rainbow

ENGINEERING
- MAGORI -
CONSULTING

2. E & IT  – 3. Lehrangebote –

Semantic Web Ontology

 

Generating answers! – in 21th Century. –

Semantic Web and Networked Engineering. - Engineering Knowledge Management -

- to reflect the basic paradigm of the Web:  – SELF - ORGANIZATION – 

Common Semantic Infrastructure.

Description, Discovery and Retrieval of heterogeneous information resources.

- for moving information from where it resides to where it’s needed -

Linking Knowledge and " EU-SME " Society - KNOWLEDGE Based - ENGINEERING.

PAN EUROPEAN - INTERCONNECTED - ONTOLOGY-based   ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE POOLS.

Written by:  Dipl. Ing. Johann Magori  « EMC - Engineering Magori Consulting »  « Magori Consulting Ingenieurbüro »  (2004)

blueupTOP

CONTENT

We know more than we can tell.

" Michael Polanyi"

KM

- Meaning is not in things but in between;  in the iridescence,  the interplay;  in the interconnections;  at the intersection. -

"Mallarmé"

New kind of technology (first generation- extension of the current Web), that satisfies the need for constant change.
This technology will enable companies to implement radically new business models and
exponentially extend their market reach and grow their businesses in ways they've never dreamed.

- Knowledge Management transforms structured and unstructured information, select and combines the important information for a user in a specific context, so that decisions and the actions of ("companies") are supported. -

"Meta Group"

" It is not enough to know, it must be also used. "

" Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "

blue_up 1. Aligning Data strategy with Business strategy.

 – PAN EUROPEAN – Engineering Network – Engineering Knowledge Management –
A federated STEP based – Systems  Engineering –  / EU-SME.

An Internet-infrastructure-service for collecting, analyzing,and distributing information,
a unifying communications infrastructure,
for moving information from where it resides to where it’s needed,
for collecting information from many sources into an integrated picture.

STEP Modules Repository in XML format:     ( STEP   –  STandard for the Exchange of Product model data)

accelerating the mapping of STEP and Web technologies, and pursuing Web content standardization. (NIST 's STEP Modularization project...)

A standard XML representation of product data would go a long way toward enabling truly interoperable:

Web-based product design, manufacturing, and lifecycle support applications.

Dataquest, Market Trends, September 28,1998:

"What was called concurent engineering in the 1980s evolved to collaborative engineering int the 1990s.....
design information can no longer stay behind the engineering walls".

Don Tapscott, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

"The vertically integrated industrial corporation is giving way to a form of wealth creation called the business web.
A b-web is a distinct system of suppliers, distributors, commerce services providers, infrastructure providers and customers that use the Internet for communications and transactions. In the most elegant of b-webs, each participant focuses narrowly on the things that it does best.".

Business webs,are collections of old economy and new economy businesses that come together dynamically on the net to sell each other’s products and services, create new channels, leverage one another’s core competencies, and ultimately to create entirely new business models. Business webs are transforming the World Wide Web from a collection of hard-wired web sites into a:  " Dynamic and fluid network of interconnected partnerships."

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the US FederalReserve Board :

"IT - Technologie - has begun to alter, fundamentally, the manner in which we do business and create economic value".

The engineering /manufacturing /construction....and other business process:

- from original idea to detailed plan / idea / concept to finished asset - is in essence a communication process.
The client communicates need, the architect communicates design, the engineer communicates structure and the contractor translates...etc. The communication is not linear over time, but iterative.
Ideas are proposed, judged, revised and judged again.
Success lies in the successful management of communications.

The time has come to bring together the " vision and reality " for economic and social cohesion, and competitiveness,
in fostering the convergence of information processing, communications and media,
and in ensuring interoperability and coherence at a global level.

blue_up 2. Global Communication.

Internet provides the infrastructure to enable global communication and ontologies provide a shared and common understanding of a domain, their marriage allows for representation of domain knowledge that can be communicated between people and heterogeneous and distributed application systems.

The fundamental role of an ontology is to support knowledge sharing and reuse.

Ontologies play a crucial role for the Semantic Web...(semantic integration of information sources)

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF INTERCONNECTED -ENGINEERING- KNOWLEDGE POOLS.
NKOS-Networked Engineering Knowledge Organization Systems.
Shared Community Memory.
Data-Grid for EU-SME / Semantic Web.
Collaborative Network with intelligent nodes and services for large scale distribution and
control of engineering knowledge.

