Data is more than knowledge: implications of the reversed knowledge hierarchy for knowledge management and organizational memory In knowledge management literature it is often pointed out that it is important to distinguish between data, information and knowledge. The generally accepted view sees data as simple facts that become information as data is combined into meaningful structures, which subsequently become knowledge as meaningful information is put into a context and when it can be used to make predictions. This view sees data as a prerequisite for information, and information as a prerequisite for knowledge. In this paper, I will explore the conceptual hierarchy of data, information and knowledge, showing that data emerges only after we have information, and that information emerges only after we already have knowledge. The reversed hierarchy of knowledge is shown to lead to a different approach in developing information systems that support knowledge management and organizational memory. It is also argued that this difference may have major implications for organizational flexibility and renewal. 2

This paper describes the evolution of the Linux operating system, and studies dynamics of socio-technical change using Linux as a case example. Theoretical models of community-based practice and learning are combined with actor-network theory, and the characteristics open source development model are described using the introduced theoretical concepts. The paper analyses the growth and development of Linux and its development community, and shows how the development community evolves into an ecology of community-centered practices. During the last couple of years, the Open Source development model has been on front pages of newspapers, and focus of much attention (e.g., DiBona, Ockman, & Stone, 1999

Global enterprises have met challenges in managing and leading multi-site projects, working in virtual teams, sharing knowledge, and utilizing new communication technology. Several claims stress that conventional faceto-face practices form an essential part of successful project co-working. But, this is often impossible in globally dispersed projects. New information and communication technology solutions are needed for converting collaborative actions into virtual ones. We introduce a framework for analyzing and developing work activities in multi-site projects. Four areas of work are distinguished: personal work, work with people, project/team work, and knowledge work. The framework is used for studying interaction between an individual and her work environment. Our interest is to help multi-site projects to successfully collaborate in distributed circumstances. The framework was tested by analyzing two case projects at Nokia. This paper presents our findings of the framework usefulness to guide organizational and team development and characterizes R&D work in multi-site circumstances at Nokia. 1.

When a new product is delivered, it seldom meets all customer needs. The mature phase of a product is driven by customer needs. It requires a human-centered development cycle. As a result, the company should be able to listen the voice of its customers. Most industrial companies are driven by engineers and by technology itself. If current technology is to serve all actors of the life cycle of a product, related companies need to change their ways of dealing with maturity. They have to stop being so driven by features and start examining what customers actually do. The concept of customer itself has to be revisited to the point that any person or group who deals with a product (coming from a process) is a customer of those who developed the product. Product maturity and process maturity are usually distinguished. Product maturity is related to end-user satisfaction, i.e., customers. Product maturity deals with user experience. Process maturity is related to designers, developers, maintainers and other actors who have an impact on the making and evolution of the product. Process maturity deals with organizations, communities and teams involved in the production of a product. This paper proposes an integrated approach to product and process maturity that involves the use of active design documents to support the description of what the product is, how it is or should be used, why it is designed the way it is and how much it will cost to customers in terms of performance, safety, comfort and other criteria that may be relevant to the product purpose of use.

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This conceptual article focuses on the management of strategic business networks. Networks are seen to offer firms collective benefits beyond those of a single firm or market transaction. We aim to contribute to the development of the emerging theory of network management by integrating notions from the Industrial Network Approach, strategic management, and the Dynamic Capabilities View. Our starting premise is that the characteristics of the task that organizations try to accomplish through forming a specific strategic net, influence the management of that net and thus the capabilities required. In other words, we expect different types of strategic nets to require different managerial skill sets or capabilities. On the basis of this premise, we suggest a classification system for different types of strategic nets, identify key management issues that arise in operating in a network context, and consequently identify the basic capabilities required in managing different types of strategic nets.

This study offers new views to the problems of the human mental by assuming that its primitives, atoms, molecules, and structures are formed by our memory representations of entities and the mental states caused by them. With the system models of human concepts and mind the eternal problems of human knowledge, values, motivation, language, action, and organisational culture are approached from a new point of view. The human experienceable world is produced by our brain-systems emergent abilities to transform the material afferent action potentials into the mental descriptions of the sensed environment and its meanings. The memory structures and functions are seen as metaphors of our brains ' emergent abilities to process, store, and view memory representations of the sensed, thought, or imagined entities of the being. The system models of man, his memory representations, and his concepts and mind are postulated in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. The other transformation process of our brain-system is the steering effect, in which our thoughts, plans, and decisions are formed into situation relevant flows of efferent action potentials. They, in turn, have a causal control of our speech and other motor actions. The

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Ray Kurzweil has advanced an influential hypothesis that computing technology has developed at accelerating speeds during the last century, and that the increasing rate of technical change will lead to profound changes in the society and human life. The paper focuses on a review of empirical evidence for this claim, focusing on Moore’s law, which in its simplest form says that the number of transistors on semiconductor chips has been growing exponentially. The paper also reviews evidence about accelerating returns in the semiconductor industry, and discusses the conceptual framework that underlies Kurzweil’s argument that technological development can be understood as an evolutionary process. We find that the available empirical data do not support Kurzweil’s hypothesis. The underlying conceptual assumptions have, however, broad relevance for students of technological Although the overwhelming speed of change has been commented at least since the