From global knowledge management to internal electronic fences: contradictory outcomes of intranet development
From global knowledge management to internal electronic fences: contradictory outcomes of intranet development
复制标题
从全球知识管理到内部电子围栏：内联网发展的矛盾结果
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2001
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Swan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Newell;H. Scarbrough;J. Swan
本文认为，采用内联网技术作为一种工具，鼓励组织范围内的知识共享的一个大型，全球性的银行。具有讽刺意味的是，采用内部网的结果是，内部网实际上帮助加强了现有的功能和国家边界与“电子围栏”，而不是整合整个特定组织的个人。部分原因是银行内部历来强调权力下放，这形成并限制了内联网作为全组织范围的集中化工具的使用。这是可能的，因为内联网可以被描述为一种互动和分散的技术，因此具有多种解释和影响的潜力。因此，虽然内联网往往被宣传为一种能够促进通信、协作和社会协调进程的技术，但它也有可能使这些进程失去能力。此外，有人认为，要发展一个知识共享的内联网，就需要把重点放在发展的三个不同方面。这些不同的方面可能需要非常不同的，有时是相互矛盾的，用于融合技术和组织的策略集，从而使项目团队很难同时在所有三个方面有效地工作。事实证明，所审议的独立的内联网实施项目中，没有一个实际上能够鼓励按计划进行知识共享，即使是在设计该项目时所针对的相对同质的群体内也是如此。在更广泛的组织范围内进行更广泛的知识共享，甚至在那些从事所谓“知识管理”项目的人中间也没有发生。一个自相矛盾的现象是，在知识管理是主要目标的情况下，通过内联网技术分享知识可能最难实现。
This paper considers the adoption of intranet technology as a vehicle for encouraging organization-wide knowledge sharing within a large, global bank. Ironically, the outcome of intranet adoption was that, rather than integrate individuals across this particular organization, the intranet actually helped to reinforce the existing functional and national boundaries with ‘electronic fences’. This could be partly explained by the historical emphasis on decentralization within the bank, which shaped and limited the use of the intranet as a centralizing, organization-wide tool. This is possible because the intranet can be described as an interactive and decentred technology, which therefore has the potential for multiple interpretations and effects. Thus, while the intranet is often promoted as a technology that enables processes of communication, collaboration and social coordination it also has the potential to disable such processes. Moreover, it is argued that to develop an intranet for knowledgesharing requires a focus on three distinctive facets of development. These different facets may require very different, sometimes contradictory, sets of strategies for blending the technology and the organization, thus making it extremely difficult for a project team to work effectively on all three facets simultaneously. This was evidenced by the fact that none of the independent intranet-implementation projects considered actually managed to encourage knowledge-sharing as intended, even within the relatively homogeneous group for which it was designed. Broader knowledge-sharing across the wider organizational context simply did not occur even among those who were working on what were defined as ‘knowledge management’ projects. A paradox is that knowledge-sharing via intranet technologies may be most difficult to achieve in contexts where knowledge management is the key objective.