Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains

Portais Corporativos

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Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains
trough the development of Knowledge Portals
This article presents the conceptual bases to develop a knowledge portal applied on a general supply
chain.

Dr. José Cláudio Cyrineu Terra

Introduction Value Chains

The purpose of this paper is to establish the • A Brazilian Experience with a
conceptual bases for the development of a Knowledge Portal involving 15 Research
knowledge portal applied to a generic economic Organizations
cluster and value chain and to report the initial
results of Communities of Practice developed • Expected Results and Final
across a number of different Research Institutes. Considerations
Although we start out with solid theoretical bases,
the paper does more than just review the concepts 1. Review of Concepts
previously presented or developed. In fact, we
believe this paper is quite innovative. For a better understanding of the theoretical
bases of this paper, we have to briefly revisit
Concise revisions are made of the main points the concepts of Cluster Economics, Knowledge
related to Cluster Theory and Learning Networks, Management and Corporate Portals. According
Knowledge Management and Corporate to our interpretation, there is potential for a highly
Portals. These concepts, practices and points of synergistic interaction among these three concepts.
convergence make up, then, the starting points In fact, in spite of dealing with concepts from three
for a description of the main objectives and distinct areas of study or bodies of knowledge,
functionalities (with their corresponding motivators) that is, Economics, Administration and Information
that should be included in a “Knowledge Portal Technology, it can be seen that the key and
Applied to Economic Clusters and Value Chains”. dominant themes are very similar. This similarity
of themes and, in some cases, analytic tool-box, is
We will divide this work into the following parts: what motivated the preparation of this article. We
• Review of Concepts will try, next, to emphasize each of these themes
o “Cluster Economics” and the separately, so that, at the end of this paper, we can
Network Era put forward some propositions of a practical nature.
o Knowledge Management;

• The Innovative Opportunity: Knowledge
Portal Applied to Economic Clusters and

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Portais Corporativos Strengthening Economic Clusters and Value Chains trough the development of Knowledge Portals

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Conceptual Model: Synergy of Concepts
between Clusters, Knowledge Management
and Corporate Portals

networks of collaboration and knowledge among
Source: Developed by the author enterprises, universities and government. The
Japanese kairetsus and the just-in-time methods
1.1 “Cluster Economics” and the Network Era of production, initially developed by Toyota, have
spread throughout the world and have as one of
Understanding of competitive advantage on their bases a very high level of cooperation and
the basis of clusters has its origin in some exchange of information among enterprises in the
classical works which detailed the power of productive chain. In Europe, there are already
learning networks. Michael Porter, in his book reports that speak of a new corporate structure:
The Competitive Advantage of Nations, called the “syndicates of companies”, that is, associations
attention to the atmosphere of learning, cooperation of small and medium companies, which do not
and high competition existing in micro-regions; compete against each other and which are co-
Anna Lee Saxenian related very ably (in her proprietors of “cooperatives” which assume
book: Regional Advantage) the development of responsibility for activities in common , such as:
Silicon Valley, starting with the informal flows and marketing, distribution, entry into foreign markets,



