From global knowledge management to internal electronic fences: Contradictory outcomes of intranet development

This paper considers the adoption of intranet technology as a vehicle for e ncouraging organization-wide knowledge sharing within a large, global bank, Ironically, the outcome of intranet adoption was that, rather than integra te individuals across this particular organization, the intranet actually h elped to reinforce the existing functional and national boundaries with 'el ectronic fences'. This could be partly explained by the historical emphasis on decentralization within the bank, which shaped and limited the use of t he intranet as a centralizing, organization-wide tool, This is possible bec ame the intranet can be described as an interactive and decentred technolog y, which therefore has the potential for multiple interpretations and effec ts. Thug while the intranet is often promoted as a technology that enables processes of communication, collaboration and social coordination it also h as the potential to disable such processes. Moreover, it is argued that to develop an intranet for knowledge-sharing requires a focus on three distinc tive facets of development. These different facets may require very differe nt, sometimes contradictory, sets of strategies for blending the technology and the organization, thus making it extremely difficult for a project tea m to work effectively on all three beets simultaneously. This was evidenced by the bet that none of the independent intranet-implementation projects c onsidered actually managed to encourage knowledge-sharing as intended, even within the relatively homogeneous group for which it was designed. Broader knowledge-sharing across the wider organizational context simply did not o ccur even among those who were working on what were defined as 'knowledge m anagement' projects. A paradox is that knowledge-sharing via intranet techn ologies may be most difficult to achieve in contexts where knowledge manage ment is the key objective.