Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning in Workflow Systems

In the last few years, a new type of information system called a workflow management system is being deployed in many organizations (Georgakopoulos, et al., 1995). This new system is especially suited for actualizing organizational memory because workflow systems enable the automation of business processes across teams, functional departments, and suppliers in order to reduce product or service cycle times, to decrease costs, and to minimize duplication of effort. Workflow systems integrate the people, the organizational structure, and the information sources such as databases, file systems, emails, image repositories, computer-aided design tools, and desktop applications (Stohr and Zhao, 1997). That is, workflow systems are the ideal systems to house the business logic and bring the business logic into better view

The Impact of Organizational Memory on IT Systems

Organizational Memory Information Systems (OMISs) combine the attributes of culture, history, business process, human memory and fact into an integrated knowledge based business system. While not currently in existence in the configuration suggested in this paper, this type of information system would be an integral part of any firm wanting to anticipate business climate changes, expand their customer base and improve existing customer service. OMIS’s would benefit businesses wanting to integrate disparate data bases, capture the expertise of retiring staff, improve organizational coordination and provide a decision making aid to staff members encountering new and complex issues requiring the integration of diverse and inconsistent types of knowledge

Understanding organizational memory from the integrated management systems (ERP)

Com esta pesquisa, no formato de ensaio teórico abordou-se o tema da Memória Organizacional e os Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP), buscando apresentar alguns indícios de como este tipo de sistema pode colaborar para a consolidação de algumas funcionalidades da Memória Organizacional. A partir de uma revisão teórica sobre os conceitos da Memória Humana, com extensão à Memória Organizacional e Sistemas de Informação, com ênfase nos Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP), procurou-se estabelecer um paralelo entre as funcionalidades e estruturas da Memória Organizacional e as funcionalidades e características dos ERPs. A escolha do sistema ERP para este estudo deveu-se à complexidade e escopo abrangente deste sistema. Pôde-se constatar que os ERPs suportam de forma adequada algumas funções da Memória Organizacional, com destaque à implementação das lógicas, processos, práticas e regras vigentes de negócio. Espera-se que o diálogo aqui apresentado possa contribuir para o avanço do entendimento da Memória Organizacional, visto que à semelhança da Memória Humana, é um campo fértil e ainda existe muito a ser pesquisado.With this research, in the form of theoretical essay addressed to the theme of Organizational Memory and Integrated Management Systems (ERP) we tried to present some evidence of how this type of system can contribute to the consolidation of certain features of Organizational Memory. From a theoretical review of the concepts of Human Memory, extending to the Organizational Memory and Information Systems, with emphasis on Integrated Management Systems (ERP) we tried to draw a parallel between the functions and structures of Organizational Memory and features and characteristics of ERPs. The choice of ERP system for this study was due to the complexity and broad scope of this system which adequately support many of the functions of the Organizational Memory, highlighting the implementation of logical, processes, practices and rules in business. It is hoped that the dialogue presented here can contribute to the advancement of the understanding of organizational memory, since the similarity of Human Memory, is a fertile field and there is still much to be researched

Compreendendo a memória organizacional a partir dos Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP)

Com esta pesquisa, no formato de ensaio teórico abordou-se o tema da Memória Organizacional e os Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP), buscando apresentar alguns indícios de como este tipo de sistema pode colaborar para a consolidação de algumas funcionalidades da Memória Organizacional. A partir de uma revisão teórica sobre os conceitos da Memória Humana, com extensão à Memória Organizacional e Sistemas de Informação, com ênfase nos Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP), procurou-se estabelecer um paralelo entre as funcionalidades e estruturas da Memória Organizacional e as funcionalidades e características dos ERPs. A escolha do sistema ERP para este estudo deveu-se à complexidade e escopo abrangente deste sistema. Pôde-se constatar que os ERPs suportam de forma adequada algumas funções da Memória Organizacional, com destaque à implementação das lógicas, processos, práticas e regras vigentes de negócio. Espera-se que o diálogo aqui apresentado possa contribuir para o avanço do entendimento da Memória Organizacional, visto que à semelhança da Memória Humana, é um campo fértil e ainda existe muito a ser pesquisado.With this research, in the form of a theoretical essay addressing the theme of Organizational Memory and Integrated Management Systems (ERP), we tried to present some evidence of how this type of system can contribute to the consolidation of certain features of Organizational Memory. From a theoretical review of the concepts of Human Memory, extending to the Organizational Memory and Information Systems, with emphasis on Integrated Management Systems (ERP) we tried to draw a parallel between the functions and structures of Organizational Memory and features and characteristics of ERPs. The choice of the ERP system for this study was made due to the complexity and broad scope of this system. It was verified that the ERPs adequately support many functions of the Organizational Memory, highlighting the implementation of logical processes, practices and rules in business. It is hoped that the dialogue presented here can contribute to the advancement of the understanding of organizational memory, since the similarity of Human Memory is a fertile field and there is still much to be researched

Testing an Integrity-Checking DSS Component for Organizational Memory Building

Organizational Memory (OM) has become a critical component of organizations attempting to maintain a competitive advantage. The ability to retrieve accurate information, and interpret it from different perspectives, will both facilitate efficient problem solving and support efficient organizational learning. This research examines the effect of an informationbuilding and decision aid. The results indicate that the system positively affects OM by promoting user-entered knowledge bases with more accurate statements. However, the system did not significantly improve the ability of the users to solve a problem. These findings have important implications for designing information systems to support and expand OM while increasing the organization’s capacity to learn and solve problems

