Intranets and Knowledge Management: De-centred Technologies and the Limits of Technological Discourse

An important current trend in the business environment is the tendency for applications of technology to be 'bundled' together with legitimating discourses aimed at senior management. For example, many applications of Information Technology (IT) in the early and mid-1990's were either stimulated or justified by a discourse of Business Process Reengineering (BPR), which held that old functional structures needed to be swept away in favour of streamlined 'business processes'. Although BPR was subsequently subject to scathing criticism from academic and practitioner commentators alike, the trend continues in the wake of BPR with an exponential increase in managerial interest in 'knowledge management'. The discourse of 'knowledge management' is one in which the ability to manage ‘knowledge assets’ is seen as increasingly important for organizations (Offsey, 1997). In particular, knowledge sharing across departments, functions or geographical locations is discussed as a core organizational competence for many (if not all) organizations, not just knowledge-intensive firms (Newman, 1997).