A Conceptual Framework for Knowledge Architecture in Large-Scale Organizations

The main concern for most organizations in this age, which has been called the age of knowledge-based economy, is their success and superiority in competitive markets. Reviewing the parameters that might have been effective on the success of operationalizing a knowledge management project leads us to a potential factor as knowledge architecture. With regard to the significant effect of knowledge management in the efficiency of organizations and the inclination of current organizations toward large-scale, we try to come up with a suitable architectural framework in such organizations. The initial structure of the framework was established based on the information architectural framework of Zachman. Then, we arrived at the ideal knowledge architecture framework by adding service abstraction and architecture level dimension besides changing the field of all the cells within Zachman’s framework from information into knowledge. This research is descriptive in method and its validity is confirmed by executing a case study and soliciting the opinions of some knowledge architecture experts. The results indicate feasibility of applying framework to other knowledge-intensive large-scale firms and the findings of paper may be beneficial for architects in the knowledge area.