Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains

Portais Corporativos

biblioteca

© TerraForum Consultores �

Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains trough the development of Knowledge Portals

This article presents the conceptual bases to develop a knowledge portal applied on a general supply chain.

Dr. José Cláudio Cyrineu Terra

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to establish the conceptual bases for the development of a knowledge portal applied to a generic economic cluster and value chain and to report the initial results of Communities of Practice developed across a number of different Research Institutes. Although we start out with solid theoretical bases, the paper does more than just review the concepts previously presented or developed. In fact, we believe this paper is quite innovative.

Concise revisions are made of the main points related to Cluster Theory and Learning Networks, Knowledge Management and Corporate Portals. These concepts, practices and points of convergence make up, then, the starting points for a description of the main objectives and functionalities (with their corresponding motivators) that should be included in a “Knowledge Portal Applied to Economic Clusters and Value Chains”.

We will divide this work into the following parts:• Review of Concepts

o “Cluster Economics” and the Network Era

o Knowledge Management;

• The Innovative Opportunity: Knowledge Portal Applied to Economic Clusters and

Value Chains

• A Brazilian Experience with a Knowledge Portal involving 15 Research Organizations

• Expected Results and Final Considerations

1. ReviewofConcepts

For a better understanding of the theoretical bases of this paper, we have to briefly revisit the concepts of Cluster Economics, Knowledge Management and Corporate Portals. According to our interpretation, there is potential for a highly synergistic interaction among these three concepts. In fact, in spite of dealing with concepts from three distinct areas of study or bodies of knowledge, that is, Economics, Administration and Information Technology, it can be seen that the key and dominant themes are very similar. This similarity of themes and, in some cases, analytic tool-box, is what motivated the preparation of this article. We will try, next, to emphasize each of these themes separately, so that, at the end of this paper, we can put forward some propositions of a practical nature.

© TerraForum Consultores

biblioteca

�

www.terraforum.com.br

Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains trough the development of Knowledge PortalsPortais Corporativos

ConceptualModel:SynergyofConceptsbetweenClusters,KnowledgeManagementandCorporatePortals

Source: Developed by the author

1.1 “ClusterEconomics”andtheNetworkEra

Understanding of competitive advantage on the basis of clusters has its origin in some classical works which detailed the power of learning networks. Michael Porter, in his book The Competitive Advantage of Nations, called attention to the atmosphere of learning, cooperation and high competition existing in micro-regions; Anna Lee Saxenian related very ably (in her book: Regional Advantage) the development of Silicon Valley, starting with the informal flows and

networks of collaboration and knowledge among enterprises, universities and government. The Japanese kairetsus and the just-in-time methods of production, initially developed by Toyota, have spread throughout the world and have as one of their bases a very high level of cooperation and exchange of information among enterprises in the productive chain. In Europe, there are already reports that speak of a new corporate structure: the “syndicates of companies”, that is, associations of small and medium companies, which do not compete against each other and which are co-proprietors of “cooperatives” which assume responsibility for activities in common , such as: marketing, distribution, entry into foreign markets,


biblioteca

�



licensing of technology, etc. With this structure, the individual enterprises concentrate on their main and differentiating activities (e.g., design, R&D, etc.).

In sum, companies which belong to competitive clusters work, in general, in a rather synergistic way and/or may hold various common interests. Among them, the following may be mentioned: satisfaction of the final customer, technological development, sectoral or local regulation, training of the work force, development of infrastructure, exports, relations with the government, academia and other not-for-profit institutions, etc.

Various authors have predicted that, by means of new levels and forms of networking, we’re beginning to see the rapid change in the role performed by large corporations and the emergence of a picture of how work should be carried out in the 21st century. The change taking place at this time would be as profound as that which occurred starting with the industrial revolution. In spite of the constant reports of mergers and acquisitions all over the world, it can be observed that, for example, the proportion that employees working for the 500 largest companies in the USA (the Fortune 500) represents of the total American workforce has been falling steadily for the past 25 years, having gone down from 20% to 10%. These companies are clearly less vertically integrated today than in the past. Their fundamental role, according to MIT professors Malone and Laubacher, will be to: “establish rules, standards and cultures for network organizations operating partly within and partly outside their own boundaries”.