Linking Knowledge and " EU-SME " Society - KNOWLEDGE Based - ENGINEERING.

Why search, when you can find !

Global Business Registry-EU / Ontology /Agent-based services, content-based access, data interchange, interoperability, and communication across the EU-SME, Engineering / ebusiness -
Semantic web services infrastructure.

- Forrester Research - distills the succesfull use of technology(Internet) into two components,specialization and interoperability.

•  Specialization will attract others to you.

•  Interoperability will attach others to you.

The European Community has defined a new strategic goal:
to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.

European Council - March 2000-Lisbon / Barcelona 2002

Information Society Technology - IST - WORKPROGRAMME VISION STATEMENT:

"Start creating the ambient intelligence landscape for seamless delivery of services and applications in Europe
relying also upon test beds and open source software, develop user-friendliness,
and develop and converge the networking infrastructure in Europe to world class".

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" Internet & WWW - WORLD WIDE WEB " - Today.

Engineering documents available from the Web or from any digital representation constitute a significant SOURCE of ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE to be represented, handled, queried, and managed.

Internet

blue_up 4. Knowledge continents, Knowledge World.

To create a knowledge continents from information islands, knowledge assets from information resources, and knowledge bases from fragmented data , to weave loose pieces of information into a coherent presentation adequate for sharing knowledege with the needs of end users. Instead of user-initiated interaction via commands and/or direct manipulation, the user is engaged in a cooperative process in which human and computer agents both initiate communication, monitor events and perform tasks.

Creating a shared knowledge infrastructure and suggests a future vision that harnesses the flow of knowledge within and between communities and for reengineering information processes around the EU SME, to establish an agent / EU-Onto-Agent Community-Complex Agent Society/ infrastructure on the WWW-like networks, the creation of a " value chain " in which subassemblies of information are passed from one agent to another, each one "adding value", to construct the final product requested by the end user.

On-line ordering, delivery scheduling, part locating, and other "knowledge-driven" services:

 •  Solution Consulting  •  Project hosting  •  Smart Supply Chain Management
 •  Collaborative Logistics Network  •  Knowledge Broker  •  Knowledge Value Networks
 •  Tacit Knowledge Management  •  Knowledge Trading  •  Knowledge Empowered Service
 •  Consultative Commerce  •  Collaborative Commerce  •  Activity based Knowledge Analysis...

will then be added incrementally.

The battle for market leadership will not be between enterprises but between Value Chains. (Value Net)

– Daratech –

Value Networks Defined:

A value network is a web of relationships that generates economic value through complex dynamic exchanges between two or more individuals, groups or organizations. Any organization or group of organizations engaged in both tangible and intangible exchanges can be viewed as a value network, whether private industry,government or public sector.

– Verna Allee –

blue_up 5. Topic Area.

pointer  Metadata Architecture: Documents, Metadata, and Links, Generic Resources.

pointerRDF like infrastructure for the Semantic Web . Graph Data Model.

pointer  Model-theoretic semantics.  Interpretation Theory.  Semantic Interoperability.  Conceptual Modeling.

pointerOntologies. OWL Web Ontology Language since 10 February 2004 W3C recommendations.

pointerSTEP  STandard for the Exchange of Product model data / ISO10303 /.   But STEP is not an XML vocabulary. EXPRESS schemas.
XML and EXPRESS(data modeling language) as schema definition languages.  Product Data Management and Systems  Engineering

pointer  Knowledge Management " KM "  – Engineering Knowledge Management –

pointer  Capturing, Organising, Mining, Exploiting, Exchanging and Trading Knowledge.

pointer  Metadata-based Information / Meta Knowledge Management / Knowledge-based services

pointer  Intelligent nodes and services for large scale distribution and controlled access to ENGINEERING Knowledge.

pointerNAICS  ( the North American Industry Classification System )

pointerUNSPSC  ( United Nations Standard Products and Services Code )

pointerSIC  ( Standard Industrial Classification )

pointer  Architectures - Enterprise, Data, Information and Federated.

"doing the right thing"  instead of  "doing things right."

blue_up 6. Knowledge Management -KM- Definition-Reason-.

