**5. Knowledge management approaches**

According to the defined collaboration, knowledge management comes to consolidate the collaborative community and through the client orientation it opens the environment to the necessities and requirements of the clients. The level of interest in knowledge management has grown rapidly during recent years as enterprises recognize that they operate in a knowledge economy and that knowledge is their most valuable asset. At the same time knowledge management theories and technologies have reached the maturity level required for business confidence and endorsement.

#### **5.1 A model for the knowledge management life cycle**

Considering the knowledge management life cycle consisting of phases like (Muntean, 2009):


we present a possible maintenance based on a knowledge portal infrastructure (Figure 6).

Some Collaborative Systems Approaches in Knowledge-Based Environments 387

the strategic objectives of the organization. The main subjects tested are regarding the reliability and performance of the product, the efficiency of the operations and, not last, the security facilities (Lungu, 2003). Auditing the organizational knowledge implies analyzing its impact on decisional processes, the contribution of each piece of knowledge in optimizing business processes, therefore in raising the quality of the products and services offered. At the end of this process, it is possible to have to regenerate some knowledge

Fig. 6. KM lifecycle phases' implementation at the portal level (Kerschberg, 2003)

cultural specific aspects and having an adequate IT infrastructure.

knowledge processing and knowledge management within the enterprise.

1. knowledge management specific to each node (organization);

**5.2 Distributed knowledge management** 

2. coordination of different knowledge nodes.

A collaborative enterprise represents an adequate environment for developing a strategy for a better performance of knowledge management, taking into consideration the social and

The portal provides a new work environment for enterprise knowledge workers, one that is aligned with, and supports and partially automates, their individual and collaborative workflow in creating, distributing and using data, information and knowledge, and in making and implementing decisions and actions (Firestone, 1999). The enterprise knowledge portal (EKP) combines enterprise information portal (EIP) aspects while also capturing tacit knowledge, integrating access to expertise and management application (Firestone, 2002). Giving users one-stop interaction with appropriate intellectual capital, applications and expertise, the EKP speeds innovation and reduces the amount of rework in an organization. EKPs also integrate and support a number of e-business processes that transcend the enterprise. EKPs are themselves eBusiness applications that web-enable

In the global economy, interconnected organizations that forms a collaborative network can be considered, based on their cumulative know-how, to be inter-connected knowledge nodes (KN) (Bonifacio, Bouquet, Cuel, 2000, 2002). In this approach, the collaborative community becomes an environment that must sustain two different kinds of processes:

pieces.

Fig. 5. A Model for KM Life cycle

1. At the portal level, creating new knowledge is possible through acquiring/attaining of some knowledge pieces from the collaborative organizational environment (or even external from the organization), or is a following of some intelligent reasoning made by modules of artificial intelligence incorporated in the portal's architecture. The knowledge created that way is collected and refined to eliminate unjustified redundancies and filtering the ones most "valuable" for the organization.

Creating documents represents a significant percentage of the current activities, so the less time is allocated to this activity, more time will remain for the members of the organization to achieve the other tasks. Therefore, at the portal level, we will have to integrate some instruments that facilitates creating knowledge of a document type, such as: text editors, multimedia, Web pages, images, sounds, video editing systems, spreadsheet editors, graphic programming's.

At the portal level, in the central or distributed knowledge database (meta-base), different kinds of knowledge are coded efficiently, assuring quality, accessibility, and their representativeness with the help of some specific tools/technologies.


Auditing represents a complex activity of verifying the conformity degree of the knowledge database with the standards in that domain, and its capacity to sustain the achievement of

1. At the portal level, creating new knowledge is possible through acquiring/attaining of some knowledge pieces from the collaborative organizational environment (or even external from the organization), or is a following of some intelligent reasoning made by modules of artificial intelligence incorporated in the portal's architecture. The knowledge created that way is collected and refined to eliminate unjustified

Creating documents represents a significant percentage of the current activities, so the less time is allocated to this activity, more time will remain for the members of the organization to achieve the other tasks. Therefore, at the portal level, we will have to integrate some instruments that facilitates creating knowledge of a document type, such as: text editors, multimedia, Web pages, images, sounds, video editing systems,

At the portal level, in the central or distributed knowledge database (meta-base), different kinds of knowledge are coded efficiently, assuring quality, accessibility, and

2. Knowledge can be stored in data warehouses, knowledge databases specific to artificial intelligence, content specific structures or in a documents management system; all these will form the portal knowledge meta-base. One of the forms in which knowledge can be stored is knowledge repository, which stores knowledge that is often text-based and has very different characteristics. It is also referred to as organizational knowledge base. A knowledge repository is not a knowledge base of an expert system, the repository containing all the organizational knowledge, not only the one needed in solving a specific problem. Concordant with the different knowledge storing technologies, we

3. Collaborative tools sustain and facilitate the transfer of knowledge. Some tools and technologies facilitates the use of knowledge: Business Intelligence tools, expert systems, simulations of dynamic complex processes, decision support systems, ERP applications (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relation Management) and other enterprise applications, visualizing tools that permit understanding of some

4. Practice proved that if we don't take into account aspects of economic efficiency, the costs of maintaining the informatics systems are much more that the profit and most of

Auditing represents a complex activity of verifying the conformity degree of the knowledge database with the standards in that domain, and its capacity to sustain the achievement of

redundancies and filtering the ones most "valuable" for the organization.

their representativeness with the help of some specific tools/technologies.

will use specific methods/techniques to access/locate them.