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licensing of technology, etc. With this structure, the (as do the keiretsus) and the information
individual enterprises concentrate on their main and exchanges go far beyond those which would be
differentiating activities (e.g., design, RD, etc.). required to complete production orders. In many
cases, the exchanges of “intangibles” (information
In sum, companies which belong to competitive or knowledge) are, in fact, the only relevant
clusters work, in general, in a rather synergistic way exchanges among the members of the cluster. In
and/or may hold various common interests. Among this new era, the participants of these networks
them, the following may be mentioned: satisfaction collaborate to attend to the long and short term
of the final customer, technological development, needs of their customers and to create new
sectoral or local regulation, training of the work knowledge and products.
force, development of infrastructure, exports,
relations with the government, academia and other Manuel Castell, well-known Berkeley sociology
not-for-profit institutions, etc. professor and astute observer of economic and
social changes engendered by the information and
Various authors have predicted that, by means telecommunications technologies, believes that: the
of new levels and forms of networking, we’re network is the enterprise. The concepts, then, of
beginning to see the rapid change in the networks of companies and/or network enterprise
role performed by large corporations and the are carried much further ahead by Castell. In his
emergence of a picture of how work should interpretation, the network enterprise is a “lean
be carried out in the 21st century. The change agency of economic activity”, where the business
taking place at this time would be as profound practices are carried out in an ad hoc manner,
as that which occurred starting with the industrial depending upon specific projects and quite short-
revolution. In spite of the constant reports of lived demand.
mergers and acquisitions all over the world, it can
be observed that, for example, the proportion that It is necessary to both compete and, at the same
employees working for the 500 largest companies time, collaborate. Companies often compete
in the USA (the Fortune 500) represents of the in some markets and collaborate in others.
total American workforce has been falling steadily Nowadays, in the most advanced markets, they
for the past 25 years, having gone down from already talk a lot about “Collaboration Capital”
20% to 10%. These companies are clearly less and “Digital Capital”. It has to do, in large part,
vertically integrated today than in the past. Their with the idea of taking advantage of the Internet’s
fundamental role, according to MIT professors infrastructure to increase revenue and profits by
Malone and Laubacher, will be to: “establish rules, means of never before attained levels of high scale
standards and cultures for network organizations collaboration, independent of geographic location.
operating partly within and partly outside their own According to this emerging model, everything
boundaries”. begins with the final client’s needs and materializes
by means of intense collaboration to optimize
The Internet, however, is substantially raising the joint processes of the different parties and to
the importance of all these concepts of clusters stimulate the exchange of information, knowledge,
and integration among companies. Unlike these resources and personnel.
more traditional symbiotic forms, the new ways
of networking are not restricted by geographic In this environment, we believe that, without having
barriers, they do not involve crossed shareholdings very well-connected and rapidly- implemented



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business and sector strategies, it is very hard to
imagine that enterprises will succeed in making In the context of this paper, it is important
themselves competitive and even in surviving the to highlight that sociological and economic
challenges imposed by international competition. research and experiments have repeatedly
The economic model of substitution of imports, demonstrated that people tend to have less trust
adopted by many developing nations led in individuals of another race, country or culture.
enterprises in these countries to “learn by doing”. This is an important issue for knowledge-based
The external competition with companies from multinationals, regional cooperation and virtual
developed countries, nevertheless, require other economic cluster that require cooperation and the
forms of learning to be much more prominent and free-flow of knowledge among people from offices
demand much more modern strategies to speed across the globe. For years, organizations have
up both the creation and the flow of knowledge been trying to mitigate the difficulty of building trust
within and among enterprises and other institutions, across cultures by periodically moving people to
such as research centres, universities, trade and different offices and countries and by providing
industrial associations, governments, etc. many employees with, among other things, diversity
and cultural-sensitivity courses.
In this scenario, it’s more and more difficult to
imagine that small companies (and even countries), The degree of trust is rooted in history, myths and
operating in an isolated manner, can manage set of prevailing values. It develops over time and
to succeed. They’re incapable of generating is not easily increased. However, it can be very
or obtaining all the knowledge and information easily reduced or even totally lost by untrustworthy
they need and of attaining large enough scale to actions. This asymmetric nature of trust (hard to
perform and compete with a global perspective. To increase, easy to be lost) and its fundamental
overcome this disadvantage, they must of necessity importance for building knowledge-sharing and
employ coordinated educational, managerial and collaborating networks is one the key issues that
business strategies, proactively incorporated need be taken into consideration upfront and not as
into the environment. These same ideas also an after-thought.
apply to large and traditional organizations. If
they are unable to develop an intense ambience
of collaboration with their customers, suppliers, 1.2 Knowledge Management
partners and even with their competitors, really
didn’t understand the new paradigms of the Knowledge management doesn’t even
“Knowledge Era”. have its start with technology. It starts
with business objectives and processes
It is also clear that “trust” is one of the key and the recognition of the need to share
currencies in this new environment. People and information.
organizations will not voluntarily share what they Bill Gates,
know if they do not trust the other parties. On the President of Microsoft
other hand, as the need for continuous learning is
becoming an essential aspect of life, human and We are living at a time of important transition in
computer-based networks become an important the economic environment, where the proactive
strategy for individuals to amplify the reach of their management of knowledge acquires a central
social and trust-based interactions. role for the competitiveness of both enterprises



