Internet Enabled Corporate Knowledge Sharing and Utilization

Abstract

Knowledge assets and the learning capacity of an organization are the main sources of competitive advantage (Argyris & Schon, 1978; Prahalad & Hamel, 1990). Therefore, there is a growing interest in knowledge management (KM) and corporate memories (CM). The objectives of KM are to promote preservation, communication, and growth of knowledge in the organization (Steels, 1993). According to Fischer et al.(1997), the problem is to deliver the right knowledge at the right time to the right person in the right way. KM is a very complex problem that can be tackled from several viewpoints: socio-organizational, financial and economical, technical, human, legal (Barthès, 1996). A CM is a tool to support KM. Van Heijst et al. (1996) define a CM as an “explicit, disembodied, persistent representation of knowledge and information in an organization.” It is important to consider the development of a CM not only from a technical viewpoint. In this work the human and socio-organizational aspects play a significant role. We will focus on the following (complex) requirement that must be fulfilled by a computer-based CM: