Organizational memory (OM) is the means by which knowledge from the past is brought to bear on present activities. For effective use of OM, it must be represented in a machine-understandable form, so that man, machine, and OM can work in concert to perform business activities such as problem solving, decision making, workflow management, and organizational learning. To this end, we have developed a knowledge representation scheme that uses a trio of logic, ontology, and computation as knowledge representation constructs, Topic Maps in XML syntax (XTM) and related software tools as the representation technology, and three distinct but closely related ontologies (information, enterprise, and domain ontology) as the operationalized knowledge objects. Based on this knowledge representation scheme, we propose an OM architecture along with a feasible and practical methodology for representing OM to facilitate computer-aided utilization. The methodology has been applied to a laboratory experiment for a provider of knowledge-intensive services dubbed ‘Taiwan's Dun & Bradstreet.’ A field interview indicates that top management endorses the OM architecture and developers confirm the feasibility of the methodology.
P. Drucker , The coming of the new organization , Harvard Business Review66(1) (1988) 45–53 .
2.
L. Arote , B. McEvily and R. Reagans , Managing knowledge in organizations: an integrative framework and review of emerging themes , Management Science49(4)(2003) 571–582 .
3.
D. Chauvel and C. Despres , A review of survey research in knowledge management: 1997–2001 , Journal of Knowledge Management6(3) (2002) 207–223 .
4.
V. Grover and T. Davenport , General perspectives on knowledge management: fostering a research agenda , Journal of Management Information Systems18(1)
5.
M. Alavi and D. Leidner , Review: knowledge management and knowledge management systems: conceptual foundations and research issues , MIS Quarterly25(1)(2001) 107–136 .
6.
C. Holsapple and M. Singh , The knowledge chain model: activities for competitiveness , Expert Systems With Applications20 (2001) 77–98 .
7.
T. Ju , W. Wu and S. Sun , Capturing organizational memory with ISO 9000 processes and Topic Maps . In: R. Behling (ed.), Proceedings of the IACIS Pacific 2005 Conference(IACIS, Stillwater, 2005) 1070–1077 .
8.
J. Wu and J. Liu, Knowledge chain management: emerging models and practices from the field (Unpublished manuscript, 2001) 167–176.
9.
I. Becerra-Fernandez and R. Sabherwal , Organizational knowledge management: a contingency perspective , Journal of Management Information Systems18(1)(2001) 23–55 .
10.
A. Hatami , R. Galliers and J. Huang , Exploring the impacts of knowledge (re)use and organizational memory on the effectiveness of strategic decisions: a longitudinal case study . In: Proceedings of the 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 6–9January 2003 (Computer Society Press,2003).
11.
E. Stein , Organizational memory: review of concepts and recommendations for management , International Journal of Information Management15(2) (1995) 17–32 .
12.
D. Te'eni and H. Weinberger , System development of organizational memory: a literature survey . In: M. Bichler (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Information Systems (AIS, Atlanta, 2000) 219–227 .
13.
M. Ackerman and C. Halverson , Re-examining organizational memory , Communications of the ACM43(1)(2000) 59–64 .
14.
S. Dustdar , Reconciling knowledge management and workflow management systems: the activity-based knowledge management approach . In: Proceedings of I-KNOW 2004 30 June to 2 July 2004, Graz, Austria, 457–464 .
15.
P. Gray , A problem-solving perspective on knowledge management practices , Decision Support Systems31(2001) 87–102 .
16.
D. Hall , D. Paradice and J. Courtney , Building a theoretical foundation for a learning-oriented knowledge management system , Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application5(2) (2003) 63–84 .
17.
C. Holsapple , Knowledge management support of decision-making , Decision Support Systems31(2001) 1–3 .
18.
H. Benbya , G. Passiante and N. Belbaly , Corporate portal: a tool for knowledge management synchronization , International Journal of Information Management24(3) (2004) 201-201 .
19.
J. Vasconcelos , F. Gouveia and C. Kimble , An organisational memory information system using ontologies . In: Proceedings of the 3rd Portugal Conference of Information Systems, November 2002 (2002).
20.
J. Sowa , Knowledge Representation: Logical, Philosophical, and Computational Foundations (Course Technology, Pacific Grove, 1999).
21.
C. Brewster and K. O'Hara , Knowledge representation with ontologies: the present and future, IEEE Intelligent Systems (January/February, 2004) 72–81.
22.
S. Shum , J. Dominigue and E. Motta , Ontology-driven knowledge management: philosophical, modelling and organizational issues. In: R. Roy (ed.), Industrial Knowledge Management: a Micro-level Approach (Springer, London, 2001) 265–280.
23.
S. Staab et al., Knowledge processes and ontologies , IEEE Intelligent Systems16(1) (2001) 26–34 .
24.
M. Uschold and R. Jasper , Ontologies for knowledge management . In: R. Roy (ed.), Industrial Knowledge Management: a Micro-level Approach (Springer-Verlag, London, 2001) 549–563 .
25.
S. Parsons , Knowledge representation (2004). Available at: www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/parsons/course/716-spring-2004/notes/lect13.pdf/ (accessed 21 December 2005).
26.
L. Nonaka , R, Toyama and N. Konno , SECI, Ba and leadership: a unified model of dynamic knowledge creation , Long Range Planning33 (2000) 5–34 .
27.
R. Boland et al., Knowledge representation and transfer , Academy of Management Journal44(2) (2001) 393–417 .
28.
E. Pednault , Representation is everything , Communicatons of the ACM43(8) (2000) 80–83 .
29.
S. Walczak , Knowledge acquisition and knowledge representation with class: the object-oriented paradigm , Expert Systems with Applications15 (1998) 235–244 .
30.
L. Garshol , Metadata? thesauri? taxonomies? Topic Maps! Making sense of it all , Journal of Information Science30(4) (2004) 378–391 .
31.
L. Garshol , Living with Topic Maps and RDF (2003). Available at: www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tmrdf.html (accessed 21 December 2005).
32.
T. Bray et al. (eds), Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Third Edition), World Wide Web Consortium (2004–02–04). Available at: www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204 (accessed 21 December 2005).
33.
S. Pepper and G. Moore (eds), XML Topic Maps (XTM) 1.0, TopicMaps.Org (2001–08–06). Available at: www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/xtm1–20010806.html (accessed 18 December 2005).
34.
L. Garshol and G. Moore (eds), ISO 13250–3, Topic Maps–Part 3: XML Syntax, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 (2005–07–20).
35.
L. Garshol and R. Barta (eds), ISO 18048: Topic Maps Query Language, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 (2005–02–18).
36.
O. Carla and G. Jackson , If Only We Knew What We Know: the Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice ( Free Press, New York , 1998).
37.
Y. Mei , S. Lee and S. Al-Hawamdeh , Formulating a communication strategy for effective knowledge sharing , Journal of Information Science30(1) (2004) 12–22 .
38.
K. Bartol and A. Srivastava , Encouraging knowledge sharing: the role of organizational reward systems , Journal of Leadership and Organization Studies9(1)(2002) 64–76 .
39.
N. Dixon , Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know ( Harvard Business Press, Boston , 2000).
40.
J. Gunnlaugsdottir , Seek and you will find, share and you will benefit: organising knowledge using groupware systems , International Journal of Information Management23(5) (2003) 363-363 .
41.
A. Kankanhalli , B. Tan and K. Wei , Contributing knowledge to electronic knowledge repositories: an empirical investigation , MIS Quarterly29(1) (2005) 113–143 .
42.
D. Levin , R. Cross , L. Abrams and E. Lesser , Trust and Knowledge Sharing: a Critical Combination ( IBM Institute for Knowledge-Based Organizations, Cambridge, MA , 2002).
43.
M. Wasko and S. Faraj , Why should I share? Examining social capital and knowledge contribution in electronic networks of practice , MIS Quarterly29(1) (2005) 35–57 .
44.
J. Davies , D. Fensel and F. van Harnelen , Towards the Semantic Web: Ontology-driven Knowledge Management ( Wiley, West Sussex , 2003).
45.
N. Dixon , The neglected receiver of knowledge sharing , Ivey Business Journal66(4) (2002) 35–40 .
46.
D. Fensel , F. Baader , M. Rousset and H. Wache, Heterogeneous information resources need semantic access , Data & Knowledge Engineering36 (2001) 211–213 .
47.
S. Fernie , S. Green , S. Weller and R. Newcombe , Knowledge sharing: context, confusion and controversy , International Journal of Project Management21 (2003) 177–187 .
48.
F. Correa da Silva , W. Vasconcelos , D. Robertson , V. Brilhante , A. de Melo , M. Fingrer and J. Agusti , On the insufficiency of ontologies: problems in knowledge sharing and alternative solutions , Knowledge-Based Systems15 (2002) 147–167 .
49.
R. Maier and U. Remus , Defining process-oriented knowledge management strategies , Knowledge and Process Management9(2) (2002) 103–118 .
50.
R. Maier and U. Remus , Implementing process-oriented knowledge management strategies , Journal of Knowledge Management7(4) (2003) 62–74 .
51.
M. Kwan and P. Balasubramanian , Knowledge-scope: managing knowledge in context , Decision Support Systems35 (2003) 467–486 .
52.
B. Abecker et al., Toward a technology for organizational memories , IEEE Intelligent Systems13(3) (1998) 40–48 .
53.
S. Pepper and L. Garshol , The XML papers: lessons on applying Topic Maps, XML 2002 Proceedings (2002). Available at: www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/xmlconf.html (accessed 21 December 2005).
54.
L. van Elst and A. Abecker , Ontologies for information management: balancing formality, stability, and sharing scope, Expert Systems with Applications23 (2002) 357–366 .
55.
D. Croasdell , M. Jennex , Z. Yu and T. Christianson , A meta-analysis of methodologies for research in knowledge management, organizational learning and organizational memory: five years at HICSS . In: Proceedings of the 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 6–9January 2003 (Computer Society Press, 2003).
56.
S. Chou and S. Wang , Quantifying ‘ba’: an investigation of the variables that are pertinent to knowledge creation , Journal of Information Science29(3) (2003) 167–180 .
57.
M. Pinto , Engineering the production of meta-information: the abstracting concern , Journal of Information Science29(5) (2003) 405–17 .
58.
Techquila , The Topic Maps Engine for Java (2004). Available at: www.techquila.com/tm4j.html/ (accessed 21 December 2005).
59.
Ontopia , The Ontopia Knowledge Suite. Available at: www.ontopia.net/solutions/products.html (accessed 21 December 2005).
G. Huang, Toward a general purpose expert system based on XTM-encoded expert knowledge (Unpublished Masters Thesis [in Chinese], National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. 2005).
62.
I. Hatzilygeroudis , Integrating (rules, neural networks) and cases for knowledge representation and reasoning in expert systems , Expert Systems with Applications27(1) (2004) 63–75 .
