How to Design Active BA: The Interaction between Physical and Virtual Environments

In “the age of knowledge”, knowledge has become the main asset in solving issues and creating value in organizations. In this regard, “workplace reformation” actively participates in promoting knowledge creation. One of the key factors supporting knowledge creation is “the creation of BA”. In the workplace reformation process, when BA fosters the creation of knowledge, it is called “active BA”. In this paper, we propose a framework to design active BA. The workplace reformation is first segmented into virtual and physical environments; then, we consider the effects of each environment on active BA, as well as the interactions between each environment; finally, we analyze the synergistic and offset effects from both environments on active BA. Based on this framework, we introduce 2 case studies of workplace reformation. In the case of Company X, we describe the effective implementation of such workplace reformation. In the case of Company Y, we examine the results of a questionnaire survey carried out at three different stages of the implementation. Our results demonstrate the validity of our framework: (1) the effective implementation of workplace reformation in both Company X’s Sales Department and Company Y’s IT Department enabled the creation of active BA, and was consistent with our framework; (2) the influence of the physical and virtual environments onto the creation and activation of BA were different, thus justifying our assumption of the division of such environmental factors.