Knowledge Networking

Competence Portals are software tools that are intended to make it easier for persons that have had no previous contact to find and contact each other. The portals can address areas ranging from finding an expert within an organisation to the marketing of the competence of a region or a research centre to other organisations. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the necessity of Competence Portals in research-intensive organisations. Important characteristics of the information in such portals have been identified and used as a basis for recommendations regarding how Competence Portals could be designed. Furthermore, the thesis focuses on the task of finding a source of knowledge within an organisation. The study is of a general nature and is supposed to be of interest to anyone who has an interest in knowledge management and tools to enable easy contacts within and between organisations. The study includes research organisations from Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom and privately owned Swedish companies. The focus is on the German research organisations and Swedish companies. The empirical data was gathered using two surveys and multiple interviews with both persons featured in a Competence Portal as well as prospective users. We have found that is uncommon to have access to tools such as Competence Portals in the studied groups. The tasks that a portal is meant to make easier is most often already solved in an efficient way or not performed frequently enough to merit a larger investment. Furthermore, the general opinion regarding Competence Systems in the studied group is very sceptical. We have therefore reached the conclusion that the demand for a software solution such as Competence Portals is low in the studied group. As a result of the little room for improvement in current work procedures and a general low demand we conclude that the necessity of Competence Portals is low in the studied group. However, Competence Portals are likely to be useful to very large or geographically scattered organisations. We have summarized our findings regarding the quality aspects of the information inCompetence Portals in a model that illustrates the important areas to consider when designing a Competence Portal. The model emphasise the importance of processes for updating and maintaining the information in the portal