The Internet, however, is substantially raising the importance of all these concepts of clusters and integration among companies. Unlike these more traditional symbiotic forms, the new ways of networking are not restricted by geographic barriers, they do not involve crossed shareholdings

(as do the keiretsus) and the information exchanges go far beyond those which would be required to complete production orders. In many cases, the exchanges of “intangibles” (information or knowledge) are, in fact, the only relevant exchanges among the members of the cluster. In this new era, the participants of these networks collaborate to attend to the long and short term needs of their customers and to create new knowledge and products.

Manuel Castell, well-known Berkeley sociology professor and astute observer of economic and social changes engendered by the information and telecommunications technologies, believes that: the network is the enterprise. The concepts, then, of networks of companies and/or network enterprise are carried much further ahead by Castell. In his interpretation, the network enterprise is a “lean agency of economic activity”, where the business practices are carried out in an ad hoc manner, depending upon specific projects and quite short-lived demand.

It is necessary to both compete and, at the same time, collaborate. Companies often compete in some markets and collaborate in others. Nowadays, in the most advanced markets, they already talk a lot about “Collaboration Capital” and “Digital Capital”. It has to do, in large part, with the idea of taking advantage of the Internet’s infrastructure to increase revenue and profits by means of never before attained levels of high scale collaboration, independent of geographic location. According to this emerging model, everything begins with the final client’s needs and materializes by means of intense collaboration to optimize the joint processes of the different parties and to stimulate the exchange of information, knowledge, resources and personnel.

In this environment, we believe that, without having very well-connected and rapidly- implemented


biblioteca

�



business and sector strategies, it is very hard to imagine that enterprises will succeed in making themselves competitive and even in surviving the challenges imposed by international competition. The economic model of substitution of imports, adopted by many developing nations led enterprises in these countries to “learn by doing”. The external competition with companies from developed countries, nevertheless, require other forms of learning to be much more prominent and demand much more modern strategies to speed up both the creation and the flow of knowledge within and among enterprises and other institutions, such as research centres, universities, trade and industrial associations, governments, etc.

In this scenario, it’s more and more difficult to imagine that small companies (and even countries), operating in an isolated manner, can manage to succeed. They’re incapable of generating or obtaining all the knowledge and information they need and of attaining large enough scale to perform and compete with a global perspective. To overcome this disadvantage, they must of necessity employ coordinated educational, managerial and business strategies, proactively incorporated into the environment. These same ideas also apply to large and traditional organizations. If they are unable to develop an intense ambience of collaboration with their customers, suppliers, partners and even with their competitors, really didn’t understand the new paradigms of the “Knowledge Era”.

It is also clear that “trust” is one of the key currencies in this new environment. People and organizations will not voluntarily share what they know if they do not trust the other parties. On the other hand, as the need for continuous learning is becoming an essential aspect of life, human and computer-based networks become an important strategy for individuals to amplify the reach of their social and trust-based interactions.

In the context of this paper, it is important to highlight that sociological and economic research and experiments have repeatedly demonstrated that people tend to have less trust in individuals of another race, country or culture. This is an important issue for knowledge-based multinationals, regional cooperation and virtual economic cluster that require cooperation and the free-flow of knowledge among people from offices across the globe. For years, organizations have been trying to mitigate the difficulty of building trust across cultures by periodically moving people to different offices and countries and by providing many employees with, among other things, diversity and cultural-sensitivity courses.

The degree of trust is rooted in history, myths and set of prevailing values. It develops over time and is not easily increased. However, it can be very easily reduced or even totally lost by untrustworthy actions. This asymmetric nature of trust (hard to increase, easy to be lost) and its fundamental importance for building knowledge-sharing and collaborating networks is one the key issues that need be taken into consideration upfront and not as an after-thought.

1.2 KnowledgeManagement

Knowledge management doesn’t even have its start with technology. It starts with business objectives and processes and the recognition of the need to share information.

