Towards a Theory of Community Technology Centers: A Knowledge-Based Study

The study of knowledge flows in organizations has provided penetrating insights into innovation processes and other forms of knowledge creation. The study of knowledge flows within small rural communities is a less developed area of research that has the potential to better understand community-wide knowledge creation. This is of particular importance when community technology centers (CTCs) are used to address problems in disadvantaged communities. In developing this idea, the paper reports on research that focused on a program to establish community technology centers (CTCs) in 55 regional areas of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). The research used Nonaka and T akeuchi' s Knowledge Creating Theory to provide an analytical framework to investigate knowledge creation within three selected cases. In analyzing the contrasts between cases the knowledge-based constructs provide penetrating insights into the problems solving endeavors of communities using information and communication technologies (ICTs).