Reexamining organizational memory

The article focuses on reexamination of organizational memory Biblioteca de Ciencias y Tecnología Normal Biblioteca de Ciencias y Tecnología 1 1 2006-05-24T20: 54: 00Z 2006-05-24T20: 55: 00Z 1 195 1074 UCLA 8 2 1267 11. 6568 Clean Clean 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table. MsoNormalTable mso-style-name: "Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size: 0; mso-tstyle-colband-size: 0; mso-style-noshow: yes; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 5. 4pt 0cm 5. 4pt; mso-para-margin: 0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom: . 0001pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; font-size: 10. 0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-fareast-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: #0400; The article focuses on reexamination of organizational memory. After nearly 10 years of research, organizational memory (OM) has become overworked and confused. Burdened by a practical wish to reuse organizational experience, researchers have often ignored critical functions of an organization's memory in order to focus on only a few methods for augmenting memory. In this article, authors investigate where memory exists currently within an organizational setting, rather than focusing on potential technical enhancements. In order to accomplish this OM is studied within a telephone help line that answers human-resource questions at a well-established Silicon Valley company. This problem is approached using distributed cognition theory. Authors begin with a synopsis of the OM literature and the need for empirically based analyses of OM. The OM Literature holds many varying and occasionally competing, definitions. Intuitively, organizations should be able to retrieve traces of their past activities, but the form of this memory is unclear in research literature. A field study was conducted, which took place over a period of 18 months. A variety of data collection methods were Tracking system in which agents record the content of their phone interactions