ABSTRACT:
SEVERAL PAPERS OPENING THE PRESENT ISSUE RELATE TO ORGANIZATIONAL knowledge management. Information systems that offer support in this area, known as knowledge management systems, have become possible with the growing capabilities of computer systems and, in particular, with exponentially expanding connectivity among them. This support has become necessary as organizational knowledge has been recognized to be a principal source of competitive advantage. A broad organizational initiative is called for in leveraging knowledge to achieve strategic goals. Knowledge management has been defined as the development and operation of organizational methods, procedures, and information systems that are used to collect and share the knowledge and experience of the members of the organization, as well as to elaborate and disseminate external knowledge, and to bring this knowledge to bear on problems and opportunities [5].
Corporate knowledge spans a vast area that covers, among other things, know-how, much of it in the realm of tacit knowledge, the distributed stores of electronic documents, and intellectual property. Companies in different lines of business, such as Arthur Andersen, Monsanto, and Buckman Labs, have become exemplars in strategically deploying knowledge management with extensive information system support. A vast array of software products for the purpose have come to the market. Various products in this category enable corporate knowledge portals, tap into the enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to provide the knowledge needed to carry out business processes, provide access to firms' experts by expertise profiling, automatically tag, classify, and index electronic documents to make them available over intranets, organize group memories, and serve myriad other tasks that integrate the networks of organizational knowledge. Yet software products do not knowledge management make, as our definition given above will tell you. Much thinking about organizational knowledge as a resource, possibly reflected on balance sheets [2], and much system thinking and information system building needs to be done.
The Special Section devoted to data mining, whose Guest Editors are H. Michael Chung and Paul Gray, highlights the techniques that can lead to the discovery of new elements of organizational knowledge from databases. The three papers included in the Special Section make distinct contributions here. The first of them offers a prototype system that assists users in hypothesizing relationships among data in databases and in obtaining an initial indication of the hypotheses validity, and thus in potentially expanding the organizational store of knowledge if the hypotheses are later verified. The second paper studies the adequacy of the well-known data-classification methods for the data that belong to multiple categories. The final paper of the section uses a data-mining approach to develop bankruptcy prediction models suitable, respectively, for a normally operating economy and for crisis conditions prevailing recently in some parts of the world; the predictions are accompanied by an explanation of conclusions, which knowledge is highly useful to financing institutions. In their introduction, the Special Section Guest Editors offer a fine introduction indeed both to the data mining and to the research on the subject. Recent market valuation of companies with vast data warehouses available for data mining tells us about its strategic importance [1].
In the paper that opens the general section of the issue, Timo K. K„k"l„ and Kalle I. Koota present a conceptual design and a prototype of an information system expressly developed from the standpoint of supporting the creation of organizational knowledge and fostering double-loop learning. The paper is deeply rooted in philosophical and other theoretical work that it invokes-it is indeed a paper with a point of view. The work specifies and exemplifies with a prototype the design principles of an information system that would facilitate the sharing of organizational knowledge about work processes and refining it during the reflective practice with the use of the system. This raises the bar for higher-level performance in the future. The authors also discuss the tenets of a knowledge-based organization that would benefit most from such an information system and of the methods for work-process benchmarking that would serve to continually ratchet up the organization's performance.
The work in the area of knowledge management overlaps with that on the information system support for organizational memory. An organization may develop an Organizational Memory Information System (OMIS) to manage its own appropriated knowledge effectively in all its aspects. The underpinning of an OMIS is a broad design theory, grounded in the competing values model of organizational effectiveness, within which many contingency-dependent implementations are possible [4]. The process of an OMIS development can take many paths; indeed, considering the nature of the system and the fact that it emerges over a long period of time, it would be surprising if any two such trajectories coincided. Nevertheless, in his paper, Fons Wijnhoven is able to identify several variables that form an origin of a contingency-based theory of OMIS development. He partly induces this contingency framework from the analysis of three cases. Wijnhoven also discusses the relationships between the support of organizational memory and knowledge management.
Taken together, the above papers make a collective contribution to help us think about the information system support for organizational knowledge management more conceptually, yet without departing from the organizational realities.
In the next paper, Magid Igbaria and Tor Guimaraes empirically compare the intentions of telecommuters and those of office dwellers to quit their job. The authors develop a research model that relates job stressors to the overall satisfaction levels, and thus to the turnover intention. With information technology the essential enabler in telecommuting, the results the authors obtain are both interesting theoretically and highly relevant to MIS managers' thinking.
Surinder S. Kahai and Randolph B. Cooper study the effect of the use of computer-mediated communication systems, a class of information systems that includes group support systems, on the outcome of a group process. More specifically, they study the effect of the aspects surrounding the problem-solving communication on the agreement ("yes, I want this") or acceptance ("OK, I will go along for now") by participants. The difference between the two attitudes with respect to the implementation of a decision is clear. This work helps us draw certain conclusions as to how to promote a true agreement rather than end up with acquiescence and possible subversion of a decision through counterimplemention.
