IT-Based Knowledge Management To Support Organizational Learning: Visa Application Screening At The INS

This paper discusses the knowledge management issues involved in developing an integrated, support system for the visa approval process at the US Immigration and Naturalization Service agency. This research combined competitive intelligence analysis methods with an understanding of human knowledge as dynamic, socially constructed and situated in context, to determine appropriate roles for IT and human analysts in a high-pressure, sensitive decision-making environment. We use Nonaka’s (1994) SECI model and risk-analysis techniques based on competitive intelligence analysis to examine the role that knowledge of various kinds played in this process. The contribution of this paper is to provide a knowledge taxonomy and a process-framework by which roles for IT support in a complex and distributed, high-risk decision-making environment may be defined.