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and of countries. However, this was not always creation and reutilization of knowledge. They also
so, as, in the past, advantages of location, as well need more automated systems, which can bring
as access to cheap labour, natural resources and the source of knowledge or correct information to
financial capital had much more significant roles. the user – wherever that person may be – virtually
It’s quite evident that we’re living in an increasingly instantaneously. Time is extremely important!
turbulent environment, where competitive
advantages must be permanently reinvented and In quite practical terms, Knowledge Management
where low-technology sectors and those having implies, necessarily:
low knowledge intensity inexorably lose economic • Development of competencies inter-related
share. In this context, the challenge to produce on the strategic, organizational and individual
more and better is being replaced by the permanent levels;
challenge of creating new products, services, • Acceleration of the generation of new
processes and management systems. In turn, the knowledge with competitive value:
speed of change and the growing complexity of - Increased collaboration among
the challenges no longer allow these efforts to be employees;
concentrated in just a few individuals or areas of - Facilitation of employee access to the
the organizations, region or even countries. sources of training (on-line and off-
line), information and knowledge;
It’s increasingly necessary to make innovation • Discovery of Intellectual Capital and
a permanent mission and to leverage all types Knowledge already existing in the company;
of available knowledge, be they tacit or explicit, • Generation of new revenue based on the re-
internal or external, tangible or intangible. In use of the knowledge/intellectual capital
this scenario, in the mid-‘90s, “Knowledge existing in the company;
Management” emerged as a discipline and a • Protection of the intellectual capital existing in
formalized organizational function, initially in private the company;
enterprises and, a little later, in government organs • Leveraging of the knowledge existing in the
and state-owned enterprises and in supranational company and in the external environment to
entities, such as The World Bank and the United better serve the customers;
Nations. In sum, when one thinks about Knowledge • Improvement of the decision-making process
Management, there is an overlap in the direction at all levels of the company (management,
of the “micro” (individuals and groups), “meso” production and on the front line);
(organizations) and “macro” (environment) • Reduction of costs and of re-working:
analyses. - Don’t reinvent the wheel; and
- Avoid activities which add little value.
At present, we are confronting challenges without
precedent in terms of knowledge management. It’s also clear that investments in information
The challenges are especially guided by three technology and telecommunication infrastructure
forces: the huge volumes of information which are are having an important role in the attainment of
presently being created, stored and distributed; the these objectives. Especially, those technologies
incredible speed with which knowledge content is based on the Internet and which facilitate the
changing; and the continual transformation of the sharing of implicit and explicit knowledge. Among
workplace. To be able to survive, organizations the principal benefits from these technologies are,
must be more and more proactive in supporting the mainly, the increase in connectivity among persons



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(within and outside the organization), a reduction in Two areas and/or topics which are relatively new
the problems of communication between different and quite related to Knowledge Management are
hierarchical levels and better interaction with “Practice Communities” and “E-learning”. Some of
suppliers and customers. These tools, usually their elements are high-lighted below:
integrated in a corporate portal framework, may
be classified, from a “Knowledge Management” Communities of Practice
perspective, into five large areas: In light of the tremendous challenge of promoting
the sharing of knowledge within and among
• Access to a repository of reference companies, the concept of “Communities of
materials: explicit knowledge which Practice”, created by organizational theoretician
may be easily accessed and which Etienne Wenger, is one of the most interesting
avoids duplication of effort; developments related to Knowledge Management.
• Content Management Systems: tools Communities of Practice (CoPs) consist of persons
which permit the quick and orderly who are informally linked by a shared interest in
access, publication and distribution the learning and application of a common practice.
of contents – in a decentralized way A CoP focuses colleagues on the execution of true
and/or according to well-established work. What keeps CoP members together is a
flows; common sense of purpose and a real need to know
• Expertise maps: data banks with lists what the other members know. “Communities of
and descriptions of the competencies Practice” is a term which refers to the ways in which
of individuals within and outside the people work together and/or associate with others
organization (e.g., internal “yellow naturally. It recognizes and celebrates the power of
pages” of the organization), which informal communities of colleagues, their creativity
facilitate the sharing of implicit and resources to solve problems and their ability
knowledge; to invent better and easier ways to resolve their
• Virtual Collaboration Systems: tools commitments.
which reduce the barriers of time and
distance in access to knowledge. CoPs are intrinsically related to the needs of
They may be synchronous (e.g., individuals to connect with others who share similar
videoconferences, chat-rooms, etc.) learning experiences or objectives. They may
or asynchronous (e.g., e-mails, also bring together persons who would otherwise
discussion fora, etc.); and never meet each other. The most interesting CoPs
• Knowledge-enabled Processes: are those which are connected (and motivated)
key processes can be codified by by specific challenges, interests or problems
task designers in order to capture in common. CoPs go beyond the traditional
best practices and standardize how boundaries of working groups or teams. These
certain activities are done. These working networks may extend well beyond the limits
solutions are often based on the of an organization. The meetings may or may not
application of workflow technology be regularly scheduled, in a fixed location, or have
enhanced by portal abilities to provide structured agendas. They may be real or virtual get-
added structured and unstructured togethers. What keeps the members connected are
information at the point of need. their common interests in personal development
and in joint-learning. The CoPs may be short-lived