Bill Gates, President of Microsoft

We are living at a time of important transition in the economic environment, where the proactive management of knowledge acquires a central role for the competitiveness of both enterprises


biblioteca

�



and of countries. However, this was not always so, as, in the past, advantages of location, as well as access to cheap labour, natural resources and financial capital had much more significant roles. It’s quite evident that we’re living in an increasingly turbulent environment, where competitive advantages must be permanently reinvented and where low-technology sectors and those having low knowledge intensity inexorably lose economic share. In this context, the challenge to produce more and better is being replaced by the permanent challenge of creating new products, services, processes and management systems. In turn, the speed of change and the growing complexity of the challenges no longer allow these efforts to be concentrated in just a few individuals or areas of the organizations, region or even countries.

It’s increasingly necessary to make innovation a permanent mission and to leverage all types of available knowledge, be they tacit or explicit, internal or external, tangible or intangible. In this scenario, in the mid-‘90s, “Knowledge Management” emerged as a discipline and a formalized organizational function, initially in private enterprises and, a little later, in government organs and state-owned enterprises and in supranational entities, such as The World Bank and the United Nations. In sum, when one thinks about Knowledge Management, there is an overlap in the direction of the “micro” (individuals and groups), “meso” (organizations) and “macro” (environment) analyses.

At present, we are confronting challenges without precedent in terms of knowledge management. The challenges are especially guided by three forces: the huge volumes of information which are presently being created, stored and distributed; the incredible speed with which knowledge content is changing; and the continual transformation of the workplace. To be able to survive, organizations must be more and more proactive in supporting the

creation and reutilization of knowledge. They also need more automated systems, which can bring the source of knowledge or correct information to the user – wherever that person may be – virtually instantaneously. Time is extremely important!

In quite practical terms, Knowledge Management implies, necessarily:• Development of competencies inter-related

on the strategic, organizational and individual levels;

• Acceleration of the generation of new knowledge with competitive value:

- Increased collaboration among employees;

- Facilitation of employee access to the sources of training (on-line and off-line), information and knowledge;

• Discovery of Intellectual Capital and Knowledge already existing in the company;

• Generation of new revenue based on the re-use of the knowledge/intellectual capital existing in the company;

• Protection of the intellectual capital existing in the company;

• Leveraging of the knowledge existing in the company and in the external environment to better serve the customers;

• Improvement of the decision-making process at all levels of the company (management, production and on the front line);

• Reduction of costs and of re-working:- Don’t reinvent the wheel; and- Avoid activities which add little value.

It’s also clear that investments in information technology and telecommunication infrastructure are having an important role in the attainment of these objectives. Especially, those technologies based on the Internet and which facilitate the sharing of implicit and explicit knowledge. Among the principal benefits from these technologies are, mainly, the increase in connectivity among persons


biblioteca

�



(within and outside the organization), a reduction in the problems of communication between different hierarchical levels and better interaction with suppliers and customers. These tools, usually integrated in a corporate portal framework, may be classified, from a “Knowledge Management” perspective, into five large areas:

• Access to a repository of reference materials: explicit knowledge which may be easily accessed and which avoids duplication of effort;

• Content Management Systems: tools which permit the quick and orderly access, publication and distribution of contents – in a decentralized way and/or according to well-established flows;

• Expertise maps: data banks with lists and descriptions of the competencies of individuals within and outside the organization (e.g., internal “yellow pages” of the organization), which facilitate the sharing of implicit knowledge;

• Virtual Collaboration Systems: tools which reduce the barriers of time and distance in access to knowledge. They may be synchronous (e.g., videoconferences, chat-rooms, etc.) or asynchronous (e.g., e-mails, discussion fora, etc.); and

• Knowledge-enabled Processes: key processes can be codified by task designers in order to capture best practices and standardize how certain activities are done. These solutions are often based on the application of workflow technology enhanced by portal abilities to provide added structured and unstructured information at the point of need.

Two areas and/or topics which are relatively new and quite related to Knowledge Management are “Practice Communities” and “E-learning”. Some of their elements are high-lighted below:

Communities of PracticeIn light of the tremendous challenge of promoting the sharing of knowledge within and among companies, the concept of “Communities of Practice”, created by organizational theoretician Etienne Wenger, is one of the most interesting developments related to Knowledge Management. Communities of Practice (CoPs) consist of persons who are informally linked by a shared interest in the learning and application of a common practice. A CoP focuses colleagues on the execution of true work. What keeps CoP members together is a common sense of purpose and a real need to know what the other members know. “Communities of Practice” is a term which refers to the ways in which people work together and/or associate with others naturally. It recognizes and celebrates the power of informal communities of colleagues, their creativity and resources to solve problems and their ability to invent better and easier ways to resolve their commitments.

