Challenges and Directions in Knowledge Asset Trading

This paper addresses the area that is at the intersection of Knowledge Management and Electronic Commerce. This area refers to the exchange and trade of explicit and implicit knowledge at an inter-organisational level. Electronic knowledge marketplaces are currently emerging to address the opportunities and risks found in the purchase and selling of knowledge at the business-to-business (B2B) environment, the need for supporting long-lasting relationships of knowledge exchange and the requirement for facilitating virtual community contexts where knowledge seekers can find suitable knowledge providers and knowledge providers can advertise and sell their available knowledge. The paper describes the business challenges associated with the design of Internet-based knowledge marketplace. INKASS, a European IST project, has stimulated this work and has provided real-life verification on the arguments raised and on the positions adopted herein.