Portals and Knowledge Work

Abstract

Many reports and books attest to the recent shift in society towards the new knowledge-based economy one driven by the creation and dissemination of information, best-practices, and shared insights rather than the production of tangible, manufactured goods. One of the first observations of this change was made back sometime around 1960 when Peter Drucker (1993), in his essay on post-capitalist society, denoted the transformation in society towards a more service-oriented, information-based economy. Emphasizing the importance of knowledge in the modern organization, Drucker (p. 7) acknowledged that “the basic economic resource” is no longer capital, natural resources, or labour, but “is and will be knowledge.” He went further to suggest that organizations, in response to this shift, must learn to adapt to continuous change and build systematic practices for managing such transformations.