Abstract: The life cycle of knowledge involves various processes in knowledge management (KM) that vary across different models. To effectively utilize these processes at an advanced level, aligning them with the organization’s fundamental business processes is necessary. Business process architecture (BPA) serves this purpose by identifying these core processes and emphasizing their interconnections. One such BPA approach is the Riva method, which characterizes these key processes using essential business entities (EBEs) and outlines steps for developing an organization's overall BPA. Integrating knowledge management processes into these steps explains KM's role in business process modeling (BPM) and contributes to addressing gaps in existing BPM. The use of Riva-BPA steps as a backbone for incorporating knowledge management into process modeling has led to the proposal of the Riva-based Knowledge Life Cycle (KLC-RBPA) model. The KLC-RBA model accommodates the Riva steps and introduces a unique “sharing and dissemination” phase, improving organization process awareness. This model consists of four stages: identify and explore, refine and acquire, create and exploit, and share and disseminate knowledge. The exploration and identification phases aim to search and discover resources relevant to the scope and objectives of a specific organization (Riva step one). The capture and refinement process ensures the entry of potentially captured EBEs, detects them, and passes them to the evolution process (Riva steps two and three). The process of creation and exploitation creates dynamic relationships between units of work (UOWs), converting UOWs’ diagrams into first and second process designs (Riva steps four, five, and six). Lastly, sharing and disseminating the BPA emphasizes internal knowledge sharing, improving organizational workflow, and enhancing the perception of BPA processes. A quantitative approach using an online survey questionnaire was distributed to 40 domain experts from computer science and software engineering to evaluate this model. Accordingly, the results demonstrate agreement on the relevance of knowledge processes to the Riva method steps. Furthermore, it confirms positive linear correlations between KLC-RBPA model phases, specifically between knowledge sharing and dissemination and knowledge creation and exploitation.

Keywords: Riva method, business process architecture, knowledge management, knowledge life-cycle, knowledge management processes, business process modeling

Pages: 373-382