ABSTRACT

Most of organisations employ substantial numbers of specialised knowledge workers clustered in different functional areas throughout the organisation. These individuals and the departments within which they work bring a body of rather specialised knowledge to bear on a particular aspect of the total task to be accomplished by the organisation. Financial specialists use a number of software packages (particularly spreadsheet analysis) in order to make forecasts and projections under varying sets of circumstances. In many ways, research and development specialists would seem an ideal group for the application of information technology, since their major role is knowledge-creation and utilisation. In order to regain control over what they consider to be their own data, many accounting professionals in large firms are acquiring their own PCs. By downloading data from the large system they are able to perform previously impossible analyses, and in a more timely fashion.