Semiotic Analysis of Knowledge Intensive Business Processes: Developing Interpretations for Sustainable Competitive Advantage

In the age of information technology and internet, business processes in many organizations have evolved into a series of knowledge exchanging activities. This is especially the case of multi-national corporations, which have e-business activities spread across multiple locations world-wide. Under these circumstances, for any multi-national corporation, comprehending and responding strategically-in-time to the various positive and negative events that occur in a knowledge intensive business process are essential if sustainable competitive advantage is to be gained and retained. Grounded in semiotics, this paper presents an approach for understanding knowledge intensive business processes. Semiotic analysis helps in interpreting and making sense of the meanings afforded by different organizations to the positive and negative events and how these meanings relate to each other and, in turn, to the knowledge intensive business processes. Such an understanding allows easier creation and transfer knowledge between different organizations or networks of organizations and helps in defining knowledge intensive business processes for sustainable competitive advantage.