Business Case

INTRODUCTION

ax Weber, the 19* century philosopher and father of sociology, proposed a revolutionary idea of

what organizations could become and how, through this stmcture, they could service humanity.

Weber's timely vision was the catalyst which allowed organizations to be the caretakers of society

in a time when countless numbers of people needed to raise their standard of living.

His vision of how people could come together in efficient stmctures created what is commonly understood

as bureaucracy. Bureaucracy provided a necessary organizational frame for people to collaborate with each other in

their pursuit of common goals (Wren, 2005, p.26). Alfred North Whitehead said "all of philosophy is a footnote to

Plato" (Russell, 2005, p.67). It could also be said "all of organizational theory is a footnote to Weber" - until

recently. Weber was able to suggest a paradigm for organizations, which has had import to this day; however, today

is a new day.

The modem era is commonly understood as the information age. Bennet and Bennet (2001) argue that

organizations have always used knowledge, but the new intense focus on knowledge in organizations has risen out

of the organizations' need to manage their own growing complexity and yet remain competitive (2001).

Organizations have long been creating, storing, integrating, tailoring and making available the right knowledge (10)

because it is knowledge that creates a sustainable advantage; but in today's wodd, the knowledge skill is becoming

the skill to master. While Knowledge Management (iCM) is still in its embryonic form, two definitions point us in

the right direction. What is KM?

KM is "A discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving,

and sharing all of an enterprise's information assets. These assets may include databases, documents, policies,

procedures, and previously uncaptured expertise and experience of individual works&a...