Abstract
The transformation of organizations into knowledge-intensive and knowledge-aware organizations takes place at an ever-increasing pace. Knowledge as the key resource, not labor, raw material or capital, changes production functions in organizations significantly. Knowledge represents the key concept to explain the increasing velocity of the transformation of social life in general and the way businesses and social institutions work in particular (Drucker 1994). Estimates at leading research organizations suggest that up to 60% of the gross national product in the United States is based on information as opposed to physical goods and services (Delphi 1997, 10). This is not surprising as it is estimated that the knowledge-intensive construction and development process of new products and services potentially determines 80 to 90% of the resulting production costs (Scherrer 1999, 131).
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References
See Willke 1998, 21; for a detailed discussion of the concept of knowledge work see section 4.1.3 — “From traditional work to knowledge work” on page 44.
Bennet/Bennet 2003, 15ff, Bennet/Bennet 2003a, 625ff.
Hax (1989, 77) made this latter argument with the background of a US economy then considered weaker than the Japanese economy.
According to a statistic produced by Mergerstat the number of mergers and acquisitions worldwide soared from less than 2,500 involving less than US$100 million in value in 1990 to app. 9,000 in 1999 involving app. US$1,5 billion in value (Späth 2000, 10).
Examples for organizational challenges are to design and implement business processes that span organizations, to support cross-organizational (virtual) teams and work groups, to negotiate appropriability of knowledge generated in cross-organizational projects and to prevent that the organization’s competitive advantages are transferred to competitors. Examples for technological challenges concerning interoperability are to standardize interfaces between or to integrate important knowledge-related information and communication systems, such as experience data bases, document and content management systems, asynchronous and synchronous communication and collaboration tools, to establish shared work spaces for virtual teams across organizational boundaries or to handle access and security of ICT systems.
Mobile is understood in a broad sense here. It comprises mobility within and between jobs. Within one organization, employees play multiple roles and participate in multiple projects at the same time often requiring them to switch work environments. Additionally, the duration of projects decreases and employees often take on new job assignments with different co-employees. On the other hand, the duration of employment with one employer decreases and the rate of employees moving to a new city to take on a new job increases. Thus, on the one hand, the networks of employees in terms of the number of people they know in many different organizations might get bigger due to the numerous changes in environments. On the other hand, the intensity of interactions within the networks might decrease.
See also section 6.1.3.3 — “Communities” on page 160.
The u in u-commerce stands for ubiquitous, universal, unique and unison (Watson 2000).
See also Wiig 1993, Nonaka/Takeuchi 1995, Davenport/Prusak 1998, Probst et al. 1998, Bach/Österle 2000, Grothe/Gentsch 2000, Hildebrand 2000, Lehner 2000, Watson 2000, Zerdick et al. 2000, Alavi/Leidner 2001, Gora/Bauer 2001 and the literature cited in section 4.1 - “Knowledge management” on page 19.
The influences of the various fields and disciplines on knowledge management are investigated in section 4.1.1 — “From organizational learning to knowledge management” on page 20.
For a detailed discussion of these ICT technologies and their impact on knowledge management systems see also section 4.3 — “Knowledge management systems” on page 79.
For a detailed analysis and a definition of KMS see also section 4.3 — “Knowledge management systems” on page 79.
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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Maier, R. (2004). Motivation. In: Knowledge Management Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24779-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24779-1_1
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