Rethinking knowledge management: the role of ICT and the rise of the virtual workspace

The ability to manage and enhance the value of knowledge and intellectual capital has to be rethought to address: 1 the new challenges from the organisational models (increasing workforce dispersion, the growing importance of interorganisational relationships, orientation to processes more than to functions); 2 the new opportunities – which are technology based (the availability of new Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-enabled services and particularly of web and mobile communication services makes it possible to overcome geographical, temporal and organisational barriers to communication and knowledge transfer). The synthesis of these two aspects explains the rise of what we call virtual Workspace (v-W). Our perspective on organisational knowledge is sociopractical: knowledge is considered as a common good rather than a mere individual asset. ICT tools, according to this stream, have to recreate a social reality, with its interpersonal relationships and communication flows, and possibly augment it by emphasising openness and collaboration. Based on a research with 110 case studies, this paper focuses on knowledge workplace technologies (among others: forums, instant messaging, wikis, blogs, expertise location and management, social network analysis and presence awareness), regarded as strategic tools in the context of knowledge and change management.