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or continue for a long time. In any event, they innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurial
experience a vital cycle of activity and a variable behaviour, within the cluster, increases remarkably.
number of members. This “dynamization”, in turn, may engender healthy
levels of internal competition and an increase in global
CoP members may work in the same department, ambitions. The review of the concepts presented in
be from different parts of a company, or even the foregoing section leads us to believe that there
be from different companies and institutions. is a great synergistic and innovative opportunity
Communication tends to be broad and includes that may be applied to strengthen certain economic
topics that are not necessarily directly related to the clusters and value chains (mainly those which could
task or work-project. CoP members may or may not benefit from better information flows and more
have participated in joint projects. They may create intensive collaboration between the public and
semi-open “clubs”, where participation is based private players of the productive chain, as is the
upon a relationship of great confidence and upon case of Government-owned or sponsored Research
the contribution which each member brings to the Institutes).
community or network. Another important distinction
between CoPs and task-forces is that participation Important regional development and/or productive
is normally voluntary or individually chosen. This chain strategies are beginning to appear, which
signifies that, even though membership is in take into account, at the same time, the concepts
many cases open, it is really only effective if the of Cluster Economics and Knowledge Management
members attain a certain level of participation and which leverage corporate portals technologies.
(even “listening” actively and attentively). Normally, We’re talking about the proposal of development of
the most important knowledge exchanges which a “Knowledge Portal Applied to Economic Clusters
occur within the context of a CoP (especially when and Value Chains”.
they involve more abstract concepts) have to do
with exchanges of implicit knowledge. One of For the knowledge portals applied to the productive
the implications of this fact is that, even though chain project to be considered a success, it’s
IT/Internet applications offer valuable tools of essential that it becomes an integral part of the work
collaboration and abundant information, this will of the companies participating in the productive
often not be a substitute for the role of intuition chain. It needs to provide the participating companies
and the wealth and depth of knowledge transfers with motives to visit the portal frequently. The
and creation which occur in face-to-face meetings. solutions which more advanced portals offer are not
For that reason, many Knowledge Management limited to access to structured and non-structured
efforts are focused upon facilitating the localization information. They also have an essential role in the
of specialists who nourish and support the development of collaboration and commerce. They
development of Communities of Practice. stimulate exchanges of explicit knowledge, contact
among members of the involved organizations and
2. The Innovative Opportunity: Knowledge commerce.
Portal Applied to Economic Clusters and
Value Chains Following, then, the classical ideas and proposals
for the “dynamization” of clusters and transposing
The “dynamization” of clusters is always associated typical corporate portals applications, one could
with high levels of linkages among the principal foresee the functionalities of the knowledge portal
players. When this occurs, the potential for divided into six large areas:



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I. Information Flows; IV. Business Generation;
II. Collaboration; V. Promotion of Innovation; and
III. Training of Personnel; VI. Optimization of Resources.

