Leveraging the Internet to managing complex knowledge in a complex world

Citation

Schwartz, D.G. (2002), "Leveraging the Internet to managing complex knowledge in a complex world", Internet Research, Vol. 12 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.2002.17212eaa.001

Leveraging the Internet to managing complex knowledge in a complex world

Leveraging the Internet to managing complex knowledge in a complex world

Two articles in this issue of Internet Research deal with different aspects of large and complex project management, both of them drawing on the lnowledge management and artificial intelligence literature. Maule, Schacher and Gallup, in "Knowledge management for the analysis of complex experimentation", present an information architecture, knowledge management processes, and knowledge ontology structures necessary to support complex long-term governmental projects. Li, Tang, Man and Love present "VHBuild.com: a Web-based system for managing knowledge in projects", dealing specifically with the management of large scale international construction projects. Much has been written about the significant positive impact that the Internet is expected to have on knowledge management and organizational memories. These two works illustrate how the recent years of development in Internet-based knowledge management is coming to fruition.

"Predicting Internet/e-commerce use" is the title of Sexton, Johnson and Hignite's article. In it we find an innovative application of neural network techniques applied to the analysis of Internet usage data. The methodology they have developed should provide a strong basis for additional experimentation in this area.

Leo Vijayasarathy returns to the pages of Internet Research with "Product characteristics and Internet shopping intentions", building on his earlier work that assessed print versus Internet catalog shopping behavior.

Okazaki and Rivas's work on "A content analysis of multinationals' Web communication strategies: cross-cultural research framework and pre-testing" is another groundbreaking study that analyses the Web sites of 20 multinational Japanese corporations that maintain Web sites in both English (US) and Spanish. The study compares and contrasts the Web sites in terms of 14 information cues, 32 cultural values and nine creative strategies with some fascinating results.

This issue of Internet Research presents an in-depth case analysis of Internet usage among old-economy companies in Spain. In "Internet usage and competitive advantage: the impact of the Internet on an old economy industry in Spain", Obra, Cámara and Meléndez begin with the theoretical underpinnings of value creation through IT, and apply their model to a field study of Spain's pharmaceutical industry.

David G. Schwartz