Virtue-Nets

IntroductIon David Skyrme (1999) has observed that knowledge workers exploit knowledge generated from business activities and turn it into business opportunities. Technical infrastructures enable knowledge workers and improve knowledge processes (Von Krogh, Ichijo, & Nonaka, 2000). Improving knowledge awareness requires creating a dynamic and generative environment for organizational workers (Senge, 1990). Organizations are faced with developing communication strategies that maintain centralized and fully accessible knowledge bases while at the same time trying to compete in a highly decentralized marketplace. Technological solutions for enabling and enhancing communication among knowledge workers are used for activities such as scheduling, negotiating, checking e-mail, revising documents, making reservations, connecting laptops remotely to the Net, problem solving, and decision making. There are numerous electronic devices for communicating between knowledge workers. These networked devices serve the purpose of connecting human-knowledge capital. For many companies, human-knowledge capital is a significant source of competitive advantage, and the dispersion of this capital without effective communication networks can greatly hinder the decision makers and the overall corporate decision making process. One place to start examining the practices of knowledge workers is to study the networks in which they work. This article explores knowledge networks and their advantage in grouping data based on qualitative attributes to support knowledge work. Such networks support and enable individual interactions with knowledge systems to enrich understanding. The next section provides a survey of communication technologies and theories to support the need to develop a network infrastructure to enable intelligent business practices. The next section on knowledge sharing proposes a virtue-net network architecture to support net-1156 Virtue-Nets work connectivity using qualitative measures as a method for leveraging knowledge networks. The article concludes with a brief discussion and ideas for future research in this area. A glossary of terms for the virtue net is provided as an appendix to the article.