Chapter 12
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
12-1
Chapter 12
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
True-False Questions
1.
Knowledge residing in the minds of employees that has not been documented is called
explicit knowledge.
Answer: False
2.
Easy
Reference: p. 417
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 418
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 420
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 420
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 421
Knowledge repositories contain internally generated information only.
Answer: False
9.
Difficulty:
Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems provide databases and tools for organizing
and storing structured and unstructured documents and other knowledge objects.
Answer: True
8.
Reference: p. 417
Communities of practice (COPs) are formal social networks of professionals and employees
within and outside the firm who have similar work-related activities and interests.
Answer: False
7.
Easy
The chief financial officer is a senior executive who is responsible for the firm’s knowledge
management program.
Answer: False
6.
Difficulty:
Each step in the knowledge management value chain adds value to raw data and information
as they are transformed into usable knowledge.
Answer: True
5.
Reference: p. 416
Knowledge is universally applicable and easily moved.
Answer: False
4.
Medium
Knowledge can reside in e-mail, voice mail, graphics, and unstructured documents as well as
structured documents.
Answer: True
3.
Difficulty:
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 422
Structured knowledge is explicit knowledge that exists in informal documents.
Answer: False
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 423
12-2
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
10.
Semistructured information is all the digital information in a firm that exists in informal
documents.
Answer: False
11.
Medium
Reference: p. 429
Difficulty:
Hard
Reference: p. 430
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 431
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 431
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 433
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 434
VRML is platform dependent, operates over a minicomputer, and requires large amounts of
bandwidth.
Answer: False
19.
Difficulty:
Virtual reality systems use interactive graphics software to create computer-generated
simulations that are so close to reality that users almost believe they are participating in a
real-world situation.
Answer: True
18.
Reference: p. 427
User interfaces are unimportant to the success of knowledge worker systems.
Answer: False
17.
Hard
Knowledge work systems have characteristics that reflect the special needs of knowledge
workers.
Answer: True
16.
Difficulty:
Knowledge workers usually do not possess high levels of education.
Answer: False
15.
Reference: p. 424
Enterprise knowledge portals can provide access to external sources of information such as
news feeds and research.
Answer: True
14.
Medium
Knowledge network systems seek to turn tacit, unstructured, and undocumented knowledge
into explicit knowledge that can be stored in a database.
Answer: True
13.
Difficulty:
A best practice is a scheme for classifying information and knowledge in such a way that it
can be easily accessed.
Answer: False
12.
Chapter 12
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 434
The financial industry is using specialized investment workstations to leverage the
knowledge and time of its brokers, traders, and portfolio managers.
Answer: True
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 435
Chapter 12
20.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Databases and spreadsheets are the primary tools used for knowledge discovery.
Answer: False
21.
Medium
Reference: p. 435
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 436
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 436
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 436
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 436
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 436
A series of IF-THEN rules can be used to form a knowledge-base.
Answer: True
29.
Difficulty:
In the IF-THEN construct, a condition is evaluated. If the condition is true, an action is
taken.
Answer: True
28.
Reference: p. 435
Given their limitations, expert systems are seldom used for making discrete, highly
structured decision-making situations.
Answer: False
27.
Medium
Expert systems capture the knowledge of skilled employees in the form of a set of rules in a
software system that can be used by others in the organization.
Answer: True
26.
Difficulty:
AI applications exhibit the breadth, complexity, originality, and generality of human
intelligence.
Answer: False
25.
Reference: p. 435
Data mining helps organizations capture undiscovered knowledge residing in large databases.
Answer: True
24.
Easy
Intelligent agents can discover underlying patterns, categories, and behaviors in large data
sets.
Answer: False
23.
Difficulty:
Genetic algorithms are used for generating solutions to problems that are too large and
complex for human beings to analyze on their own.
Answer: True
22.
12-3
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 436
In backward chaining the inference engine begins with the information entered by the user
and searches the rule base to arrive at a conclusion.
