Social media information benefits, knowledge management and smart organizations

Nisar, Tahir M.; Prabhakar, Guru P; Strakova, Lubica

Abstract

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. Social technologies can provide a potent means for organizations to manage their information flows and thus induce changes in their knowledge management (KM) systems, which can then be linked to performance improvements. This paper examines the growth of social media within organizations, considering the impact this may have upon knowledge sharing in a particular type of KM system - Community of Practice - (CoP) based discussion groups (KMDG). We focus on this KM tool because it provides employees with an opportunity to strategically reach out to different groups of people within their CoP, and engage in information exchange and communication. Using a content analysis method, we investigate two intermediate information mechanisms (information richness and informal communication) that social media KMDGs are theorized to generate, and quantify their effects on labor productivity and return on assets. Our findings provide evidence of KMDG positively affecting organizational performance through embedded information and social communication.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 5, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 10, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: May 14, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 14, 2019
• Journal: Journal of Business Research
• Print ISSN: 0148-2963
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 94
• Pages: 264-272
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.005
• Keywords: knowledge management, information richness, social media, communities of practice, discussion groups
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/853125
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.005
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published version is available here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.005
• Contract Date: May 14, 2018