Dimitris Apostolou

Knowledge marketplaces: strategic issues and business models

An increasing number of enterprises are getting interested in exploiting their knowledge assets outside the organizational borders and in augmenting their knowledge network. A first generation of electronic knowledge marketplaces has been developed in order to provide the platforms for knowledge exchange and trading at inter‐organizational level. This paper develops a framework to evaluate the strategic issues, business models, roles, processes, and revenue models of knowledge trading platforms, and provides a detailed analysis of five existing knowledge marketplaces based on this framework. Finally, a set of conclusions is drawn on what issues should be addressed in a knowledge marketplace in order to eliminate the risks and gain the trust of its targeted customers.

Ontology-Enabled E-gov Service Configuration: An Overview of the OntoGov Project

For electronic government initiatives to succeed, in addition to modernising the front office, attention should be also paid in order to streamline, re-organise and support the back-office processes of public administrations that provide public services to citizens. Furthermore, actions should be taken to limit the loss of critical knowledge assets during the life cycle of electronic government services. In this paper, the OntoGov project is outlined aiming to develop, test and validate a semantically-enriched (ontology-enabled) platform that will facilitate the consistent composition, re-configuration and evolution of electronic government services.

Experiences from knowledge management implementations in companies of the software sector

The Know‐Net knowledge management solution, that includes a theoretical framework, a consulting method and a software tool, is based on a knowledge asset‐centric design that innovatively fuses the process or human approach with the product or content approach of knowledge management. This paper describes how Know‐Net was applied in four companies of the software sector. It outlines how specific business areas such as an R&D unit, the bid management process and collaboration between geographically‐dispersed teams can benefit from knowledge management. It outlines the role specific Know‐Net components played within the transformation of existing business processes and structures, and provides key recommendations based on this experience.

Challenges and Directions in Knowledge Asset Trading

This paper addresses the area that is at the intersection of Knowledge Management and Electronic Commerce. This area refers to the exchange and trade of explicit and implicit knowledge at an inter-organisational level. Electronic knowledge marketplaces are currently emerging to address the opportunities and risks found in the purchase and selling of knowledge at the business-to-business (B2B) environment, the need for supporting long-lasting relationships of knowledge exchange and the requirement for facilitating virtual community contexts where knowledge seekers can find suitable knowledge providers and knowledge providers can advertise and sell their available knowledge. The paper describes the business challenges associated with the design of Internet-based knowledge marketplace. INKASS, a European IST project, has stimulated this work and has provided real-life verification on the arguments raised and on the positions adopted herein.

A Framework for Analysis and a Review of Knowledge Asset Marketplaces

An increasing number of enterprises are getting interested in exploiting knowledge, tacit or explicit, lying outside their organizational borders and augmenting the knowledge network of their organizations. A first generation of knowledge e-marketplaces has arisen to provide the platforms for knowledge exchange and trading in an inter-organizational level. This paper develops a framework to evaluate the business models, roles, processes, and revenue models of knowledge trading platforms and provides a survey of six existing knowledge marketplaces based on this framework. Finally, a set of conclusions is drawn on what issues should be addressed in a knowledge marketplace in order to eliminate the risks and gain the trust of its targeted customers.

Interorganizational Knowledge Exchanges

The INKASS (intelligent knowledge assets sharing and trading) knowledge exchange system couples case-based reasoning with ontologies to assist match-making between knowledge offers and knowledge demands in an interorganizational context. A tool suite lets system administrators maintain and improve the knowledge exchange.

Process and Product Approaches in Knowledge Management

The twenty-first century marks the beginning of an era in which the traditional pillars of economic power — capital, land, materials and labor — are no longer the main determinants of business success; instead, achievement will be essentially determined by our ability to use knowledge, a precious global resource, wisely. This is due to the constant and overwhelming change in the business environment, from one in which the market assumptions were stable, the business rules were rigid, the com- mand-and-control management model was adequate, competitors and customers were known and the future was almost predictable, to an environment in which the only thing that can be predicted is unpredictability itself.

The Know-Net Approach and Framework

The methodological and technical architecture of the Know-Net knowledge management solution should ensure the fusion of the product-centric knowledge management (KM) approach with the process-centric KM approach. What is needed is a conceptual, theoretical foundation that will guarantee this fusion and that will underlie every aspect of the solution (software tool, consulting methodology, measurement system, etc).

Knowledge Asset Management: Know-Net and Beyond

The management of organizational knowledge has drawn the attention of academics, consultants and practitioners as a key lever for improving performance, boosting productivity and creativity, and facilitating innovation in organizational settings. The methods, tools and the actual knowledge management (KM) implementations in various companies have mainly followed one of two perspectives, which in this book are called the process-centric and the product-centric approaches. The former is primarily people-based and treats KM as a social communication process; the latter is mostly content-based and focuses on knowledge-related artefacts. This book presents a knowledge asset-based KM solution that attempts to fuse these two approaches in a balanced manner. The previous chapters of the book presented the individual components of the KM solution, i.e. a management framework, a knowledge leveraging method and an intranet-based tool, as well as their application in five companies.

Case Studies of the Know-Net Solution

The applicability of the Know-Net knowledge management (KM) solution was tested in organizations that exhibit a high degree of knowledge utilization in their operations: knowledge intensive organizations (KIOs). The term knowledge-inten-sive organizations has been recently introduced and reflects mainly the emergence of the post-industrial, knowledge economy, in which the traditional distinction between “manufacturing” and “services” is blurred, and where the role played by manufacturing is steadily being fused with new service industries and service professions. KIOs have the following characteristics: they are networked organizations, they are customer adapted and their most critical asset is their people.