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF INTERCONNECTED -ENGINEERING- KNOWLEDGE POOLS.
NKOS-Networked Engineering Knowledge Organization Systems.
Shared Community Memory.
Collaborative Network with intelligent nodes and services for large scale distribution and control of engineering knowledge.

An Information Eco - System / shared information space
supports the applications,
that distinguish Knowledge Representation(KR) from pure "philosophy".

The definition of Knowledge is complex and contraversial, and can be interpreted in many different ways.
Knowledge Management is a term which is used in many different ways by parties with different perspectives and interests.
Much of the knowledge management literature sees knowledge in very broad terms, covering basically all the "software" of an organisation.

This involves the structured data, patents, programs and procedures, as well as the more intangible knowledge, and capabilities of the people.
It can also include the way that organisations function, communicate, analyse situations, come up with novel solutions to problems and develop new ways of doing business. It can also involve issues of culture, custom, values and skills as well as its relationships with its suppliers and customers.

The answer to the question "what is knowledge management ?" is not simple.

KM is not easy to define and many definitions supplied in the literature are highly ambiguous.
Knowledge management encompasses a very broad range of perspectives.In particular, it engages with the complexities and nuances of human intellectual processes, including tacit knowledge, learning and innovating processes, communication cultures, values and intangible assets.

It also recognises the subjective, interpretive and dynamic nature of. At the same times it embraces the dramatic developments in information technology and seeks to bring their benefits effectively to the organisation.

Many different types of people have contributed to the developments:

•  The social dynamics of Knowledge Management is analysed by Southon and Todd  "KM - A Social Perspective"

•  Yogesh Malhotra provides a rather discursive account of the development of knowledge management.More recently, Yogesh Malhotra critiques the dominant technical approach to Knowledge Management, arguing for a more sophisticated appreciation of the subjective and social perspectives of knowledge.
" Knowledge Management for the New World of Business"

•  Karl-Erik Sveiby provides a crisper, more business-like outline of the character of Knowledge Management identifying the roles of the "Re-engineers", Organisational Theorists, Artificial Intelligence specialists and psychologists. "What is KnowledgeManagement ?"

•  Verna Alle presents a more poetic, human approach, with a "Delightful Dozen" principles to illustrate the point.
"12 principles of Knowledge Management"   "Verna Alle"

•  Warwick University encapsulates some of the key philosophical and research issues "IKON"

•  Carl Frappaolo defines knowledge management in terms of four basic funtions:
externalisation, internalisation, intermediation and cognition. "Knowledge Management by Carl Frappaolo"

•  Marc Demarest defines knowledge management in terms of commercial and economic factors. "Knowledge Management: An Introduction""   "Marc Demarest"


Within this umbrella, however, many different concepts, processes and mechanisms have been incorporated to address the various needs of organisations, representing much scope for very different meanings being given to the term "knowledge management".


Some of the question that arise are:

•  Is knowledge management really a new way of thinking?

•  Is "knowledge management" merely a new form of "information management"?

•  Is "knowledge management" a function or a process?

•  Is there any role for the "knowledge manager"?

•  Can Knowledge Management be applied to smaller organisations, in public services and in the community in general?


Not KNOWLEDGE is power, but KNOWLEDGE MANAGEN means power.
Exactly because of this divided knowledge means double knowledge.Earlier the person who held back information was the most successful.
Today only the person can be successfull, who shares his knowledge the earliest and most intensive way with all his "stakehold".
Otherwise they just care vainly to obtain this knowledge from other resources. This can cause fatal consequences for the own position.

Why will the wheel be stell invented every day?
(basic fact, information in product development is often incomplete, of low quality or inconsistent)

The clear goal is to bring each relevant information on time to the "point of decision".

Knowledge is the productions, competitions and with this the servicefactor that decides about everything.
While this Knowledge can turn up in all kind of forms, we have to devide it every day and every hour, so finally it will be in the right time on the right place:

Always on the actual point of decision.

Under the pressures of competitiveness and the pursuit of higher rates of innovation, business organizations are increasingly keen to exploit "knowledge" as a productive resource. Of course, firms have always exploited knowledge in their productive activities, but this exploitation has historically centred on the knowledge embedded in capital equipment and labour - the management of the R&D function being the most developed aspect of this approach.