Answer: False
Difficulty:
Easy
Reference: p. 437
12-4
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
30.
When developing an expert system, team members develop a prototype system to test
assumptions.
Answer: True
31.
Easy
Reference: p. 439
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 440
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 442
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 441
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 441
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 442
Genetic algorithms are conceptually based on the process of evolution.
Answer: True
39.
Difficulty:
Because neural network applications always explain why they arrive at a particular solution,
they are well suited for use in the medical profession.
Answer: False
38.
Reference: p. 439
Neural networks “learn” patterns from large quantities of data by sifting through data,
searching for relationships, building models, and correcting over and over again the model’s
own mistakes.
Answer: True
37.
Medium
Neural networks are not particularly suited to finding patterns and relationships in massive
amounts of data.
Answer: False
36.
Difficulty:
Fuzzy logic can be used to express relationships very generally and compactly, requiring
fewer IF-THEN rules than traditional software programs.
Answer: True
35.
Reference: p. 437
Fuzzy logic can describe a particular phenomenon or process linguistically and then
represent that description in a small number of flexible rules.
Answer: True
34.
Easy
Case-based reasoning cannot be used in diagnostic systems in medicine.
Answer: False
33.
Difficulty:
Expert systems work by applying a set of AND-OR rules against a knowledge base, both of
which are extracted from human experts.
Answer: False
32.
Chapter 12
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 442
Intelligent agents cannot be programmed for such menial tasks as deleting junk e-mail.
Answer: False
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 444
Chapter 12
40.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
12-5
Shopping bots are a form of intelligent agent.
Answer: True
Difficulty:
Medium
Reference: p. 444
Multiple Choice Questions
41.
The percentage of Gross Domestic Product of the United States that produced by the
knowledge and information sectors is estimated to be:
a.
b.
c.
d.
20 percent.
40 percent.
60 percent.
80 percent.
Answer: c
42.
wisdom.
information.
data.
tacit knowledge.
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 416
Knowledge that resides in the minds of employees that has not been documented is
called:
a.
b.
c.
d.
tacit knowledge.
organizational memory.
standard operating procedures.
corporate culture.
Answer: a
44.
Reference: p. 416
Expertise and experience of organizational members that has not been formally
documented best describes:
a.
b.
c.
d.
43.
Difficulty: Medium
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 416
The set of business processes, culture, and behavior required to obtain value from
investments in information systems is one type of :
a.
b.
c.
d.
knowledge culture.
knowledge discovery.
organizational and management capital.
organizational routine.
Answer: c
Difficulty: Hard
Reference: p. 418
12-6
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
45.
The senior executive responsible for the firm’s knowledge management program is the:
a.
b.
c.
d.
CTO.
CIO.
CKO.
CEO.
Answer: c
46.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference: p. 420
Informal social networks of professionals and employees within and outside the firm
who have similar work-related activities and interests are called:
a.
b.
c.
d.
communities of practice.
communities of discovery.
communities of interest.
communities of knowledge.
Answer: a
47.
Chapter 12
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 420
Which of the following are major types of knowledge management systems?
a. Management information systems, decision support systems, and transaction
processing systems.
b. Enterprise systems, customer support systems, and supply chain management
systems.
c. Database management systems, expert systems, and knowledge work systems.
d. Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems, knowledge work systems, and
intelligent techniques.
Answer: d
48.
Reference: p. 420
Which of the following are types of intelligent techniques?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Knowledge networks
Case based reasoning
Computer-aided design
Virtual reality
Answer: b
49.
Difficulty: Hard
Difficulty: Hard
Reference: p. 421
Which of the following would NOT be classified as a knowledge work system?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Computer-aided design
3D Visualization
Investment workstations
Case-based reasoning
Answer: d
Difficulty: Hard
Reference: p. 421
Chapter 12
50.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Which of the following would NOT be classified as a form of intelligent technique?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Data mining
Case based reasoning
Neural networks
Virtual reality
Answer: d
51.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 422
Key features of an enterprise knowledge network include all of the following EXCEPT:
a.
b.
c.
d.
knowledge exchange services.
community of practice support.
auto-profiling capabilities.
productivity techniques.
