An intranet as a strategic tool within a knowledge management strategy : reflecting on the evaluation of an intranet

摘要

An Intranet is well suited for use as a strategic tool in Knowledge Management (KM) owing to its ability to support distribution, connectivity and publishing. The Intranet should be viewed as integral to an organisation's KM strategy, which in turn must be aligned critically with the organisation's business strategy.The authors set out to argue that the Intranet should be used as a strategic tool within a Knowledge Management strategy. The question arises: To what extent does an organisation's existing Intranet facilitate this function? TheeThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa, provides a useful context for the application of this question.The importance of the Intranet, a theoretical framework encompassing the significance of knowledge in corporate society, the defining of Knowledge Management and its sub-categories, and the clarification of the meaning ofknowledge are explored.This paper seeks to reflect upon the existing Intranet used by eThekwini Municipality and to provide an evaluation thereof. The research results, derived from an online questionnaire, reveal an opportunity for improvement, so that the Intranet may be more effectively utilised as a strategic tool.