CoPs are intrinsically related to the needs of individuals to connect with others who share similar learning experiences or objectives. They may also bring together persons who would otherwise never meet each other. The most interesting CoPs are those which are connected (and motivated) by specific challenges, interests or problems in common. CoPs go beyond the traditional boundaries of working groups or teams. These working networks may extend well beyond the limits of an organization. The meetings may or may not be regularly scheduled, in a fixed location, or have structured agendas. They may be real or virtual get-togethers. What keeps the members connected are their common interests in personal development and in joint-learning. The CoPs may be short-lived


biblioteca

�



or continue for a long time. In any event, they experience a vital cycle of activity and a variable number of members.

CoP members may work in the same department, be from different parts of a company, or even be from different companies and institutions. Communication tends to be broad and includes topics that are not necessarily directly related to the task or work-project. CoP members may or may not have participated in joint projects. They may create semi-open “clubs”, where participation is based upon a relationship of great confidence and upon the contribution which each member brings to the community or network. Another important distinction between CoPs and task-forces is that participation is normally voluntary or individually chosen. This signifies that, even though membership is in many cases open, it is really only effective if the members attain a certain level of participation (even “listening” actively and attentively). Normally, the most important knowledge exchanges which occur within the context of a CoP (especially when they involve more abstract concepts) have to do with exchanges of implicit knowledge. One of the implications of this fact is that, even though IT/Internet applications offer valuable tools of collaboration and abundant information, this will often not be a substitute for the role of intuition and the wealth and depth of knowledge transfers and creation which occur in face-to-face meetings. For that reason, many Knowledge Management efforts are focused upon facilitating the localization of specialists who nourish and support the development of Communities of Practice.

2. TheInnovativeOpportunity:KnowledgePortalAppliedtoEconomicClustersandValueChains

The “dynamization” of clusters is always associated with high levels of linkages among the principal players. When this occurs, the potential for

innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurial behaviour, within the cluster, increases remarkably. This “dynamization”, in turn, may engender healthy levels of internal competition and an increase in global ambitions. The review of the concepts presented in the foregoing section leads us to believe that there is a great synergistic and innovative opportunity that may be applied to strengthen certain economic clusters and value chains (mainly those which could benefit from better information flows and more intensive collaboration between the public and private players of the productive chain, as is the case of Government-owned or sponsored Research Institutes).

Important regional development and/or productive chain strategies are beginning to appear, which take into account, at the same time, the concepts of Cluster Economics and Knowledge Management and which leverage corporate portals technologies. We’re talking about the proposal of development of a “Knowledge Portal Applied to Economic Clusters and Value Chains”.

For the knowledge portals applied to the productive chain project to be considered a success, it’s essential that it becomes an integral part of the work of the companies participating in the productive chain. It needs to provide the participating companies with motives to visit the portal frequently. The solutions which more advanced portals offer are not limited to access to structured and non-structured information. They also have an essential role in the development of collaboration and commerce. They stimulate exchanges of explicit knowledge, contact among members of the involved organizations and commerce.

Following, then, the classical ideas and proposals for the “dynamization” of clusters and transposing typical corporate portals applications, one could foresee the functionalities of the knowledge portal divided into six large areas:


biblioteca

�



I. Information Flows; IV. Business Generation;II. Collaboration; V. Promotion of Innovation; andIII. Training of Personnel; VI. Optimization of Resources.

ProposalofKnowledgePortalAppliedtoEconomicClustersandValueChains

OBJECTIVESOFTHEPORTAL MOTIVATIONI-INFORMATIONFLOWSProvide broad access to updated, relevant information focused on the productive chain

It’s evident that the portal can serve as an information source for all the companies in the chain:• Various kinds of reports and market studies are not normally accessible to most

companies;• In certain cases, the companies lack the financial resources to acquire the reports; in

others, the companies do not even know the reports exist;• It is also possible, via the portal, to reach a large enough scale to look for and organize

widely-available data.Collect information from the companies to execute and rapidly update sectoral studies

• It’s possible, via the portal, to establish quite simple and automatic mechanisms for data collection from the companies.