Fig. 5. A Model for KM Life cycle

spreadsheet editors, graphic programming's.

complex knowledge structures, etc.

the time the life cycle reduces drastically.

the strategic objectives of the organization. The main subjects tested are regarding the reliability and performance of the product, the efficiency of the operations and, not last, the security facilities (Lungu, 2003). Auditing the organizational knowledge implies analyzing its impact on decisional processes, the contribution of each piece of knowledge in optimizing business processes, therefore in raising the quality of the products and services offered. At the end of this process, it is possible to have to regenerate some knowledge pieces.

Fig. 6. KM lifecycle phases' implementation at the portal level (Kerschberg, 2003)

A collaborative enterprise represents an adequate environment for developing a strategy for a better performance of knowledge management, taking into consideration the social and cultural specific aspects and having an adequate IT infrastructure.

The portal provides a new work environment for enterprise knowledge workers, one that is aligned with, and supports and partially automates, their individual and collaborative workflow in creating, distributing and using data, information and knowledge, and in making and implementing decisions and actions (Firestone, 1999). The enterprise knowledge portal (EKP) combines enterprise information portal (EIP) aspects while also capturing tacit knowledge, integrating access to expertise and management application (Firestone, 2002). Giving users one-stop interaction with appropriate intellectual capital, applications and expertise, the EKP speeds innovation and reduces the amount of rework in an organization. EKPs also integrate and support a number of e-business processes that transcend the enterprise. EKPs are themselves eBusiness applications that web-enable knowledge processing and knowledge management within the enterprise.

#### **5.2 Distributed knowledge management**

In the global economy, interconnected organizations that forms a collaborative network can be considered, based on their cumulative know-how, to be inter-connected knowledge nodes (KN) (Bonifacio, Bouquet, Cuel, 2000, 2002). In this approach, the collaborative community becomes an environment that must sustain two different kinds of processes:


Some Collaborative Systems Approaches in Knowledge-Based Environments 389

evolved spectacularly, gaining unexpected intelligent capabilities being able to sustain virtual collaborative environments. (Weiss, 2000; Kimatura, Yamada, Kokubu, 2001;

Knowledge management demands cultural flexibility, strong management of knowledge management project CSFs and an adequate technical collaborative foundation. If done right,

Collaboration facilities improve decisions, increase knowledge. They facilitate better distribution of knowledge, improve planning and development cycles and create more functional and productive relationships within teams. This in turn increases productivity and company understanding of internal and external environments. Overall, employees will begin to have a better view of corporate information and the power to make informed

A collaborative enterprise organization is a more agile organization. The ability of employees to quickly share their insights contributes to an organization's collective knowledge, and has a direct impact on its success. Successful companies continually seek and refine ways to make effective use of their employees' collective knowledge and experience. Information technologies that contribute to knowledge management solutions, such as enterprise portals, improve the enterprise's business intelligence and its collaboration capabilities. Collaboration is becoming an enterprise's business strategy sustained by IT technology. Integrating collaborative services with business functions allows companies to gain a significant competitive advantage. The benefits of collaboration within a portal are clear. It will continually facilitate and enrich the knowledge management

An interesting aspect of the increased globalization of the business world is the cultural diversity of the workforce involved in collaborative virtual work. As a result, the performance of a global virtual team may be contingent not only upon technology and task factors, but also upon a virtual group's cultural homogeneity or heterogeneity. A culturally heterogeneous group is expected to display types of behavior and interactions that are different from those displayed by a culturally homogeneous group. In a virtual setting, the impact of cultural heterogeneity on group performance might ultimately result in performance outcomes that are different from those generated by a culturally homogeneous group. Managers may reduce the influence of national cultures and cultural differences in collaborative enterprises by developing a strong organizational culture. Internalization of a strong organizational culture is done through training, suitable knowledge management approaches, developing appropriate information systems, using integrating practices such as enforcing quality, super ordinate goals, promoting linking between different cultural

There are many different approaches toward knowledge management. Many concepts focus on social and cultural aspects only and ignore the role of technology. There are other approaches that are very technology-minded but provide no solutions to cultural challenges of knowledge management. Therefore, many companies have sophisticated concepts on how to manage knowledge, but have little understanding of how to implement and deploy them. The implementation of efficient knowledge management solution often proves to be

AgentLink, 2004; Dang, 2004; Silaghi, 2005; Sycara, Sukthankar, 2006).

**6. Collaboration & knowledge management** 

decisions more effectively.

process.

groups.

very challenging.

knowledge management is supposed to create a collaborative environment.

Fig. 7. Inter-connected knowledge nodes

Each organization is an absolute manager (from conceptual and technical point of view) of its organizational knowledge. Coordinating different KN arises some problems that can be overcome from the technological point of view by adopting some knowledge-based portals with intelligent capabilities of communication at the level of the nodes. Starting from the technical architecture proposed by Firestone in 2001, 2002, 2003 for a knowledge-based portal, collaboration between KNs can be accomplished with some collaborative intelligent software agents that are integrated into the organizational portals (Muntean, 2005). These agents assist the members of a KN to formulate queries (requests of knowledge) to other nodes and they respond to queries that came from the other KNs.

We support the strategy of a distributed KM approach based on two general principles:


As any distributed system, this one will also have to fulfill some requirements such as connecting users and resources, failure safety, scalability and standardization.

Fig. 8. Infrastructure based on portals sustaining a distributed KM

This will be achieved with the help of some collaborative intelligent agents specially integrated, with this purpose, in the nodes' portals. In these last years, software agents evolved spectacularly, gaining unexpected intelligent capabilities being able to sustain virtual collaborative environments. (Weiss, 2000; Kimatura, Yamada, Kokubu, 2001; AgentLink, 2004; Dang, 2004; Silaghi, 2005; Sycara, Sukthankar, 2006).

Knowledge management demands cultural flexibility, strong management of knowledge management project CSFs and an adequate technical collaborative foundation. If done right, knowledge management is supposed to create a collaborative environment.