The paper by Choong Nyoung Kim and Raymond McLeod, Jr., makes a contribution to the area of expert modeling, that is, modeling how decisions are made by a human expert. The authors compare the performance of several models with that of human experts and analyze the results with respect to predictive validity innovatively using a concept of the validity of the decision strategy. This work can lead to a further refinement of expert-system performance.
The adoption of technologies in less-developed countries (LDCs) is heavily dependent on the role that these countries' institutions, as well as the international community, play-or fail to play. Ramiro Montealegre empirically validates a temporal model of institutional intervention in the adoption of information technologies in LDCs derived from [3]. Montealegre analyzes the process of the adoption of the Internet in four Latin American countries. He introduces a convincing argument that a number of deficiencies that would appear inevitably to delay such an adoption can in fact be overcome if a number of right institutional actions are undertaken. This is certainly a word to the wise.
As the Journal enters its sixteenth year of publication, which will bring us into a new millenium to boot, it is my pleasure and privilege to uphold our tradition and thank the Editorial Board, authors, readers, and technical editors of JMIS for their contribution. As always, particular thanks are offered to the Journal's reviewers, who are the primary guarantors of its quality.
These are the referees of the Journal of Management Information Systems:
Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid
Ritu Agarwal
Pervaiz Alam
Murugan Anandarajan
Urton Anderson
Lynda M. Applegate
Gad Ariav
Yiorgos D. Athanassatos
Paul Attewell
Barbro Back
Yannis Bakos
P.R. Balasubramanian
Dirk Baldwin
Dinesh Batra
Salvatore Belardo
Michael Benaroch
Francois Bergeron
Bijoy Bordoloi
Bruce E. Breeding
Carol V. Brown
Robert M. Brown
Terry A. Byrd
Anthony G. Cahill
Edward G. Cale, Jr.
John V. Carlis
Judith Carlisle
Sven Carlsson
Erran Carmel
Houston H. Carr
William J. Carroll
Robert P. Cerveny
Patrick Chau
Hong-Mei Chen
Minder Chen
Hsing Kenneth Cheng
Robert T.H. Chi
Roger Chiang
William C. Chismar
Jong-min Choe
Joobin Choobineh
H. Michael Chung
Jon D. Clark
Roger Clarke
Sue Conger
Randy Cooper
Timothy P. Cronan
David C. Croson
Paul Cule
Ronald Dattero
Donald L. Davis
Alan Dennis
Sandra Dewitz
Ali Dogramaci
Brian L. Dos Santos
Peter Duchessi
Phillip Ein-Dor
Omar A. El Sawy
Gregg Elofson
Hyun B. Eom
Steven Feiner
Kirk Fiedler
Jerry Fjermestad
Michael Flam
Steven W. Floyd
Edward Fox
Nelson Fraiman
Richard Furuta
Michael J. Gallivan
Edward J. Garrity
Bezalel Gavish
Erol Gelenbe
Mark Ginsburg
Janis L. Gogan
Jerry Golub
Martin D. Goslar
Paul Gray
Gary I. Green
Saul Greenberg
Robert K. Griffin
Michael D. Grigoriades
Varun Grover
Tor Guimaraes
Jatinder N.D. Gupta
Joanne E. Hale
Jacob Hagouel
Il-Horn Hann
Paul Hart
Stephen Hayne
Roxanne Starr Hiltz
Rudy Hirschheim
Lorin M. Hitt
Richard Hoffman
Qing Hu
Cary T. Hughes
Ard Huizing
E. Gerald Hurst
Tomasz Imielinski
Gretchen I. Irwin
Tomas Isakowitz
Bharat A. Jain
Marius A. Janson
Matthias Jarke
Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa
Per V. Jenster
Linda Ellis Johnson
Roy Jones
Stef Joosten
Kailash Joshi
Charles Kacmar
Surinder Kahai
Timo Kakola
Ajit Kambil
P.K. Kannan
Jahangir Karimi
Michael Kattan
Mark Keil
Robert T. Keim
Chris Kemerer
Julie E. Kendall
William J. Kettinger
Omar E.M. Khalil
Melody Y. Kiang
Ruth C. King
Gary Klein
Esther Koster
Kenneth A. Kozar
Ramayya Krishnan
Uday Kulkarni
Ram Kumar
Mary C. Lacity
Simon S.K. Lam
Gwynne Larsen
Tor J. Larsen
Heeseok Lee
Ho Geun Lee
Jungwoo Lee
Dorothy Leidner
Richard Leifer
Mary Jane Lenard
Hugo Levecq
Ting-Peng Liang
Jack M. Ligon
Yihwa Irene Liou
Astrid Lipp
Henry C. Lucas, Jr.