Proposal of Knowledge Portal Applied to Economic Clusters and Value Chains

OBJECTIVES OF THE PORTAL MOTIVATION
I - INFORMATION FLOWS
Provide broad access to updated, relevant It’s evident that the portal can serve as an information source for all the companies in the
information focused on the productive chain chain:
• Various kinds of reports and market studies are not normally accessible to most
companies;
• In certain cases, the companies lack the financial resources to acquire the reports; in
others, the companies do not even know the reports exist;
• It is also possible, via the portal, to reach a large enough scale to look for and organize
widely-available data.
Collect information from the companies to • It’s possible, via the portal, to establish quite simple and automatic mechanisms for
execute and rapidly update sectoral studies data collection from the companies.
• This not only permits reductions of cost, but also of time required to carry out research
and sectoral diagnoses.
• One can also think about creating innovative indicators of the evolution of the sector’s
intellectual capital.
II - COLLABORATION
Promote information exchange and • The portal can use various tools which permit the virtual exchange of information
collaboration among companies in the (discussion forums, chats, etc.) and also the decentralized publication of the contents
productive chain by the companies participating in the cluster.
• Stimulate the development of “Practice Communities” involving persons from diverse
companies.
• These may include information about the company itself, as well as a description of
projects in progress.
• It’s also possible to consider areas such as “Urgent Questions”.



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Promote interchange between the private • The portal may be designed to provide quite specific information so that, especially
sector and knowledge sources in the public small businesses, have instantaneous access to governmental reports (e.g., trade
sector and academia missions) and academic information (e.g., lists of experts and national and international
laboratories relevant to the sector).
• Persons from academia, research institutes and government may also utilize the
portal to monitor the companies’ activities, projects and needs.
III - TRAINING OF PERSONNEL
Centralize and reduce the cost by on-line • On-line training modules may be made available to all the companies.
training • There’s a clear reduction in the individual costs of licensing and development of the
courses.
• Increases are evident in the speed of dissemination of new concepts.
Divulge opportunities for off-line training • The portal may have an area for the divulgation of recommended opportunities for
training offered by third parties.
Create a more efficient job market • The portal may become a reference centre for work opportunities for persons operating
both within and outside the sector.
• The liquidity and the “oxygenation” of the market are increased.
• Elements of confidentiality must be introduced in order to assure the adherence of the
companies.
Promote greater use of information • The very need for and opportunity to utilize the portal may become an important
technology and Internet tools incentive for a more intense use of IT by companies of the sector.
• Courses in informatics are ideal for training via the Internet.
• As a part of the launching of the portal, special conditions for acquiring computers
could be offered to small businesses.
IV - BUSINESS GENERATION
Promote opportunities for business • The opportunity of creating mechanisms so that companies may promote their
between companies commercial interests and find partners within and outside the cluster is quite
interesting.
• The promotion of the formation of temporary and/or permanent consortia may be
facilitated by e-project tools.
Promote local companies globally • The portal may serve as an element of divulgation of the products and services of the
cluster and also for the quick localization of and contact with the companies.
• If some of its functions and areas of content were translated to the English language,
the portal could serve as an excellent marketing tool and help develop international
business.



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Promote electronic trading • Tools which permit the rapid configuration of e-business may be made available on
the portal.
• The tools may be pre-negotiated and adapted to meet the needs of the productive
chain.
• Auction-like electronic markets may also be established.
V - PROMOTION OF INNOVATION
Promote success stories • The portal may be utilized to describe success stories among cluster companies.
These kinds of stories are known to incite innovative behaviour.
Disseminate technical norms • The faster diffusion of technical norms has a positive impact on the productive
quality.
VI - OPTIMIZATION OF RESOURCES

Map and optimize the utilization of the • Just as multinational mega-businesses which utilize internal portals
productive resources of the productive their employees and researchers in Brazil to and reserve productive a
for some research institutes may identify provide
chain resources, respectively,and sectoral portal may enable associated c
adequate services the produce locally-relevant
“rent” some based on their own physical and intellectual
research of their idle resources.
• A market mayThis hascreated for trading competencies and intellectual
resources. also be changed dramatically due to the
Provide common services to all the • The portal may web has made geographical distances electronic servic
fact that the be utilized to automate the providing of
companies travel reservations, accounting, etc.).
a lot less relevant.
Source: Developed by the author
In the context of this scenario, ABIPTI (Brazilian
Association of Research Institutes) started a
3. A Brazilian Experience with a Knowledge Knowledge Portal project at the end of 2002 with the
Portal involving 15 Research Organizations support of the author of this paper. Fifteen out of 115
member organizations were selected to participate
Brazil has made huge strides in terms of its overall in this project. They were considered to be the most
industrial and technological outputs in the last advanced in terms of technological and managerial
three decades. During this period, the Brazilian capabilities. These organizations are scattered
Government financed and built a very wide throughout Brazil (Brazil is larger than Western
university and public research institute system. This Europe) and develop their research projects in fields
led Brazil’s contribution to science, measured by the as diverse as oil exploration, agriculture, information
Science Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific technology, etc.
Information, to improve significantly from 2,000
articles per year in 1980 to over 12,000 articles in Initially, the concepts of Cluster Economics,
2000. Knowledge Management and Corporate Portals
were not very clear among the executives and
As these results are celebrated, it becomes clear researchers of these organizations. Consequently,
that Brazil’s current Innovation System will have to the first phase of this project involved many training
be redrawn in face of the need to foster new levels sessions and events. These training sessions had
of collaboration and to leverage scarce research two key objectives: (1) explaining the concepts and
resources. In the fairly recent past, it was possible tools of Knowledge Management; (2) changing

