The following articles compose the research for my literature presentation on knowledge management and its influence on E-Business.  I believe that this is a very important subject of knowledge management due to its increasing make-up of the overall business being done in the world today.  As more and more business begins to take place over the Internet, we will need new forms of knowledge management that aren’t just extensions of current knowledge management models, but rather models that apply specifically to knowledge being used in the Internet world.

 My primary article is:

Malhotra, Y. (2000). Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance:  Advancing Information Strategy to “Internet Time”. Information Strategy, The Executive’s Journal, 16 (4), 5-16.

While a lot of knowledge management focuses on the management of knowledge within corporations, little emphasis seems to be placed on the e-business and its management of knowledge.  This article considers the main assumptions of any information management strategy and refreshes them for modern business in an Internet embracing world.  I felt this would be an interesting topic to choose considering e-business is an enormous part of business being done today and knowledge management is just as important for this sector of business as well.

My secondary article is:

Fahey, L., Srivastava, R., Sharon, J.S., Smith, D.E. (2001). Linking E-Business and Operating Processes: The Role of Knowledge Management. IBM Systems Journal, 40 (4), 889-907.

E-business has made great strides in creating new methods in which business is accomplished, but has not yet completely incorporated into the knowledge management landscape.  This article focuses on how e-business knowledge management contributes to customer relationship management, supply chain management, and product development management. 

The most important difference I see between traditional knowledge management and the kind associated with e-businesses is the human relationship factor.  While even though sometimes limited in a traditional business setting, in-person human interaction is the decisive difference between traditional business models and their e-business counterparts.  Because of this knowledge management systems must be designed to take this factor into account.  Additionally, on-line accessibility plays an even larger role when dealing with e-businesses due to the fact that there is no physical place to turn to for help when on-line communication fails.  Overall, these and several other factors constitute specific elements of the knowledge management design that need restructuring when considering an e-business.