4.1 GATEKEEPERS, INFORMATION, STARS,AND BOUNDARY SPANNERS
The seminal work was that of Thomas J. Allen of MIT [Allen and Cohen, 1969, Allen,T.,1977] who conducted a number of studies relating to information flow in industrial and corporate R&Dlaboratories. Allen coined the term ‘Gatekeeper’ to describe the information flow stars that he discovered, the heavily connected nodes in the information flow pattern.
Another finding was that the information flow structure was not at all closely related to the formal organizational structure, and that the information stars did not map onto any consistent pattern of organizational placement or level.
In the context of KM, this tradition relates very directly to the development of Communities of Practice(CoP). Given the relative non-alignment of organizational structure and information flowand sharing,CoPs can be seen as the setting up of an alternative structure to facilitate information flow and sharing.
4.2 RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY AND KNOWLEDGE
The ‘Gatekeepers, Information Stars & Boundary Spanner’ tradition is very consistent with a substantial body of work studying research productivity. Koenig,M. [1992a], for example, in the context of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, studied the relationship between research productivity and the information environment in which that research was conducted.
Note the relationship with with research or project success and corporate culture that relatively egalitarian and enjoys relatively unobtrusive status indicators
There are also, in this overall tradition, two books in recent years that have been very well received and that offer valuable insights about information flow and information use in amodern organizational environment,Davenport and Prusak [1998a] WorkingKnowledge, andBrown and Duguid [2000a] The Social Life of Information.
4.3 LACK OF RECOGNITION OF THESE FINDINGS IN THE BUSINESS COMUNITY
As Allen pointed out in his study, there is a surprising lack of recognition of these findings about the importance of information stars in the business community. This is, in fact, a subset of an even larger problem – the lack of recognition of or even obtuseness to the importance of information and information related managerial actions in the business community. For example, one major study that reviewed a large corpus of work on R&D innovation, [Goldhar et al., 1976], concluded that there are six characteristics of environments that are conducive to technological innovations.
Another similarly rigorous study (Orpen,C.1985) examined productivity in R&D intensive electronics/instrumentation organizations
4.4 COMUNITY BASED MODEL
The idea of Community of Practice [Wenger and Snyder, 1999], which descends logically from the “Gatekeepers, Information Stars, Boundary Spanners” stream of development has been cited frequently as an important knowledge sharing model. Theres many system that no doubt, where systems will be replaced by others as technology advances, and their capabilities and functionality will increase. The system such as ComputerMediated Communication (CMC), GroupDecision Support Systems (GDSSs), and Decision Support Systems (DSS).
4.5 REPOSITORY MODEL
Markus,M. [2001] argues that the purpose and content of knowledge records in repositories often differ depending on who needs the documentation: the content producer, similar others, or dissimilar others. Those in the education and training fields may also see great potential in repository and reuse applications. For example, an entire course can be broken down into chunks with the smaller segments presented as just-in-time training on request.
Financial firms,IT departments,law firms,and other who depend on frequently updated information and new legislative materials are just a few types of organizations that can make good use of the repository and re-use model
4.6 ACTIVITY-BASED MODEL
Engeström, Y. [1999] research, using activity systems as cycles of expansive learning in work practices, also points to the importance of activities as providing the necessary context for grounding organizational knowledge. Hasan, H. [2003] proposed rudiments of a KM system influenced by activity-based models that would link work activities with people and content.Kwan and Balasubramanian(2003) take the notion a step further,they propose the design of a KM system they call Knowledge Scope that provides integrated workflow support to capture a knowledge as an organizational process within the context it is created and used.
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