• This not only permits reductions of cost, but also of time required to carry out research and sectoral diagnoses.

• One can also think about creating innovative indicators of the evolution of the sector’s intellectual capital.

II-COLLABORATIONPromote information exchange and collaboration among companies in the productive chain

• The portal can use various tools which permit the virtual exchange of information (discussion forums, chats, etc.) and also the decentralized publication of the contents by the companies participating in the cluster.

• Stimulate the development of “Practice Communities” involving persons from diverse companies.

• These may include information about the company itself, as well as a description of projects in progress.

• It’s also possible to consider areas such as “Urgent Questions”.


biblioteca

�



Promote interchange between the private sector and knowledge sources in the public sector and academia

• The portal may be designed to provide quite specific information so that, especially small businesses, have instantaneous access to governmental reports (e.g., trade missions) and academic information (e.g., lists of experts and national and international laboratories relevant to the sector).

• Persons from academia, research institutes and government may also utilize the portal to monitor the companies’ activities, projects and needs.

III-TRAININGOFPERSONNEL Centralize and reduce the cost by on-line training

• On-line training modules may be made available to all the companies.• There’s a clear reduction in the individual costs of licensing and development of the

courses.• Increases are evident in the speed of dissemination of new concepts.

Divulge opportunities for off-line training • The portal may have an area for the divulgation of recommended opportunities for training offered by third parties.

Create a more efficient job market • The portal may become a reference centre for work opportunities for persons operating both within and outside the sector.

• The liquidity and the “oxygenation” of the market are increased.• Elements of confidentiality must be introduced in order to assure the adherence of the

companies.Promote greater use of information technology and Internet tools

• The very need for and opportunity to utilize the portal may become an important incentive for a more intense use of IT by companies of the sector.

• Courses in informatics are ideal for training via the Internet.• As a part of the launching of the portal, special conditions for acquiring computers

could be offered to small businesses.IV-BUSINESSGENERATIONPromote opportunities for business between companies

• The opportunity of creating mechanisms so that companies may promote their commercial interests and find partners within and outside the cluster is quite interesting.

• The promotion of the formation of temporary and/or permanent consortia may be facilitated by e-project tools.

Promote local companies globally • The portal may serve as an element of divulgation of the products and services of the cluster and also for the quick localization of and contact with the companies.

• If some of its functions and areas of content were translated to the English language, the portal could serve as an excellent marketing tool and help develop international business.


biblioteca

�0



Promote electronic trading • Tools which permit the rapid configuration of e-business may be made available on the portal.

• The tools may be pre-negotiated and adapted to meet the needs of the productive chain.

• Auction-like electronic markets may also be established.V-PROMOTIONOFINNOVATIONPromote success stories • The portal may be utilized to describe success stories among cluster companies.

These kinds of stories are known to incite innovative behaviour.Disseminate technical norms • The faster diffusion of technical norms has a positive impact on the productive

quality.VI-OPTIMIZATIONOFRESOURCES

for some research institutes in Brazil to provide adequate services and produce locally-relevant research based on their own physical and intellectual resources. This has changed dramatically due to the fact that the web has made geographical distances a lot less relevant.

In the context of this scenario, ABIPTI (Brazilian Association of Research Institutes) started a Knowledge Portal project at the end of 2002 with the support of the author of this paper. Fifteen out of 115 member organizations were selected to participate in this project. They were considered to be the most advanced in terms of technological and managerial capabilities. These organizations are scattered throughout Brazil (Brazil is larger than Western Europe) and develop their research projects in fields as diverse as oil exploration, agriculture, information technology, etc.

Initially, the concepts of Cluster Economics, Knowledge Management and Corporate Portals were not very clear among the executives and researchers of these organizations. Consequently, the first phase of this project involved many training sessions and events. These training sessions had two key objectives: (1) explaining the concepts and tools of Knowledge Management; (2) changing

Map and optimize the utilization of the productive resources of the productive chain

• Just as multinational mega-businesses which utilize internal portals in order that their employees and researchers may identify and reserve productive and research resources, respectively, the sectoral portal may enable associated companies to “rent” some of their idle resources.

• A market may also be created for trading competencies and intellectual capacity.Provide common services to all the companies

• The portal may be utilized to automate the providing of electronic services (e.g., travel reservations, accounting, etc.).

