Management of IT-Risks in the Context of Inter-Organisational Knowledge Management

In order to improve their competitive position, small and medium sized enterprises increasingly concentrate on their core competencies and hence take part in co-operations. If the main purpose of the co-operation is the information of explicit knowledge in terms of documents, the most effective way of communicating is sharing information electronically. But it is known from experience that the electronic inter-organizational knowledge exchange only works if personal, organizational and technical requirements are fulfilled. For instance, all co-operation partners have to be sure that their knowledge is not “forwarded” to an unauthorized third person. Considering the example of an existing co-operation of components suppliers it is shown how the realization of an IT security concept enables the controlled exchanged of document-based knowledge.