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 423
One of the largest players specializing in the development of semistructured knowledge
systems is a Canadian software company known as:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Hummingbird.
Blue bird.
Purple martin.
Red robin.
Answer: a
54.
Reference: p. 421
database management system.
expert system.
structured knowledge system.
neural network.
Answer: c
53.
Difficulty: Hard
A system for organizing structured knowledge in a repository where it can be accessed
throughout the organization best describes:
a.
b.
c.
d.
52.
12-7
Difficulty: Easy
Reference: p. 425
Virtually all expert systems deal with problems of:
a.
b.
c.
d.
policy development.
classification.
logic and control.
high complexity.
Answer: b
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 427
12-8
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
55.
Once a knowledge taxonomy is produced, documents are all __________ with the proper
classification.
a.
b.
c.
d.
tagged
linked
tupled
referenced
Answer: a
56.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 429
Tools for the management, delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of
employee learning best describes:
a.
b.
c.
d.
investment workstation.
organizational learning system.
employee enrichment system.
learning management system.
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 430
Most knowledge workers require specialized knowledge work systems, but they also rely
on:
a.
b.
c.
d.
office systems.
schools and universities.
imaging systems.
data transferring systems.
Answer: a
59.
Reference: p. 427
Hummingbird.
AskMe.
Ask Jeeves.
Tagger.
Answer: b
58.
Difficulty: Medium
A widely adopted enterprise knowledge network system is:
a.
b.
c.
d.
57.
Chapter 12
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 431
A ________________________ is very important to a knowledge worker’s system.
a.
b.
c.
d.
careful filing system
financial analysis system
dynamic interactive extranet
user-friendly interface
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 433
Chapter 12
60.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
_______________________________ often are designed and optimized for the specific
tasks to be performed.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Graphics programs
Knowledge workstations
Virtual simulators
CAD stations
Answer: b
61.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 433
Virtual reality applications for the Web use a standard called:
a.
b.
c.
d.
CADDIS.
VRML.
KWSVR.
TCP/IP.
Answer: b
62.
12-9
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 434
Investment workstations:
a. provide engineers, designers, and factory managers with precise control over
industrial design and manufacturing.
b. provide an important source of expertise for organizations.
c. allow groups to work together on documents.
d. are high-end PCs used in the financial sector to analyze trading situations
instantaneously and facilitate portfolio management.
Answer: d
63.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference: p. 435
Virtual reality systems:
a. provide engineers, designers, and factory managers with precise control over
industrial design and manufacturing.
b. provide an important source of expertise for organizations.
c. allow groups to work together on documents.
d. provide drug designers, architects, engineers, and medical workers with precise,
photorealistic simulations of objects.
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 435
12-10
64.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Chapter 12
CAD/CAM workstations:
a. provide engineers, designers, and factory managers with precise control over
industrial design and manufacturing.
b. provide an important source of expertise for organizations.
c. allow groups to work together on documents.
d. are high-end PCs used in the financial sector to analyze trading situations
instantaneously and facilitate portfolio management.
Answer: a
65.
Expert systems
Transaction processing systems
Case-based reasoning
Data mining
Answer: d
Reference: p. 436
CAD systems.
Virtual reality systems.
Fuzzy logic systems.
Intelligent agents.
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 436
Expert systems:
a.
b.
c.
d.
solve problems too difficult for human experts.
are based on DO WHILE rules.
work in very limited domains.
share characteristics with mainframe computing.
Answer: c
68.
Difficulty: Medium
To automate routine tasks to help firms search for and filter information for use in
electronic commerce and supply chain management a firm would most likely use:
a.
b.
c.
d.