In exploiting "intellectual capital", however, firms are seeking to valorise knowledge directly, quite independently of the management of the workforce and the deployment of capital investment. This managerial concern with knowledge has been associated with, and no doubt partially stimulated by, a theoretical re-appraisal of the importance of intangible resources in securing business competitiveness. The development of the resource-based theory of the firm has provided powerful evidence for the argument that knowledge is a critical resource for organizations. Moreover, at a practical level many large firms have enthusiastically embraced the concept of Knowledge Management and have busily committed themselves to a range of KM initiatives. Their efforts have been further reinforced and legitimised by the official endorsement given by the government for the (EU-Comission) "knowledge economy" which is currently defined as a centrepiece of industrial policy.

There is already ample evidence to suggest that networks are an important ingredient in the exploitation of knowledge.

For example, the role of social networks in facilitating the creation and communication of knowledge has been well recognised since the seminal work of Burns and Stalker (1961) established the importance of "organic" settings for innovation.

And more recent studies of R&D professionals (Kreiner and Schultz, 1993; Appleyard, 1996) have contributed to our understanding of the role of inter-organizational and professional networks in knowledge transfer.

More recently, the development of IT-based communication systems, including the Internet and corporate Intranets, has demanded greater attention to the role of

technological networks in facilitating knowledge flows.

Much of the literature on KM, for instance, is concerned with the use of such systems for capturing, communicating and sharing knowledge.
The possible applications of IT networks are underlined by the experience of pioneering organizations such as Buckman Labs (Pan and Scarbrough) which have used such

networks to enable knowledge-sharing on a global scale.

In exploring the interdependence between the management of knowledge and the development of social and technological networks, this will acknowledge the functional role which such networks play in the exploitation of knowledge. It will also address the institutional fit between network structures and the communication and exchange of knowledge.

It has long been established, for instance, that knowledge is at best a problematic commodity which makes it difficult to transfer through market relations. There is also a recognition that knowledge creation is resistant to hierarchy and may be facilitated by more informal and more open social relationships.

Both of these factors argue for an institutional shift towards network structures as more efficient means of regulating knowledge transfer.

While acknowledging the functional and institutional role of networks in knowledge management, however, this goes on to part company with this stress on the role of networks in capturing knowledge.

It suggests that the development of network relationships is even more important in reconstituting knowledge

- that, in short, network patterns of interaction not only make knowledge more accessible, but change the nature of that which is being accessed. Knowledge is progressively radicalised through the disembedding effect of network arrangements -

becoming not only more amenable to commodification and transfer, but at the same time more distanced from established institutions and dominant constellations of power and value.

In other words, the role of networks in capturing knowledge is actually predicated on their having freed it from previous technological and institutional constraints.
KM reflects the emergence of two related factors which cannot be accommodated within the Scientific Management framework.

–  The first is the emergence of knowledge as a directly productive force in industry.

To quote Castells:

" What characterises the current technological revolution is not the centrality of knowledge and information but the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information processing/communication devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of innovation..... New information technologies are not simply tools to be applied but processes to be developed. Users and doers may become the same...... For the first time in history, the human mind is a direct productive force, not just a decisive element of a production system ".

(Manuel Castells).

–  Secondly the development of KM reflects the inadequacy of attempts to manage knowledge through conventional forms of the division of labour.

Not only has the division of labour become more fluid and "de-differentiated" as a result of technological and organizational changes, but advances in the codification and communication of knowledge have tended to increase its rate of flow, detaching it from particular social structures. If the rise of KM is a reasonable index of the growing importance which managers attach to knowledge, it is by no means a guarantee of success in their attempts to do so - not least because knowledge is a problematic target for management action.

As a concept, knowledge has an amorphous and enigmatic quality - encouraging countless taxonomies, yet resisting more forensic examination. In the recent literature, two major interpretations have emerged which offer markedly different definitions of knowledge.

One interpretation views knowledge in traditional epistemological terms, relating it to the validation of information or beliefs.
Thus Nonaka reverts to the classical definition of "justified, true belief",   while Liebeskind similarly opts for " information whose validity has been established through tests of proof" (Liebeskind). In contrast, other authors have rejected this as a positivist approach, and have focussed instead on the embeddedness of knowledge, linking it to action (Spender), within particular contexts (Tsoukas)

In broad terms, these different approaches can be viewed as embracing a "content" versus a "relational" theory of knowledge. In other words, the first tends to emphasize the substantive, cognitive qualities of knowledge whereas the second focuses on the embeddedness of knowledge within particular patterns of social relations.

