Organizational Memory Systems

Aim and content of the chapter This chapter introduces an agent-based approach to organizational memory systems (OMSs). It is based on OMS work developed at EURISCO that is multidisciplinary and multidomain, focused on the construction of OMS concepts for the aeronautical industry (Attipoe & Boy, 1995; Boy, 1995, 1997, 1998; Durstewitz, 1994; Israel, 1996). In many ways, OMS problems encountered in the industry domain are very similar to those encountered in the education domain, even if the productivity issues are not quite the same. OMSs are also related to the development of Intranets, that will enable massive information transfer within an organization. But they do not solve the major problem of existence or availability of the right information at the right time in the right place, and in the right understandable format. In addition, organizations evolve towards more autonomy, cooperation and coordination between agents. Machine agents, taking the form of software assistants, tend to replace human agents. The emergence of these new agents is creating new jobs. This chapter presents and discusses a theoretical framework that enables the analysis, design and evaluation of organizational memory systems.