67.
Reference: p. 435
Which of the following is used for knowledge discovery?
a.
b.
c.
d.
66.
Difficulty: Medium
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 436
It is unlikely you could represent the knowledge in the Encyclopedia Britannica with an
expert system because:
a. there is no one expert who understands all the material contained within the
encyclopedia.
b. the knowledge changes radically over a short time.
c. not all the knowledge in the encyclopedia can be represented in the form of IF-THEN
rules.
d. the knowledge is too general.
Answer: c
Difficulty: Easy
Reference: p. 436
Chapter 12
69.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
12-11
The AI shell is:
a. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with information
entered by the user.
b. the programming environment of an expert system.
c. a method of organizing expert system knowledge into chunks.
d. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with a
hypothesis.
Answer: b
70.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 436
An inference engine is:
a. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with information
entered by the user.
b. the programming environment of an expert system.
c. a method of organizing expert system knowledge into chunks.
d. a strategy used to search through the rule base in an expert system in one of two
ways.
Answer: d
71.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 436
Forward chaining is:
a. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with information
entered by the user.
b. the programming environment of an expert system.
c. a method of organizing expert system knowledge into chunks.
d. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with a
hypothesis.
Answer: a
72.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 436
Backward chaining is:
a. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with information
entered by the user.
b. the programming environment of an expert system.
c. a method of organizing expert system knowledge into chunks.
d. a strategy for searching the rule base in an expert system that begins with a
hypothesis.
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 437
12-12
73.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Before an expert system is integrated into the data flow and work patterns of the
organization, it is:
a.
b.
c.
d.
checked against a similar working system.
made comprehensible to the operations personnel.
patented or copyrighted.
tested by a range of experts within the organization against performance criteria
established earlier.
Answer: d
74.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 438
Which of the following is the expert system used by Countrywide Funding Corp. to
make preliminary creditworthiness decisions on loan requests?
a.
b.
c.
d.
AskMe
EVAL
CLUES
CBR
Answer: c
75.
Chapter 12
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 438
Expert systems are expensive and time-consuming to maintain:
a. because their rule base is so complex.
b. because they rely on equipment that becomes outdated.
c. because their rules must be reprogrammed every time there is a change in the
environment, which in turn may change the applicable rules
d. because only the person who created the system knows exactly how it works, and
may not be available when changes are needed.
Answer: c
76.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 439
Ford Motor Company developed an application that backs a simulated tractor trailer into
a parking space. The system was developed using:
a.
b.
c.
d.
case-based reasoning.
artificial intelligence.
fuzzy logic.
expert system.
Answer: c
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 440
Chapter 12
77.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Systems whose architecture is based on the human brain’s mesh-like neuron structure are
called:
a.
b.
c.
d.
knowledge-based systems.
neural networks.
fuzzy logic systems.
expert system.
Answer: b
78.
Reference: p. 441
neural network.
expert system.
case-based reasoning.
fuzzy logic.
Answer: a
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 441
Genetic algorithms:
a.
b.
c.
d.
develop solutions to particular problems using fitness, crossover, and mutation.
represent knowledge as groups of characteristics.
do not work for most problems.
are based on logic.
Answer: a
80.
Difficulty: Medium
Hardware and software that attempts to emulate the processing patterns of the biological
brain best describes:
a.
b.
c.
d.
79.
12-13
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 442
Which of the following are not used to capture tactic knowledge?
a.
b.
c.
d.
expert systems
case-based reasoning
fuzzy logic
Intelligent agents
Answer: d
Difficulty: Medium
Reference: p. 444
Fill In the Blanks
81.
Data is defined as the flow of events or transactions captured by an organization’s system
that, by itself, is useful for transacting, but little else.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 416
12-14
82.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
To turn data into useful information, a firm must expend resources to organize data into
categories of understanding.
