Thomas W. Malone, Kevin Crowston, and George A. Herman, editors
2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Times New Roman on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong, and was printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Organizing business knowledge : the MIT process handbook / Thomas W. Malone, Kevin Crowston, and George A. Herman, editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-13429-2 (hc. : alk. paper)
1. Knowledge management. 2. Organizational behavior. I. Title: MIT process handbook. II. Malone, Thomas W. III. Crowston, Kevin. IV. Herman, George A. (George Arthur), 1953–
HD30.2.T67 2003
658.40038—dc21
2002045174
In memory of Charles S. Osborn
Contributors
Abraham Bernstein
University of Zurich
Nicholas G. Carr
Harvard Business Review
Kevin Crowston
Syracuse University
Chrysanthos Dellarocas
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michael Grunninger
University of Toronto
George A. Herman
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yan Jin
Stanford University
Mark Klein
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jintae Lee
University of Colorado, Boulder
Thomas W. Malone
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Elisa O'Donnell
A. T. Kearney
Wanda Orlikowski
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Charles S. Osborn
late of Babson College
John Quimby
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Brian T. Pentland
Michigan State University
Austin Tate
University of Edinburgh
George M. Wyner
Boston University
JoAnne Yates
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Takeshi Yoshioka
Fuji-Xerox Co., Ltd.
Gregg Yost
Digital Equipment Corporation
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to Charley Osborn, a key member of the Process Handbook research team starting when he was a graduate student at Harvard Business School and continuing throughout his time as a professor at Babson College. Charley died in December 2001, after a long illness with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and he will be sorely missed by those of us who knew and worked with him. The royalties from this book will be donated, in his memory, to the Osborn Family Fund.
The work described in this book was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. IRI-8903034, IRI-9224093, DMI-9628949, and IIS-0085725), the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the US Defense Logistics Agency. It was also supported by the following corporate sponsors: Boeing, British Telecom, Daimler Benz, Digital Equipment Corporation, Electronic Data Systems (EDS), Fuji Xerox, Intel Corporation, Matsushita, National Westminster Bank, Statoil, Telia, Union Bank of Switzerland, Unilever, and other sponsors of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and the MIT Initiative on ''Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century.''
The people who made significant contributions to different aspects of this work are listed as authors of the chapters in this volume, and in the acknowledgments sections of those chapters. It is worth mentioning separately here, however, the following people who played continuing roles throughout large parts of the project:
Co-Principal Investigators for the project: Thomas W. Malone (Project director), Kevin Crowston, Jintae Lee, and Brian Pentland
Full-time project research staff: John Quimby (Software Development Manager) and George Herman (Managing Editor)
Other major contributors: Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Mark Klein, George Wyner, the late Charley Osborne, Abraham Bernstein, and Elisa O'Donnell
Project advisors: Marc Gerstein, Fred Luconi, Gilad Zlotkin, and John Gerhart
Project management: Martha Broad, Bob Halperin, Ed Heresniak, and Roanne Neuwirth
Process Handbook Advisory Board: Michael Cohen, John McDermott, and the late Gerald Salancik.
The software described in this volume is the subject of the following patents: US Patent Nos. 5,819,270; 6,070,163; 6,349,298; European Patent No. 0692113; and other pending patent applications by MIT.