(An) organizational memory for facilitating knowledge

Abstract

Our economy is increasingly dependent on knowledge. Organizational memory contains knowledge that companies need to manage. This dissertation proposes a KFOM (Knowledge Facilitating Organizational Memory) to decipher a harmony mechanism of organizational memory from the Oriental Yin and Yang perspective. KFOM clarifies an architecture to catapult the organizational memory to organizational effectiveness. Harmony mechanism emphasizes on seamless flow of knowledge stored through the human interactions. This architecture is made up of two layers; storage layer and facilitation layer. Storage layer represents harmony of task progressive and domain descriptive knowledge. Harmony mechanism in storage layer shows a lifecycle of two types of knowledge. That is, task progressive knowledge stores organizational knowledge that could be captured during task and is transformed into domain descriptive knowledge for its reuse. Domain descriptive knowledge is usefully applied to people’s task. This harmonious lifecycle of organizational knowledge could be stored in KFOM. Eventually, it enhances organizational effectiveness. Facilitation layer gives a full detail of harmony mechanism by clarifying five knowledge facilitators as key circulator. This mechanism leverages a knowledge chain with ACTOR (Agent, Collaborator, Transactor, Object and Registry) facilitators. Each knowledge facilitator nurtures knowledge by itself and transfers it to others via three steps; storing, facilitating and transferring. A knowledge chain means a line of knowledge facilitators to transfer knowledge and facilitate organizational effectiveness. In order to demonstrate the practical usefulness of KFOM, this dissertation explores how KFOM can sharpen an international e-business technical standard. As a result, harmony mechanism of KFOM corresponds to the technical architecture of ebXML whose role is to make e-business interoperable. Furthermore, an extension to a real-life B2B collaboration project...