Difficulty: Easy
83.
p. 416
Reference:
p. 416
Reference:
p. 416
Reference:
p. 416
Reference:
p. 418
Knowledge management refers to the set of business processes developed in an organization
to create, store, transfer, and apply knowledge.
Difficulty: Easy
91.
Reference:
Changing organizational behavior by sensing and responding to new experience and
knowledge is called organizational learning.
Difficulty: Easy
90.
p. 416
Knowledge residing in the minds of employees that has been documented is called explicit
knowledge.
Difficulty: Easy
89.
Reference:
Knowledge residing in the minds of employees that has not been documented is called tacit
knowledge.
Difficulty: Easy
88.
p. 416
Tacit knowledge is the expertise and experience of organizational members that has not been
formally documented.
Difficulty: Easy
87.
Reference:
Wisdom is thought to be the collective and individual experience of applying knowledge to
the solution of problems.
Difficulty: Easy
86.
p. 416
To transform information into knowledge, a firm must expend additional resources to
discover patterns, rules, and contexts where the knowledge works.
Difficulty: Easy
85.
Reference:
Knowledge is the concepts experience, and insight that provide a framework for creating,
evaluating, and using information.
Difficulty: Easy
84.
Chapter 12
Reference:
p. 418
Document management systems digitize, index, and tag documents according to a coherent
framework.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 419
Chapter 12
92.
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
The chief knowledge officer (CKO) is a senior executive who is responsible for the firm’s
knowledge management system.
Difficulty: Easy
93.
p. 421
Reference:
p. 421
Reference:
p. 422
Reference:
p. 422
A knowledge repository is a collection of internal and external knowledge in a single
location for more efficient management and utilization by the organization.
Difficulty: Medium
99.
Reference:
Knowledge that exists inside a firm in the form of voice mail, e-mail, chat room exchanges,
videos, digital pictures, brochures, or bulletin boards is commonly referred to as
semistructured knowledge.
Difficulty: Easy
98.
p. 420
Knowledge that already exists inside a firm in the form of structured text documents and
reports or presentations is referred to as structured knowledge .
Difficulty: Easy
97.
Reference:
Knowledge management also includes a diverse group of intelligent techniques, such as data
mining, expert systems, neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, and intelligent
agents.
Difficulty: Easy
96.
p. 420
Knowledge work systems (KWS) are specialized systems built for engineers, scientists, and
other knowledge workers charged with discovering and creating new knowledge for a
company.
Difficulty: Medium
95.
Reference:
Communities of practice (COPs) are informal social networks of professionals and
employees within and outside the firm who have similar work-related activities and interests.
Difficulty: Medium
94.
12-15
Reference:
p. 422
Knowledge network systems are also known as expertise location and management systems.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference:
p. 423
100. Structured knowledge is explicit knowledge that exists in formal documents, as well as in
formal rules that organizations derive by observing experts and their decision-making
behaviors.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 423
12-16
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Chapter 12
101. A taxonomy is a scheme for classifying information and knowledge in such a way that it can
be easily accessed.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference:
p. 427
102. A learning management system (LMS) provides tools for the management, delivery,
tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning and training.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference:
p. 430
103. Knowledge workers include researchers, designers, architects, scientists, and engineers who
primarily create knowledge and information for the organization.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 431
104. Computer aided design (CAD) automates the creation and revision of designs, using
computers and sophisticated graphics software.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 433
105. Virtual reality systems have visualization, rendering, and simulation capabilities that go far
beyond those of conventional CAD systems.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 434
106. Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is a set of specifications for interactive, threedimensional modeling on the World Wide Web that can organize multiple media types,
including animation, images, and audio to put users in a simulated real-world environment.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 434
107. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology consists of computer-based systems that attempt to
emulate human behavior.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 436
108. Expert systems are an intelligent technique for capturing tacit knowledge as a set of rules in a
very specific and limited domain of human expertise.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 436
109. The model of human knowledge used by expert systems is called the knowledge base.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 436
110. The AI shell is the programming environment of an expert system.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 436
Chapter 12
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
12-17
111. The strategy used to search through the rule base is called the inference engine.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 436
112. In forward chaining the inference engine begins with the information entered by the user
and searches the rule base to arrive at a conclusion.