Source: Developed by the author

3. ABrazilianExperiencewithaKnowledgePortalinvolving15ResearchOrganizations

Brazil has made huge strides in terms of its overall industrial and technological outputs in the last three decades. During this period, the Brazilian Government financed and built a very wide university and public research institute system. This led Brazil’s contribution to science, measured by the Science Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific Information, to improve significantly from 2,000 articles per year in 1980 to over 12,000 articles in 2000.

As these results are celebrated, it becomes clear that Brazil’s current Innovation System will have to be redrawn in face of the need to foster new levels of collaboration and to leverage scarce research resources. In the fairly recent past, it was possible


biblioteca

��



the cultural mindset of these institutions from a local, isolated perspective to a broad, networked perspective.

In tandem with this work to foster the necessary cultural change, a project team was also working on the development of a knowledge portal with many of the goals and functionalities described in the above section. More specifically, the Knowledge Portal was developed with key functionalities to support the development of Communities of Practice (including Knowledge Bases, Member’s Directory, Content and Document Management, Advanced Search, Events Management, Alert and Subscription Tools, Forums, Personalization, etc).

The initial focus on the development of Communities of Practice across all organizations aimed at rapidly achieving tangible results and, therefore, also fostering the development of KM initiatives within each one of the fifteen research institutes. An important consideration in the choice of Communities of Practice was the fact that these institutes had very different technological capabilities and interests. The topics chosen were classified according to the following three groups:

1. Generic Topics related to the management skills and techniques of research institutes. Typical topics here include:

• Management of Intellectual Property and Commercialization of Technology;

• Quality Management;• Technology Forecasting and

Monitoring;• Client Relationship Management

(CRM);• Technology Dissemination.

2. ScientificTopicsthat may involve a number of institutes but not all of them. For example:

• Environment;• Design;

• Chemistry;• Food quality.

3. National themes defined by the Federal Government’s Industrial Policies. For example:

• Support to Exports;• Support to Small and Medium

Enterprises.

Since topics in groups one and three are more generic and relevant to all research institutes, they could be or were implemented and managed by an association such as ABIPTI. Topics that fall into category two tend to be of interest only to a few selected institutes, of which usually one or two have a strong, recognized leadership in the field.

To initiate this project, three Communities of Practice were selected: Management & Commercialization of Intellectual Property and Quality Management that belong to the first category, and “Geological Risks” that belongs to the second category of topics.These topics were chosen for the following reasons:

• There was enough critical mass both in terms of available digital content, as well as interested and qualified personnel;

• They are well-defined topics;• They are topics that can engage and

motivate wide participation;• They are strategic topics with a wide gap

between the top and bottom performers;• A number of people interested in the

promoting debates and knowledge exchanges were identified;

• A few experts that could help with valuable initial content were also identified;

• These are topics that are directly related to the services provided to the clients of these research institutes;

• These communities can rapidly expand to include personnel from other types of


biblioteca

��



organizations (industry, government and universities, etc).

Throughout the design and development of these communities, a number of face-to-face meetings were held. These meetings played a key role not only in the definition of key aspects of the tools and organization of documents (e.g. taxonomy), but also to build trust and understanding among members of the research institutes.

These Communities were launched in the beginning of September 2003 with great anticipation and support. Key representatives of each of the participating institutes, including a few CEOs, flew from all over Brazil to the city of São Paulo in order to show their support and commitment to these Communities.

4. ExpectedResultsandFinalConsiderations

This paper attempted to show that the technologies derived from and which take advantage of the standards established by the Internet may have a fundamental role in making value chains, economic clusters and regions more dynamic. Corporate Portals focused on Knowledge Management are one of the recent developments and applications (mainly in large international enterprises) that present great potential for this purpose.

Just as is the case when applying portals to Knowledge Management in large privately-owned companies, the main challenge is not technological. There are several strategic, operational and organizational elements that are critical to the success of such initiatives. In this paper, we focused our attention on the strategic and conceptual elements – which ought, in fact, to precede any initiative in this field.

