As firms compete in global markets, they design and implement complex business systems, such as Supply Chain, Virtual Enterprise, Web-Based Enterprise, Production Network, e-Business, and e-Manufacturing. Common traits of these systems are (i) co-operation to implement shared goals, (ii) global distributed product development and manufacturing, and (iii) co-ordination of strategies and communication of information, among enterprise partners. Information in this complex business system can be shared via the Internet, Intranet, and Extranet. One of the goals of Internet-Based Management (e-management) is to facilitate transfer and sharing of data and knowledge in the context of business collaborations. It offers the platform for design and modeling of diverse implementation strategies related to the type of agreement, optimisation criteria, decision mode, organisation structures, information sharing mechanisms, and business policies for this system. “A General Framework of E-Management” that integrates (i) intelligent information support, (ii) group-decision making, and (iii) agreement modeling for a complex business system is proposed. A generic methodology of e-management information support based on “Ontology-Driven Knowledge Management” and “Multi and Intelligent Agents Technologies” for distributed decision making in scalable business systems is described. It is based on the premise that knowledge management should emphasize synergistic use of knowledge from multiple sources.