Difficulty: Hard
Reference:
p. 436
113. In backward chaining the strategy for searching the rule base starts with a hypothesis and
proceeds by asking the user questions about selected facts until the hypothesis is either
conformed or disproved.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference:
p. 437
114. A(n) knowledge engineer is similar to a traditional systems analysts but has special expertise
in eliciting information and expertise from other professionals.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 437
115. In case-based reasoning (CBR), descriptions of past experiences of human specialists,
represented as cases are stored in a database for later retrieval when the user encounters a
new case with similar parameters.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference:
p. 439
116. Fuzzy logic is a rule-based technology that can represent such imprecision by creating rules
that use approximate or subjective values.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 440
117. Neural networks are used for modeling complex, poorly understood problems for which
large amounts of data have been collected.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 441
118. Genetic algorithms are used for finding the optimal solution for a specific problem by
examining a very large number of possible solutions for that problem.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 442
119. Genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and expert systems can be integrated in a
single application to take advantage of the best features of these technologies. Such systems
are called hybrid AI systems.
Difficulty: Medium
Reference:
p. 443
12-18
Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
Chapter 12
120. Intelligent agents are software programs that work in the background without direct human
intervention to carry out specific, repetitive, and predictable tasks for individual user,
business process, or software applications.
Difficulty: Easy
Reference:
p. 444
Essay Questions
121. What is knowledge management? Briefly outline the knowledge management chain.
Knowledge management is the set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather,
store, disseminate, and apply the firm’s knowledge. The five steps in the knowledge
management chain include acquisition, storage, dissemination, application, and management
and organizational activities.
122. Identify the three major types of knowledge management systems. Provide two examples of
each.
The major types of knowledge management systems are enterprise knowledge management
systems, knowledge work systems, and intelligent techniques. Structured knowledge systems
and knowledge networks are types of enterprise knowledge management systems. Computeraided design and virtual reality are two types of knowledge work systems. Data mining and
neural networks are types of intelligent techniques. Figure 12-3 in the textbook provides
additional examples.
123. Identify three types of knowledge. What type of enterprise knowledge management system is
needed to support each type?
Structured, semistructured, and network are three types of knowledge. Structured knowledge
is found in the form of structured documents and reports. A structured knowledge system can
be used for organizing such knowledge in a repository. Semistructured knowledge is
information in the form of less structured objects and can benefit from a semistructured
knowledge system. The semistructured knowledge system organizes and stores less structured
information, including e-mail, voice mail, videos, and graphics. Network knowledge includes
the expertise of individuals and can be supported by knowledge networks. A knowledge
network is an online directory for locating corporate experts in well-defined knowledge
domains.
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Managing Knowledge in the Digital Firm
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124. Why are knowledge workers so important to the digital firm? Which of the functions they
perform do you feel is most critical to the success of the firm? Why?
Knowledge workers create new products or find ways to improve existing ones. Without
them, the firm would stagnate and become less competitive in an environment that is always
changing and is increasingly more competitive. In the modern economy, knowledge is truly
power. The three major functions of knowledge workers are: keeping the organization up-todate in knowledge as it develops in the external world, serving as internal consultants
regarding their areas of knowledge and its opportunities, and acting as change agents as they
evaluate, initiate, and promote new projects.
125. Identify three specific requirements of knowledge work systems.
Knowledge work systems must give knowledge workers the specialized tools they need, such
as powerful graphics, analytical tools, and communications and document-management tools.
Knowledge work systems must provide a user-friendly interface to the KWS. These userfriendly interfaces save time by allowing the user to perform needed tasks and get to required
information without having to spend a lot of time learning to use the computer.
