Tales from the Dark Side: International Criminal and Terrorist Groups as Knowledge-based Organizations

With the stunning success of the last year’s attacks on the United States and the continuing success of the international drug trafficking, it is clear that criminal and terrorist organizations have made effective use of a variety of available organizational forms and information technologies to advance their agendas. While their ends may be seen as contemptible, the means that they have adopted include an extremely high level of technical sophistication, and effective use of virtual and networked forms of organization. Using the lens offered by adaptive structuration theory, this article is intended to advance a research agenda that some may find useful in understanding how technologies that have enabled the dramatic growth of commerce around the world have also provided yet another opportunity for those who would appropriate them to nefarious ends. This article will provide some examples of what international terrorist and criminal groups have been able to accomplish by the skillful appropriation of virtual organizational forms and knowledge management concepts. Implications are discussed.