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the cultural mindset of these institutions from a • Chemistry;
local, isolated perspective to a broad, networked • Food quality.
perspective.
3. National themes defined by the Federal
In tandem with this work to foster the necessary Government’s Industrial Policies. For example:
cultural change, a project team was also working on • Support to Exports;
the development of a knowledge portal with many of • Support to Small and Medium
the goals and functionalities described in the above Enterprises.
section. More specifically, the Knowledge Portal was
developed with key functionalities to support the Since topics in groups one and three are more
development of Communities of Practice (including generic and relevant to all research institutes, they
Knowledge Bases, Member’s Directory, Content and could be or were implemented and managed by
Document Management, Advanced Search, Events an association such as ABIPTI. Topics that fall into
Management, Alert and Subscription Tools, Forums, category two tend to be of interest only to a few
Personalization, etc). selected institutes, of which usually one or two have
a strong, recognized leadership in the field.
The initial focus on the development of Communities
of Practice across all organizations aimed at rapidly To initiate this project, three Communities of Practice
achieving tangible results and, therefore, also were selected: Management Commercialization of
fostering the development of KM initiatives within Intellectual Property and Quality Management that
each one of the fifteen research institutes. An belong to the first category, and “Geological Risks”
important consideration in the choice of Communities that belongs to the second category of topics.
of Practice was the fact that these institutes had very These topics were chosen for the following
different technological capabilities and interests. reasons:
The topics chosen were classified according to the
following three groups: • There was enough critical mass both in
terms of available digital content, as well as
1. Generic Topics related to the management interested and qualified personnel;
skills and techniques of research institutes. • They are well-defined topics;
Typical topics here include: • They are topics that can engage and
• Management of Intellectual Property motivate wide participation;
and Commercialization of Technology; • They are strategic topics with a wide gap
• Quality Management; between the top and bottom performers;
• Technology Forecasting and • A number of people interested in the
Monitoring; promoting debates and knowledge
• Client Relationship Management exchanges were identified;
(CRM); • A few experts that could help with valuable
• Technology Dissemination. initial content were also identified;
• These are topics that are directly related to
2. Scientific Topics that may involve a number of the services provided to the clients of these
institutes but not all of them. For example: research institutes;
• Environment; • These communities can rapidly expand
• Design; to include personnel from other types of



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organizations (industry, government and on how Brazil integrates the considerable amount
universities, etc). of knowledge that is available in this very large
country, but that is currently very much dispersed.
Throughout the design and development of these Geographical isolation is no longer a viable option
communities, a number of face-to-face meetings for any organization or even country. Individuals
were held. These meetings played a key role not and organizations now seek information and
only in the definition of key aspects of the tools and knowledge regardless of their location. As the first
organization of documents (e.g. taxonomy), but also three Communities were launched, one of the most
to build trust and understanding among members of telling measures of the impact they may have is the
the research institutes. fact that a number of affiliated Research Institutes
have contacted ABIPTI for support to start their own
These Communities were launched in the beginning Communities of Practice.
of September 2003 with great anticipation and
support. Key representatives of each of the The experience and the concepts described in this
participating institutes, including a few CEOs, flew paper are being tested in a number of different
from all over Brazil to the city of São Paulo in order contexts and initiatives in Brazil. Results are still
to show their support and commitment to these very preliminary to be analyzed in terms of success
Communities. or failure rates. It is our opinion, however, that these
kinds of initiatives are of particular importance
to developing countries. Such countries do not
4. Expected Results and Final Considerations have the resources of most multinationals that are
developing their own internal knowledge portals and
This paper attempted to show that the technologies leveraging knowledge from all over the world. The
derived from and which take advantage of the route for inter-organizational collaboration through
standards established by the Internet may have a knowledge portals is not an easy route, but one that
fundamental role in making value chains, economic is very promising. Indeed, it is probably a necessity
clusters and regions more dynamic. Corporate to compete in the Knowledge Era.
Portals focused on Knowledge Management are one
of the recent developments and applications (mainly
in large international enterprises) that present great
potential for this purpose.