Networks and the exploitation of knowledge.

The relevance of the network metaphor to knowledge management has to do with its ability to evoke the institutional and organizational changes which have helped to re-constitute knowledge by changing the conditions of knowing. One of the most important of these institutional changes has been the decline of the professional-bureaucratic organization as the primary means of knowledge exploitation. The advent of process-based forms and interdisciplinary teamworking together with the "marketization"(Whalley, 1986) and outsourcing of professional work in areas such as R&D and IT functions, has greatly challenged the professional division of labour within organizations. At the same time, institutional innovations, particularly the development of supply chain relationships have emerged to change the relationships within and between firms.

Firms themselves become more network-like and less hierarchical in their structures (Castells) and their relationships with other firms are more integrated. Very often these institutional innovations have been facilitated by the use of IT systems.

The latter allow the compression of time and space and further enable the abstraction of knowledge from particular social and temporal settings. The importance of these changes for the management of knowledge lies precisely in the changing context. With the decline of professional functions, knowledge is no longer the property of particular groups.

This means that the acquisition and application of knowledge is less constrained by professional boundaries, but also less informed by professional norms and values.

•  Knowledge is relativized- defined as valid in relation to particular tasks rather than to universal norms or standards.

•  Knowledge is radicalized - the political implications of knowledge become more fluid and contingent and new power configurations are created.

•  Knowledge is collectivized - IT networks make the knowledge of groups and individuals readily available to others. In Lyotard’s (1984) terms, knowledge is exteriorised to the knower.

Manuel Castells (1996) :

"Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies....the new information technology paradigm provides the material basis for its pervasive expansion throughout the entire social structure.....this networking logic induces a social determination of a higher level than that of the specific social interests expressed through the networks; the power of flows takes precedence over the flows of power."

–  The Internet, for instance, offers almost unbounded opportunities for the diffusion of ideas and information.

–  One million new pages are added to the World Wide Web every day, with little or no regulation of content.

The management of knowledge needs to be studied in terms of historically-specific changes in the social and organizational context which allow knowledge to be deployed as an organizational resource. In the current period, the erosion of traditional institutional controls and the development of inter-organizational and IT-based networks has created a new ecology for the production and consumption of knowledge. Although such networks are often viewed instrumentally as means of capturing knowledge, the analysis has emphasised their role in re-constituting knowledge. As a critical moment in the dynamic of organizational change and restructuring, the open-endedness and fluidity of network relationships helps to create the conditions for new ways of knowing to replace more established, disciplinary forms of knowledge. This occurs, firstly, through the reflexivity of managers as the framing effect of new network arrangements brings about interpretive shifts within the organization. And secondly, this occurs through the isomorphic implications of inter-organizational arrangements, as organizations attune themselves more closely to the behaviour of their peers.

The Knowledgeable Web will enable intelligent services such as information brokers, search agents, information filters etc.
Ontologies will play a crucial role in enabling the processing and sharing of knowledge between programs on the Web.
Ontologies are generally defined as a "representation of a shared conceptualisation of a particular domain".

They provide a shared and common understanding of a domain that can be communicated across people and application systems.

An example of the use of ontologies on the Knowledgeable Web is in e-commerce sites where ontologies are needed.

•  to enable machine-based communication between buyer and seller.

•  to enable vertical integration of markets (e.g. www.verticalnet.com)

•  to leverage reusable descriptions between different marketplaces.

A second example of the use of ontologies can be found in search engines.
By using ontologies the search engines can escape from the current keyword-based approach, and can find pages that contain syntactically different, but semantically similar words (e.g. www.hotbot.com)

Gray Southon:   University of Technology, Sydney

We find that there are many different interpretations and perspectives varying from computing applications to a new philosophy of management, and include technical, cultural, structural and human issues. Knowledge itself is difficult to define, and many people have problems with the idea of managing it. However, knowledge management provides an umbrella that enables links between many activities that have been largely isolated in the past, and a more holistic view of knowledge related processes.