The initiative being led by ABIPTI is significant in its ambition. Its success may have a profound impact

on how Brazil integrates the considerable amount of knowledge that is available in this very large country, but that is currently very much dispersed. Geographical isolation is no longer a viable option for any organization or even country. Individuals and organizations now seek information and knowledge regardless of their location. As the first three Communities were launched, one of the most telling measures of the impact they may have is the fact that a number of affiliated Research Institutes have contacted ABIPTI for support to start their own Communities of Practice.

The experience and the concepts described in this paper are being tested in a number of different contexts and initiatives in Brazil. Results are still very preliminary to be analyzed in terms of success or failure rates. It is our opinion, however, that these kinds of initiatives are of particular importance to developing countries. Such countries do not have the resources of most multinationals that are developing their own internal knowledge portals and leveraging knowledge from all over the world. The route for inter-organizational collaboration through knowledge portals is not an easy route, but one that is very promising. Indeed, it is probably a necessity to compete in the Knowledge Era.

5. References

Porter recently re-visited his original work and published the following article: Porter, M., Clusters and The New Economics of Competition, Harvard Business Review, pp: 77-90, Nov.-Dec., 1998

Saxenian, A., Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, Harvard University Press, 1996


biblioteca

��



The Economist, Will the corporation survive? November 1st, 2001

Malone, T. W. & Laubacher, R.J., All change for the e-lance economy, FP Mastering, National Post, July 10, 2001

Ibid Tapscott, D; Ticoll, D & Lowy, A. Digital Capital: harnessing the power of business webs, HBS Press, 2000

Castells, M., The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society, Oxford University Press, 2001

Tapscott, D; Ticoll, D & Lowy, A., op.cit.

Interesting researches and publications on “trust” include: - Alesina, A. & La Ferrara, E., Who trusts others?, Journal of Public Economics, 2001- Clark, K. & Serfon, M., The Sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma: Evidence on Reciprocation, Economic Journal, January, 2000- Fukuyama, F., Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, Penguin Books, 1995- Glaeser, E. et alii, Measuring Trust, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2000 Gates, W.H. (with Collins Hemingway), Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System, Warner Books, 1999, p. 238

Terra, J.C., Knowledge Management: the big business challenge, Negócio Editora, Second edition, 2001

Wenger, E.C. & Snyder, W.M., Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier, Harvard Business Review, Jan.-Feb., 2000, pp: 139-145

Brown J.S., & Duguid, P. Organizational learning

and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation. Organizational Science, 2, 1991: pp: 40-57

One of the few studies we know of which proposes something similar is the following one: Jarboe, K., Knowledge Management As an Economic Development Strategy, Reviews of Economic Development Literature and Practice: No. 7, U. S. Economic Development Administration.


biblioteca

��


A EMPRESA

A TerraForum Consultores é uma empresa de consultoria e treinamento em Gestão do Conhecimento (GC) e Tecnologia da Informação. Os clientes da empresa são, em sua maioria, grandes e médias organizações dos setores público, privado e terceiro setor. A empresa atua em todo o Brasil e também no exterior, tendo escritórios em São Paulo, Brasília e Ottawa no Canadá. É dirigida pelo Dr. José Cláudio Terra, pioneiro e maior referência em Gestão do Conhecimento no país. Além disso, conta com uma equipe especializada e internacional de consultores.

PUBLICAÇÕES TERRAFORUM

Winning at Collaboration Commerce

Gestão do Conhecimento e E-learning na Prática Portais Corporativos, a Revolução na Gestão do Conhecimento Gestão do Conhecimento - O Grande Desafio Empresarial Gestão do Conhecimento em Pequenas e Médias Empresas Realizing the Promise of Corporate Portals: Leveraging Knowledge for Business Success Gestão de Empresas na Era do Conhecimento

Portais Corporativos Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains trough the development of Knowledge Portals

ARTIgOS RELACIOnADOS

Gestão do Conhecimento e Sistemas de Informações PúblicosPortais Corporativos: novo instrumento de gestão da informação

Entendendo os Diferentes Níveis de Sofisticação de um Portal Corporativo

***

JoséCláudioC.Terraé presidente da TerraForum Consultores. Atua como consultor e palestrante no Canadá, nos Estados Unidos, em Portugal, na França e no Brasil. Também é professor de vários programas e pós-graduação e MBA e autor de vários livros sobre o tema. Seu email é [email protected]