Organisational Memory Systems: Application of Advanced Database & Network Technologies in Organisations

This paper deals with Organisational Memory Systems (OMS) which are seen as a new kind of information systems. OMS result from the application of advanced database and network technologies to support Organisational Memory concepts and approaches. It is suggested to take Organisational Memory concepts as a vision for the future development of corporate Intranets. Motivation and Concept Organisational Memory (OM) is a concept well known from organisation science and learning theory. Many approaches have been developed which claim to guide organisations to use their common or shared memory in a more efficient way. Existing approaches focus on organisational issues and consider the OM as a resource which has to be managed like capital or labour. With the advent of advanced database technologies (e.g. data warehousing, OLAP, data mining, knowledge discovery and bases, distributed data base systems, multimedia and hypermedia data bases and management support systems, like executive information systems or management information systems) and net technologies, especially the so-called “Intranet“or “Web“technologies, sound information technologies exist to support organisational processes of generating, institutionalising, retrieving and disseminating information. However, so far the OM approaches lack the integration of these technologies as means to support the respective processes. The topic has taken on an intense sense of immediacy given the worldwide processes of restructuring in both economy and society. Relevant projects are already being carried out, especially in large corporations. Environmental dynamics and the pressure of competition that necessitate the development or the activation of new capabilities are paving the way for change. These adaptations occur automatically only in the rarest of cases, but presuppose (learning) processes. Important goals include elevating organizational efficiency and flexibility and overcoming growth limits. In times in which quantitative growth (e.g. through an increase in turnover, elevation of market shares, or the development of new markets) is only limitedly possible and the retention of the status quo is already viewed as successful, concentrating on qualitative dimensions gains increasing importance. One could look at this as an expansion inwards, wherein new or previously unused potential and strengths should be developed. The authors believe that there are so far no “real“ OMS-tools (Organisational Memory Systems) available and there possibly never will be an OMS-tool which covers the respective organisational processes on its own. “OMS-tool“ stands for development tools or tool-sets, applications or application frameworks respectively. There are, however, technologies and even systems around which support certain aspects of the OM. The authors hypothesise that the integration of the tools and systems can play a crucial and beneficial role in improving a company’s position in the competition with a clear focus on organisational learning projects. Thus in our understanding an OM system is a system which realises parts of the OM (also called organisational knowledge base) with the help of information systems and/or supports tasks, functions and processes closely related to the use of the OM (see Figure 1).