Facilitating knowledge creation with GroupWare: a case study of a knowledge intensive firm

Managing knowledge is a value creating process in most organisations and is particularly important in knowledge-intensive firms. This paper asks the question: how can GroupWare specifically facilitate processes of knowledge creation within knowledge intensive firms? Based on an analysis of an expert consultancy where e-mail is used successfully for information and knowledge search, and Lotus Notes is used with mixed results in project working, it is argued that the complexity of articulating the knowledge creation process can be reduced by using e-mail. Furthermore e-mail when considered in context is potentially a rich medium for the development of collective knowledge over time. It is also concluded that although distributed Lotus Notes databases can alleviate temporal and spatial complexity, this media lacks the richness required for complex processes of knowledge creation. Thus where temporal and spatial constraints do not exist, there will be substantial barriers for using GroupWare to support the knowledge creation process, in this type of knowledge-intensive firm.

[1]  W. Orlikowski,et al.  Genres of Organizational Communication: A Structurational Approach to Studying Communication and Media , 1992 .

[2]  Stuart Macdonald,et al.  The Informal Information Network in an Age of Advanced Telecommunications , 1992 .

[3]  J. Spender.  Organizational knowledge, learning and memory: three concepts in search of a theory , 1996 .

[4]  C. Ciborra.  Introduction: what does groupware mean for the organizations hosting it? , 1997 .

[5]  D. Straub,et al.  Knowledge Worker Communications and Recipient Availability: Toward a Task Closure Explanation of Media Choice , 1998 .

[6]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design , 1986 .

[7]  Robert E. Kraut,et al.  Coordination in software development , 1995, CACM.

[8]  I. Nonaka.  A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation , 1994 .

[9]  Peter H. Carstensen,et al.  Mechanisms supporting coordination in design , 1996 .

[10]  L. Prusak.  Knowledge in organizations , 1997 .

[11]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Communication Richness in Electronic Mail: Critical Social Theory and the Contextuality of Meaning , 1997, MIS Q..

[12]  F. Blackler.  Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and Interpretation , 1995 .

[13]  M. Markus.  Electronic Mail as the Medium of Managerial Choice , 1994 .

[14]  W. Starbuck.  Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms , 1992 .

[15]  Allen S. Lee.  Electronic Mail as a Medium for Rich Communication: An Empirical Investigation Using Hermeneutic Interpretation , 1994, MIS Q..

[16]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  Structure in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations , 1983 .

[17]  Lars Mathiassen,et al.  A guide to manage new software engineering tools , 1997 .

[18]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Evolving the notes: organizational change around groupware technology , 1997 .

[19]  G. Huber.  Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures , 1991 .