The research will investigate how modern organizations, comprising interlocked ensembles of people and information technologies, can be understood as `intelligent organizations.` As modern organizations redefine how they develop, process, and assimilate information and manage knowledge, they are increasingly being conceived as large-scale, distributed `cognitive' systems, with properties and processes such as organizational memory, organizational learning, and organizational intelligence. This project aims to build an empirically-grounded framework and associated metrics for understanding the phenomenon of organizational intelligence. The research will explore ways to conceptualize and measure organizational intelligence, and will develop a sound conceptual framework comprising variables that are related to organizational intelligence and interrelationships among them. These variables will capture elements of organizational structure, information technology and systems, culture, knowledge assets, stakeholder relationships, and strategic processes. Both review and empirical methods including interviewing will be used. The resulting framework will form a basis for operationalizing the concept of organizational intelligence, and for studying it widely with empirical approaches. It will provide and disseminate insights and conceptual tools upon which other researchers can build.
