A study on information technology alternatives that aid organizational cultures and subcultures towards a maximization of flow and creation of knowledge-Edición Única

Throughout history man has evolved in ways that are difficult to find in any other species. It may be that the ways and the degree of sophistication of this evolution are what make us so special and one example of this is the technology we have developed. It is seldom found in other species changes as drastic in their sociology as we have experienced by the invention of our tools. The tools we use help us define periods in history, give entire peoples the advantage over others and modify the way that we define our world; they make us see things we otherwise would have never seen and make us interact with each other in ways that we never imagined. But somehow we have evolved very little in biological ways and in the way we feel about each other. Anger, hate, love, respect, feelings and concepts we know even before we learn to talk and use the tools we love so much. And so we have had few relative advances in the ways that we developed our social tools, tools that have helped us learn as a species: language, culture, social structures. This work is based on the fundamental elements of evolution: knowledge, relationships and organizations. Evolution is the consequence of having placed an organism in an environment where the survival of such organism is not guaranteed by any mean and knowledge is a necessary element for evolution. In our context the organism is the organization in question, that not unlike any other biological organism is composed of living breathing elements. The current commercial landscape is and averse environment, and if modern organizations want to survive then they should consider embracing evolution as their means for survival. The knowledge we need is embedded in our organization, it thrives on the relationships that are built by those who are a part of it. It is present in every single decision we make, from the shop floor, to the very head of a corporation. We have learned to harbor it in some ways, somehow grasping the few aspects of it that are tangible; patents and brands have been with us for quite some time, and this is only because we have seen their presence reflected in financial reports, expressed in profits and losses. But there is more knowledge that is harder to grasp, it develops, explodes and evaporates in the minds of every employee. But somehow, through very “old” methods it can be observed, exploited, kept and built. These methods are our social relationships we generate among our coworkers. But still we haven’t got the hold we should of these mechanisms. Perhaps controlling them is not the strategy we should follow. Yet we do have information technologies. They are already used in our every day operations, sometimes they are absolutely necessary. And through these technologies we can support our social mechanisms. Trough this support we will profit from the knowledge created. This work is about how IT could help in doing just that: helping organizations survive