TABLE OF CONTENTS The Art of War: 'Know your enemy and know yourself, one can go through one hundred battles without danger.
Know not the other, yet know yourself, the chance of victory is only half.'
(Sun Zi)
This chapter examines strategies for managing knowledge and how these can be used to make the transition through e-business to a virtual organization. In particular this chapter considers the role of knowledge as capital and the value of knowledge assets to the organization and the online community. Strategies for knowledge management are reviewed and linked with strategies for change. Being virtual is a strategic characteristic applicable to every organization, and virtual organizing is a specific approach to allow for the leveraging of business competencies and expertise for business competitiveness. This approach covers virtual encounters, virtual sourcing, and virtual expertise and knowledge. Finally the issues or actual execution of strategies are considered and suggestions are made for the development of an action framework.
In the e-business of today, knowledge is the most strategically important resource and learning the most strategically important capability. However, initiatives being undertaken to develop and exploit organizational knowledge are of little value if they are not explicitly linked to the overall business strategy. In turn, the strategic process must reflect the continual learning capabilities of the organization. The solution is to develop a perpetual strategy process that will embed knowledge and competitive intelligence into a continual monitoring of the external and internal...