Knowledge work systems must be carefully designed to optimize the performance of the
specific tasks of the pertinent knowledge worker.
126. Discuss the concept of virtual reality, especially with regard to VRML and its applications in
the business arena.
Virtual reality systems use interactive graphics software and hardware to create the illusion of
reality in cyberspace. The original applications were in gaming, but new uses in education,
science, and business are being developed and have great promise. Virtual reality applications
are being developed for the Web using a standard called Virtual Reality Modeling Language
(VRML), which can organize multiple media types to put users in a simulated real-world
environment. VRML is platform independent, operates over a desktop computer, and requires
little bandwidth. DuPont’s HyperPlant is an example of a business application. HyperPlant
allows users to go through three-dimensional models as if they were physically walking
through a plant, which reduces errors during the construction of manufacturing structures.
127. How might a company go about building an expert system?
An AI development team is chosen, composed of one or more experts, who have a thorough
command of the knowledge base, and one or more knowledge engineers, who can translate the
knowledge described by the expert into a set of rules or frames. The team members select a
problem appropriate for the expert system. The project will balance potential savings from
the proposed system against the cost. The team members develop a prototype system to test
assumptions. Next, they develop the full-scale system, focusing mainly on the addition of a
very large number of rules. The complexity of the system grows with the number of rules, so
comprehensibility may be threatened. The system is then edited and pruned to achieve
simplicity, elegance, and power. The system is tested against the performance criteria
established earlier. Once tested and accepted, the system is then integrated into the data flow
and work patterns of the organization.
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128. Differentiate between each of the following pairs of words: neural networks and expert
systems, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms, hybrid AI systems and intelligent agents.
A neural network attempts to emulate the processing patterns of the biological brain. It results
in a program that can “learn” by comparing solutions to known problems to sets of data
presented to it. An expert system works by a system of IF-THEN rules against a knowledge
base. By answering a series of yes/no questions, the program arrives at a “diagnosis” or
“conclusion”.
Fuzzy logic uses nonspecific terms called “membership functions” to solve problems by
comparing the ranges into which various specifications fall and reaching a conclusion based
on rules covering the various relationships. Genetic algorithms are problem-solving methods
that use the model of living organisms adapting to their environment. Possible solutions are
evaluated, the “best” choices are made, then more possible solutions are created by combining
the factors involved in those first “best” choices, and choosing again. The process continues
until an optimum solution is reached.
Hybrid AI systems use multiple AI technologies in a single application, taking advantage of
the best features of each. This is a new field, and has great promise for business applications.
Intelligent agents are software programs that use a built-in or a learned knowledge base to
carry out specific, repetitive, and predictable tasks for a user, business process, or software
application.
129. What management
H
challenges are posed by knowledge management systems? How should
they be addressed?
Knowledge management systems are difficult to implement successfully and they do not
always provide value after they are put in place. It can be difficult to prove quantitative
benefits for knowledge management systems and identify ways of genuinely increasing
knowledge worker productivity. Firms can provide appropriate organizational and
management capital to make these systems successful by rewarding knowledge sharing,
promoting communities of practice and a knowledge culture, and designing appropriate
taxonomies for organizing knowledge. Proper planning, development of appropriate
measurements of benefits, and staged rollout can increase the chances of success for
knowledge management projects. Key management decisions include identifying business
processes for which knowledge management systems can provide the most value.
130. How do experts systems work?
Expert systems capture tacit knowledge from a limited domain of human expertise and
express that knowledge in the form of rules. The strategy to search through the knowledge
base, called the inference engine, can use either forward or backward chaining. Expert
systems are most useful for problems of classification or diagnosis. Case-based reasoning
represents organizations knowledge as a database of cases that can be continually expanded
and refined. When the user encounters a new case, the system searches for similar cases,
finds the closest fit, and applies the solutions of the old case to the new case. The new case is
stored with successful solutions in the case database.