When e-business becomes K-business.....Will it be 'A natural act'?

Abstract

This paper proposes that the next wave of electronic business (e-business) will move from current transaction based e-business to the merging of e-business and knowledge management, and that organizations that have already internally adopted knowledge management (KM) will find the transition to this next wave of e-business a natural and sustainable act. The first part of the paper explores recent trends and forecasts pertaining to e-business and KM, concluding that organizations are moving towards a more networked economy where partnerships, collaboration and knowledge sharing will complement current transactional e-business, and that successful KM requires a balance between technology and organizational change interventions. The second part of the paper explores the issues associated with establishing a knowledgesharing culture in preparation for the next proposed evolution of e-business by presenting interim results of a current study into the adoption of KM practices by staff in a global IT services company. Instantiating various adoption models, the study investigated time of adoption and potential factors that influenced the adoption of 2 KM applications by 283 survey respondents. The findings of this research are interpreted in light of the proposed next wave of e-business, providing additional considerations and actions that organizations may take to successfully participate in the evolution of e-business in a more knowledge sharing based networked economy. © 2003 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.