An Integrated Approach for Automatic\ud Aggregation of Learning Knowledge Objects

This paper presents the Knowledge Puzzle, an ontology-based platform designed to facilitate domain\ud knowledge acquisition from textual documents for knowledge-based systems. First, the\ud Knowledge Puzzle Platform performs an automatic generation of a domain ontology from documents’\ud content through natural language processing and machine learning technologies. Second,\ud it employs a new content model, the Knowledge Puzzle Content Model, which aims to model\ud learning material from annotated content. Annotations are performed semi-automatically based\ud on IBM’s Unstructured Information Management Architecture and are stored in an Organizational\ud memory (OM) as knowledge fragments. The organizational memory is used as a knowledge\ud base for a training environment (an Intelligent Tutoring System or an e-Learning environment).\ud The main objective of these annotations is to enable the automatic aggregation of Learning\ud Knowledge Objects (LKOs) guided by instructional strategies, which are provided through\ud SWRL rules. Finally, a methodology is proposed to generate SCORM-compliant learning objects\ud from these LKOs

A Social Relations Analysis of Transactive Memory in Groups

Transactive memory is the knowledge of what others in a group know and the exchange of that knowledge. In groups with effective transactive memory systems, members know “who knows what”, send knowledge to the appropriate individuals, and develop strategies for retrieving that information (Mohammed & Dumville, 2001; Wegner, 1995). Transactive memory studies tend to focus on the group as a whole, but useful information might be gathered by investigating transactive memory in dyads within groups. The purpose of this research was to use the social relations model (Kenny & LaVoie, 1984) as the basis for operationalizing transactive memory and to examine this new operationalization of transactive memory as it related to group performance. In social relations model terms, an effective transactive memory system was operationalized as consensus about expertise and knowledge seeking. Data were collected from two samples of student engineering project groups (n = 55 groups and n = 77 groups) and a sample of organizational engineering project groups (n = 7 groups). Groups whose members had spent significant time working together were hypothesized to have effective transactive memory systems and to exhibit significant consensus. Groups whose members had spent relatively less time with one another were hypothesized to have poorer transactive memory systems and to make use of unique relations in the group and assimilation as the basis for identifying expertise. The hypotheses were partially supported. In groups whose members spent relatively more time together, there was some agreement about who was expert and from whom to seek knowledge; however, knowledge exchange tended to be mostly based on seeking knowledge from no one or everyone in the group. In addition, group members made use of their unique dyadic relationships with particular others when identifying expertise and seeking knowledge. In fact, members of groups that performed better were likely to exchange knowledge based on their unique dyadic relationships with others. This study advances earlier research on transactive memory by suggesting that dyadic relations within groups are important to fully understanding transactive memory and its relationship with performance

Is Free Information Really Free? Information Supply into an IT-Based Organizational Memory System

Information sharing is a critical issue facing businesses today. In the United States some 90 percent of large private sector and 40 percent of public sector enterprises are reported to have at least one initiative in place to assist in the sharing of information. In contrast, the realities of not sharing information are great with estimates of up to $12 billion wasted each year as employees duplicate one another’s work. Information sharing is often facilitated by an IT-based organizational memory system, and this paper examines one such system at a large U.S.-based IT consulting firm. Our study examines what impacts information supply into the system. Using a wide-scale survey deployed to over 1,200 professionals with over a 30 percent response rate, we use structural equation modeling to show that information supply by an individual is a result of weighing up the personal costs and benefits of such supply. While the costs of information supply have been covered in depth in the literature, the benefits side of the equation has received little attention. This paper addresses that gap, and shows that the ability to influence is a critical component of the benefits the information supplier expects to receive to offset the costs of supplying information. We conclude by noting how this research may impact managers, suppliers and users of information sharing systems, and present ideas for future research

Unleashing Crowd Wisdom: Leveraging Cognitive Memory Structures to Increase Quality of User-Generated Content

In recent years, online information sharing platforms have opened new opportunities for people to share information and experiences with each other and with organizations that sponsor these platforms. Increasingly, data consumers, both at the organizational and at the individual level, hope to use these User-Generated Content (UGC) in their decision making. However, recent studies uncovered significant challenges associated with the interfaces used to collect high-quality UGC. While many aspects of the information quality (IQ) of UGC have been studied, the role of data structures in gathering UGC and the nature of shared content have yet to receive attention. UGC is created on online platforms with varying degrees of data structure, ranging from unstructured (e.g., open box fields) to highly structured formats (e.g., rigid and specific forms). Despite much research on UGC, we have little understanding of the appropriate degree of data structures in data collection and its impact on the quality of information. Moreover, we know that most of the produced UGC originates in the declarative memory of the contributors. Psychology literature shows that different types of memory are stored and managed differently, and that they are retrieved accordingly. Thus, we argue that the information collection interface for retrieving and collecting each type of memory should be aligned with the way that it was stored. Therefore, we posit that designing interfaces with sensitivity to human memory structures should result in improvements of the IQ of UGC. We conducted several experiments to examine differently-designed information collection interfaces for different types of information. We evaluated both data creators’ and data consumers’ perceived quality of information collection, at the individual level. The findings support our claims of the importance of these factors for information quality. This research demonstrates a connection between information system interface design and human memory, which eventually could result in changes to best practices in interface design. This could, in turn, lead to improved interaction between participants and organizations, including enhanced data creators’ self-expression, improved users’ attitudes toward UGC systems, and increased value-add from organizations’ use of UGC