Making knowledge visible through intranet knowledge maps: concepts, elements, cases

Abstract

Establishes the conceptual and empirical basis for an innovative instrument of corporate knowledge management: the knowledge map. It begins by briefly outlining the rationale for knowledge mapping, i.e. providing a common context to access expertise and experience in large companies. It then conceptualizes five types of knowledge maps that can be used in managing organizational knowledge. They are: knowledge sources, assets, structures, applications and development maps. In order to illustrate these five types of maps, a series of examples is presented (from a multimedia agency, a consulting group, a market research firm and a medium-sized services company), and the advantages and disadvantages of the knowledge mapping technique for knowledge management are discussed. The paper concludes with a series of quality criteria for knowledge maps and proposes a five-step procedure to implement knowledge maps in a corporate intranet.