7 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

Regardless of the industry or organization an individual is working in, he or she is
expected to act more and more as an internal entrepreneur, or intrapreneur. Given the
increasing relevance of the knowledge value chain in the organizational business
processes, one can anticipate that most individuals in knowledge-based organizations
would be acting as knowledge intrapreneurs. The term 'knowledge intrapreneur' seems
more appropriate in this context than 'knowledge worker' given the changing nature of
organizations and work roles. The new work roles demand that every worker, act to an
extent as a manager as well as an entrepreneur in the organizational knowledge-creation
process. Such knowledge intrapreneurs are expected to contribute to the organizational
knowledge-creation processes based on developing knowledge relationships and
knowledge exchanges within and outside the formal boundaries of the organizations.
10. Conclusion
Metcalfe's law states that the usefulness, or utility, of a network equals approximately the
square of the number of users of the system (n 2 ). Applying the same law to knowledge
sharing communities, it can be stated that the value people perceive in joining a
community grows very rapidly as the number of people who already are members of that
community increases. Though the initial efforts required in convincing people on the
benefits of knowledge-sharing is extremely high, as more and more people get convincied
, it becomes easier to convince still more. It may be kept in mind that knowledge sharing
cannot be supervised, nor forced out of people, but happen only when people cooperate
voluntarily. However with a judicious mix of awareness, motivation and facilitation
steady progress can be made in knowledge sharing. As the knowledge-sharing community
grows and reaches the ‘critical mass’ , the movement becomes self sustaining. KM
becomes part of the organizational fabric, and sharing becomes an integral part of every
role across the organization, and thus reducing the effort required for dedicated KM roles.
It creates a paradigm shift in the thinking of people from “knowledge is power” to
“knowledge sharing is power”.
One can anticipate that the new paradigm of knowledge creation and dissemination would
have implications for most types of knowledge work. The paradigm shift is anticipated to
have implications for traditional channels of knowledge creation and dissemination. It is
also anticipated to facilitate the democratization of policy-making processes that influence
specific groups and communities. It is anticipated that a balance between the technological
and human elements of future knowledge management systems would facilitate both
learning and unlearning processes. This balance is anticipated to result in systems that
facilitate 'anticipation of surprise' demanded by the continuously changing organizational
environments. The resulting knowledge creation systems would balance the emphasis on
efficiency and effectiveness. Such systems are anticipated to take into consideration
context, synergy and trust necessary for translating information into actionable knowledge.
Such systems would also address the long-term and ongoing knowledge creation needs of
the organizations served by knowledge intrapreneurs, who can practice the policy “use
the good judgment always”.
As organizations are facing increasing complexity and unpredictable environment,
coupled with higher attrition rate of trained personnel, more and more organizations are
realizing the importance of Knowledge Management. Already many organizations are
implementing Knowledge Management, to effectively meet the challenges of 21 st century
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