Kalle Lyytinen
William McCarthy
Jane M. Mackay
Roy McKelvey
Ephraim R. McLean
Poppy L. McLeod
Gregory Madey
Simha R. Magal
Mo A. Mahmood
David Maier
Ji-Ye Mao
Salvatore T. March
Anne P. Massey
Charles H. Mawhinney
Roberto J. Mejias
Robert Minch
Shaila Miranda
Rajesh Mirani
William H. Money
Ali R. Montazemi
Janette Moody
Ajay S. Mookerjee
Scott Moore
Michael D. Myers
Kathleen Mykytyn
Peter P. Mykytyn, Jr.
Barin N. Nag
Murli Nagasundaram
R. Ryan Nelson
Boon Siong Neo
Rosalie Ocker
Lorne Olfman
James Oliver
Levent Orman
Richard Orwig
Jonathan W. Palmer
Raymond R. Panko
Lee Papayanopoulos
Michael Parent
Diane Parente
Daniel Pariveni
Kenneth Peffers
Norman Pendegraft
Mark Pendergast
Roger A. Pick
Leo L. Pipino
Robert Plant
Steven Poltrock
Gerald Post
Jayesh Prasad
G. Premkumar
Sandeep Purao
S. Raghunathan
T.S. Raghunathan
Arik Ragowsky
Arun Rai
Rex Kelly Rainer, Jr.
Sudha Ram
K.S. Raman
B. Ramesh
Richard G. Ramirez
Renu Ramnarayanan
H.R. Rao
R. Ravichandran
T. Ravichandran
Sury Ravindran
Amy W.Ray
Louis Raymond
Paul Resnick
William B. Richmond
Frederick Riggins
Daniel Robey
Michael C. Row
David L. Russell
Young U. Ryu
Timo Saarinen
Rajiv Sabherwal
Sharon Salveter
G. Lawrence Sanders
Radhika Santhanam
John Satzinger
Carol Saunders
Naveed Saleem
George Schell
K.D. Schenk
Irmtraud S. Seeborg
Arie Segev
Kishore Sengupta
Vikram Sethi
Kenneth C. Sevcik
Dennis G. Severance
Theresa M. Shaft
Steven Sheetz
Jim Sheffield
Olivia Sheng
Michael Shields
J.P. Shim
Siew Kien Sia
Mark S. Silver
Atish P. Sinha
Peggy C. Smith
Charles A. Snyder
Eric W. Stein
John M. Stevens
Veda Storey
Ashok Subramanian
Girish Subramanian
Ramesh Subramanian
Ephraim Sudit
Robert T. Sumichrast
Shankar Sunarajan
Arun Sundararajan
Julius Surkis
Edward J. Szewczak
Kar Yan Tam
Bernard C.Y. Tan
Mohan R. Tanniru
Alfred Taudes
David P. Tegarden
James T.C. Teng
Hock-Hai Teo
Thompson Teo
Matthew Thatcher
Ron Thompson
James Y.L. Thong
John Tillquist
Leon van der Torre
Jonathan K. Trower
Duane Truex
Jon A. Turner
Brad Tuttle
Craig K. Tyran
N.S. Umanath
Ari Vepsalainen
Boris S. Verkhovsky
Iris Vessey
Ajay Vinze
Jason Wang
Michael S. Wang
Shouhong Wang
Y. Richard Wang
Yu-ming Wang
Carol Watson
Richard Watson
Mary Beth Watson-Manheim
Aaron Watters
Bruce Weber
Peter Weill
Charles E. Wells
Larry West
J. Christopher Westland
Seungjin Whang
Michael E. Whitman
George Widmeyer
Kristoff K. Wolyniec
Hans Wortmann
Surya B. Yadav
Beck Yang
Chee Sing Yap
Evangelos Yfantis
Ilze Zigurs
Moshe Zviran
I trust you will find the papers interesting.
VLADIMIR ZWASS
Editor-in-Chief
REFERENCES
1. Brannigan, M. Quintiles seeks mother lode in health "data mining." Wall Street Journal (March 2, 1999), B4.
2. Edvinson, L., and Malone, M.S. Intellectual Capital: Realizing Your Company's True Value by Finding Its Hidden Brainpower. New York: HarperBusiness, 1997.
3. King, J.L.; Gurbaxani, V.; Kraemer, K.L.; McFarlan, F.W.; Raman, K.S.; and Yap, C.S. Institutional factors in information technology innovation. Information Systems Research, 5, 2 (June 1994), 139-169.
4. Stein, E.W., and Zwass, V. Actualizing organizational memory with information systems. Information Systems Research, 6, 2 (June 1995), 85-117.
5. Zwass, V. Foundations of Information Systems. Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 1998.
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