Just as is the case when applying portals to Knowledge 5. References
Management in large privately-owned companies,
the main challenge is not technological. There are Porter recently re-visited his original work and
several strategic, operational and organizational published the following article: Porter, M., Clusters
elements that are critical to the success of such and The New Economics of Competition, Harvard
initiatives. In this paper, we focused our attention Business Review, pp: 77-90, Nov.-Dec., 1998
on the strategic and conceptual elements – which
ought, in fact, to precede any initiative in this field. Saxenian, A., Regional Advantage: Culture and
Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, Harvard
The initiative being led by ABIPTI is significant in its University Press, 1996
ambition. Its success may have a profound impact



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The Economist, Will the corporation survive? and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view
November 1st, 2001 of working, learning and innovation. Organizational
Science, 2, 1991: pp: 40-57
Malone, T. W. Laubacher, R.J., All change for the
e-lance economy, FP Mastering, National Post, July One of the few studies we know of which proposes
10, 2001 something similar is the following one: Jarboe,
K., Knowledge Management As an Economic
Ibid Development Strategy, Reviews of Economic
Development Literature and Practice: No. 7, U. S.
Tapscott, D; Ticoll, D Lowy, A. Digital Capital: Economic Development Administration.
harnessing the power of business webs, HBS Press,
2000

Castells, M., The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on
the Internet, Business and Society, Oxford University
Press, 2001

Tapscott, D; Ticoll, D Lowy, A., op.cit.

Interesting researches and publications on “trust”
include:
- Alesina, A. La Ferrara, E., Who trusts others?,
Journal of Public Economics, 2001
- Clark, K. Serfon, M., The Sequential Prisoner’s
Dilemma: Evidence on Reciprocation, Economic
Journal, January, 2000
- Fukuyama, F., Trust: The Social Virtues and the
Creation of Prosperity, Penguin Books, 1995
- Glaeser, E. et alii, Measuring Trust, Quarterly
Journal of Economics, August 2000
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biblioteca

* * * A EMPRESA
José Cláudio C. Terra é presidente da TerraForum A TerraForum Consultores é uma empresa
Consultores. Atua como consultor e palestrante de consultoria e treinamento em Gestão do
no Canadá, nos Estados Unidos, em Portugal, na Conhecimento (GC) e Tecnologia da Informação. Os
França e no Brasil. Também é professor de vários clientes da empresa são, em sua maioria, grandes
programas e pós-graduação e MBA e autor de e médias organizações dos setores público, privado
vários livros sobre o tema. Seu email é e terceiro setor. A empresa atua em todo o Brasil
jcterra@terraforum.com.br e também no exterior, tendo escritórios em São
Paulo, Brasília e Ottawa no Canadá. É dirigida pelo
Dr. José Cláudio Terra, pioneiro e maior referência
em Gestão do Conhecimento no país. Além disso,
conta com uma equipe especializada e internacional
de consultores.
ARTIgOS RELACIOnADOS
PUBLICAÇÕES TERRAFORUM
Gestão do Conhecimento e Sistemas de Informações Públicos Winning at Collaboration Commerce
Portais Corporativos: novo instrumento de gestão da informação
Entendendo os Diferentes Níveis de Sofisticação de um Portal Corporativo Gestão do Conhecimento e E-learning na Prática

Portais Corporativos, a Revolução na Gestão do
Conhecimento

Gestão do Conhecimento - O Grande Desafio
Empresarial

Gestão do Conhecimento em Pequenas e Médias
Empresas

Realizing the Promise of Corporate Portals:
Leveraging Knowledge for Business Success

Gestão de Empresas na Era do Conhecimento


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