Verna Allee

"When we use the term knowledge in regard to enterprise, we usually mean experience, concepts, values, beliefs and ways of working that can be shared and communicated. Knowledge management means attending to processes for creating, sustaining, applying, sharing and renewing knowledge to enhance organizational performance and create value. We actually prefer the term leveraging knowledge since "managing" is an industrial age term that is too related to the word "control." Knowledge is a different type of resource that requires new thinking and new approaches".

Aischylos , 525 - 456 v. Chr

"Useful Knowledge makes one more intelligent than lots of knowledge".

Romano Prodi    Former President of the European Comission.

"These changes, the most significant since the Industrial revolution, are far-reaching and global. They are not just about technology. They will affect everyone, everywhere. Managing this transformation represents one of the central economic and social challenges facing Europe today...".

"Knowledge Management is a group process which combines the human domain of knowledge (tacit and explicit)...
with the object domain of information and data... for the purpose of creating value (market or culture)".
–  International Data Corporation   –

" Knowledge management is a system that brokers the dynamic between information resources and
the needs of end users across the enterprise in real time ".

trennlinie

"Knowledge is manageable only insofar as leaders embrace and foster the dynamism of knowledge creation"
Knowledge cannot be managed - only the space in which it is created.

–  " Ikujiro Nonaka " University of California at Berkeley, USA –

trennlinie

blue_up7. References.

–   Communication Theory/Network Society

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Among the numerous scholars trying to define this new society, Manuel Castells is the most foremost and unique, in terms of at least two aspects:

Firstly, he is an incredibly prolific and energetic theorist on the subject of the information age.

He has written over twenty books, published over one hundred academic journal articles, and co-authored over fifteen books.

He is currently a professor of Sociology and City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.

–   Manuel Castells

The rise of the network society ”, Blackwell Publishers, Inc. Cambridge, MA, USA (1996)   (ISBN:1557866171)

ABSTRACT

From the Publisher:

This ambitious book is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information.
Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.

The global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication.
These flows order and condition both consumption and production.

The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures.

Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives enormous power to those in a position to control them to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable.

Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and application. He examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He points out that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40: many economies can do without a third or more of their people. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may be less mass unemployment than the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented socialstructure.

The author concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological change on mass media culture ("the culture of real virtuality"), on urban life, global politics, and the nature of time and history. Written by one of the worlds leading social thinkers and researchers The Rise of the Network Society is the first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change.
It is a work of outstanding penetration, originality, and importance.

–   Ikujiro Nonaka

“  The knowledge-creating company. ”  PDF Version.

–   Julia Porter Liebeskind

“  Knowledge, Strategy, and the Theory of the Firm. ”
  Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17, Special Issue: Knowledge and the Firm (Winter, 1996)

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that firms have particular institutional capabilities that allow them to protect knowledge from expropriation and imitation more effectively than market contracting. I argue that it is these generalized institutional capabilities that allow firms to generate and protect the unique resources and capabilities that are central to the strategic theory of the firm

–  J.-C. Spender – Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, USA

“ Organizational knowledge, learning and memory: Three concepts in search of a theory  ”
Journal of Organizational Change Management ISSN: 0953-4814

ABSTRACT

There is much interest in organizational knowledge following the recognition of its strategic place in inter-firm competition, but there is no adequate theory of such knowledge, or of its acquisition, storage and application. Penrose's (1959) theory of the growth of the firm, Nelson and Winter's (1982) evolutionary economics, and the gestalt notions of discontinuous perceptual change taken from Lewin (1935), still define the cutting edge of the learning and knowledge-based approaches to the firm. Compared with these field-shaping works, the recent literature on organizational knowledge, learning and memory seems inconclusive. Takes a new start from the Jamesian distinction between knowing what and knowing how, and the Durkheimian distinction between individual and social forms of knowledge.
The resulting pluralistic organizational epistemology implies a dynamic theory of the firm as a dialectical system of knowledge processes.

