soft-OM’. The term ‘Hard-OM’ is used to refer to a variety of technologies which support the storage of, access to and modification of OM. Soft-OM refers to policies, rules, reporting structures and practices that encourage the active use and updating of OM in addressing current organizational concerns. This chapter considers the role of OM (hard and soft) in relation to the adoption and use of eGovernment systems. We argue that for eGovernment to be successfully adopted by companies, some ‘competences’ to manage and exploit knowledge at the organizational level need to be developed and assessed. In doing so, the research supports the view that the identification of problems, the changing of cognitive patterns and the integration of new measures in the organization, mediate the relationship between the OM and eGovernment.