Foundation

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support handling Knowledge of knowledge in organizations have been discussed for quite a long time. In the beginning of applying ICTs, it was routine work that was first prone to automation. ICTs gradually broadened their scope and have been extended to embrace highly valued work that years before hardly anybody would have believed that it could be supported by ICTs. Back in the 50 s to 80 s of the last century, various waves of systems applying artificial intelligence (AI) technologies had a powerful impact on concepts of knowledge, not only in the discipline computer science, but also in fields, such as cognitive psychology. However, many business organizations trying to implement these technologies, first advertised as “general problem solver”, were frustrated by the fact that the technologies could not live up to the overly high expectations. Instead, they showed comparably high complexity and difficulties in applying them to business challenges. Thus, AI technologies survived only in special and narrow application fields.