–  Haridimos Tsoukas

The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System: A Constructionist Approach

Published by: John Wiley & Sons

ABSTRACT

The organizational problem firms face is the utilization of knowledge which is not, and cannot be, known by a single agent. Even more importantly, no single agent can fully specify in advance what kind of practical knowledge is going to be relevant, when and where. Firms, therefore, are distributed knowledge systems in a strong sense: they are decentered systems, lacking an overseeing `mind'.
The knowledge they need to draw upon is inherently indeterminate and continually emerging, it is not self-contained Individuals' stock of knowledge consists of
(a) role-related normative expectations;
(b) dispositions,which have been formed in the course of past socializations; and
(c) local knowledge of particular circumstances of time and place.
A firm has greater-or-lesser control over normative expectations, but very limited control over the other two At any point in time, a firm's knowledge is the indeterminate outcome of individuals attempting to manage the inevitable tensions between normative expectations, dispositions, and local contexts

–   Yogesh Malhotra,Ph.D.

From Information Management to Knowledge Management: Beyond the "Hi-Tech Hidebound" Systems.

–  Harry Scarbrough,

Leicester University Management Centre, University Rd., Leicester, LE1 7RH, and

Jacky Swan

Warwick Business School ,  IKON ,  The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.   Email: <jacky.swan@wbs.ac.uk>

Knowledge Management and the Management Fashion perspective(1999)

Refereed Paper submitted to the British Academy of Management Conference, ‘Managing Diversity’, Manchester, 1-3 September, 1999.

–  Harry Scarbrough,

Business Process Re-design: The knowledge dimension”  (November 1996).

Warwick Business School ,  IKON ,  The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.   [OpenSIGLE]

–  Donald MacLean and Robert MacIntosh,

Conditioned Emergence: “ An Approach to Transformation Using Business Process Re-engineering and Organisational Learning ”

Paper for British Academy of Management Conference 1997.

University of Glasgow, Department of Management Studies, 53-59 Southpark Avenue, Glasgow , G12 8LF, UK.

–  Harry Scarbrough,

“Network Nirvana: The management of knowledge in the postmodern organization.”

This Working Paper was first presented at the British Academy of Management Conference, September 1999, Manchester.

University of Leicester Management Centre. Leicester LE1 7RH

–  Alun Preece, Alan Flett, Derek Sleeman, David Curry, Nigel Meany, and Phil Perry,

“Better Knowledge Management through Knowledge Engineering.” - January/February 2001

IEEE Digital Library ]   –  [  CSDigital Library ]   –  [  acmPORTAL ]

–  Dave Carlson,

Harnessing the Flow of Knowledge.

Ontogenics Corp.

–  Rob Jasper and Mike Uschold,

Enabling Task Centered Knowledge Support through Semantic Markup.

Boeing Phantom Works.

–  Daniel E. O’Leary,   University of Southern California

Rudi Studer,   Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe

Knowledge Management: An Interdisciplinary Approach.” - Jan-Feb 2001

IEEE Digital Library ]  - [ Schloss Dagstuhl-Seminare ]

–  Steffen Staab and Rudi StuderHans-Peter SchnurrYork Sure,

Knowledge Processes and Ontologies.” November 29, 2000.

Institute AIFB-University of Karlsruhe and Ontoprise GmbH. acmPORTAL ]

–  Frank van Harmelen    Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and

Dieter Fensel,    AIFB, University of Karlsruhe.

Practical Knowledge Representation for the Web.”   [ PDF Vers.]

IJCAI’99 Workshop on Intelligent Information Integration

–  Enrico Motta

Enabling Knowledge Creation and Sharing on the Web.

Knowledge Media Institute-The Open University, UK.

SpringerLink ]   –  [ acmPORTAL ]

–  Gerhard Fischer and Jonathan Ostwald (Jan./Feb. 2001), (Hal Eden April 5, 2004)

Knowledge Management:Problems,Promises,Realities, and Challenges. CSDigital Library ]

University of Colorado.

–  Daniel E. O’Leary

How Knowledge Reuse Informs Effective System Design and Implementation.” - Jan-Feb 2001

University of Southern California.

CSDigital Library ]  –  [ acmPORTAL ]

–   Yogesh Malhotra,Ph.D.

Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance:Advancing Information Strategy to ‘Internet Time’.

-  Yogesh Malhotra,Ph.D.  - Knowledge Management for the New World of Business. @Brint.com

-  Gray Southon has a PhD in Physics and an M Comm in organisational behaviour and information systems. He has worked in medical physics, informatics and IT areas in health, and has written extensively on informatics and health management topics. He established the knowledge management program at the Department of Information Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, which included a website, a discussion group and a research program. His focus has been the interpretation of knowledge management for the information profession. He is now a consultant in knowledge management and an honorary research associate at UTS.
He has written several papers on the teaching and practice of knowledge management. E-mail: Gray Southon

- Dr. Ross J Todd is visiting associate professor School of Communication, Library and Information Studies at Rutgers,
The State University of New Jersey 4 Huntington Street New Brunswick New Jersey 08901 US. E-mail:Dr Ross J Todd

–  arrw01_56a   References:  Knowledge management  – Knowledge and vision –.

TOP-Content7a. References:

Global Engineering Networks. GEN Projects.   (EU IST project)

For implementing the visions and concepts of global engineering networks, various GEN projects are currently running and further are in the proposal phase.In the following, we outline some of them and show which aspects of a global engineering network they are elaborating.

GENIAL   –  (EU project) realises the basic infrastructure for Global Engineering Networks.  –

The GENIAL clients allow to uniformly search for engineering information according to engineering classifications, parameters and/or keywords.

Moreover they allow to dynamically extend (further) classifications and data, even the coupling of existing data sources is possible.

A cooperation layer couples the various data sources which can be distributed world-wide and provides a uniform access (CORBA) interface.

This basic infrastructure is already validated in first pilots from electrical, mechanical and construction engineering.

•   GENIAL consortium

•   Business Cases

•   Benefits

•   Standardisation

•   ANTEROS

•   Conference Papers  More detailled information on results of the GENIAL project....

GENIS   –  (EU project) identifies from the various GEN project aspects for standardisation...  –

and prepares submissions to standardisation bodies such as W3C, OMG and IEC.

An associated CEN workshop discusses already in a wider audience the standardisation proposals and should reach CEN workshop standards.

If you are interested to be invited to the kickoff CEN workshop please send a mail .

•   CEN/ISSS Workshop on Global Engineering Networking (GEN-WS)

•  GENIS Standardisation, Recommendation and State-of-the-Art Map (Executive Summary)

•   GENIS Standardisation, Recommendation and State-of-the-Art Map 2000

PROCAT - GEN   –  (EU project) realises product catalogues for Global Engineering Networks.  –

The first phase already prepared an analysis on the market potential of offering electronic multimedia product catalogues in GEN and
how to efficiently employ them in complex intra- and inter-company relationships.

The second phase develops engineering knowledge bases and catalogues using multimedia techniques.

These include publishing, dissemination and retrieval of product information stored in these catalogues.

The intelligent access to the distributed catalogue information is realised by the infrastructure realised in the GENIAL project.

GENElektronik   –  (National German project) integrates services like calculation and simulation programs into GEN  –

The services are focused on a sub-domain of electrical engineering: Electro-Magnetic Compatibility.

The basic infrastructure from the GENIAL project is used to manage meta information on the services (like parameters, where located).

Specific clients for the easy search and call of services is added to this infrastructure.

BRAIN   –  (BMBF Projekt) realises a distributed marketplace for the maschinery and plant industry.  –

The basic infrastructure from the GENIAL project is used and extended to manage meta information on reference plants,
machines but also on products.

The association VDMA and the member companies Leitz, Homag, Siemelkamp and Eloterm participate as users in the project,
IAO and Siemens as technology provider.

ECC   –  (National Finland project) realises an engineering network for the Finish SMEs in the electronics sector.  –

The first phase analyses the content, ist structure, which engineering classifications and what are the processes using the content.

The next phase then couples the content to the basic infrastructure of GENIAL and makes all information easily and uniformly accessible.

trennlinie

PAN EUROPEAN - INTERCONNECTED KNOWLEDGE POOLS - ENGINEERING NETWORKING.  (MS-Word Format)

A federated STEP based - Systems Engineering -

Semantic Web based Services/Semantic Community Knowledge Web Portals EU/SME.

"e-Learning" Digital Library and Grid technology.

" COOPERATE PLUS"  (MS-Word Format)

"LEONARDO DA VINCI" Community Vocational Training Action Programme-

in the field of IT & C and CAD/CAM for young professionals to develop teleworking projects.

TOP-Content TOP.

ENGINEERING
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CONSULTING


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