Slides from #SMWCPH event Leveraging Social Media in an Organizational Context: Challenges and Benefits. #smwcbscompete. For more information on the slides, please contact Professor Liana Razmerita at Copehagen Business School (on Twitter: @lrazmerita)

1. Leveraging Social Media
in an Organizational Context
– Challenges and Benefits

2. SPEAKERS
 Liana Razmerita, Associate Professor, PhD, Copenhagen Business School
 Pia Nielsen, Research Assistant, IBC, Copenhagen Business School
 Kathrin Kirchner, Post-doctoral Researcher, University Hospital Jena, Germany
 Ravi Vatrapu, Professor, Ph.D, ITM, Copenhagen Business School
 Michael Dean, Marketing Director, Podio
 Daniel Horn, Entrepreneur, Phases

3. AGENDA
9:00-9:05 Welcome and Introduction
9:05-10:05 Speakers’ presentations
10:05-10:30 Open discussion with experts, companies and the audience

4. TOPICS OF THE WORKSHOP

What are the benefits?

How do social media strengthen the competitiveness of Danish firms?

What are the challenges?

Are cultural differences significant in the adoption of social media?

5. “The most valuable asset of the 20th century company was its production
equipment. The most valuable asset of the 21st-century institution (whether
business or non-business) will be its knowledge workers and their
productivity.”
Drucker, P., Knowledge Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge (1999)
Liana Razmerita, lr.ibc@cbs.dk

6. SOCIAL MEDIA IN ORGANIZATIONS
Enterprise 2.0 , Enterprise Social Software (ESS), Social Software-based Knowledge
Management (KM), KM2.0, Social Business.
Recent studies pinpont the potential benefits and risks:
Consultancy reports: (Semantic 2011; Bughin et al. 2011; Li et al. 2012; DanskErhverv 2012).
Informal collaboration (Brzozowski et al. 2009; Skeels and Grudin 2009) knowledge conversion
and team performance (Janhonen and Johanson 2011), collaboration and communication
(Andriole 2010; Huang et al. 2012); user belief in adoption (Lee et al. 2010) new forms of
elicitation and externalization of personal knowledge (Razmerita et al. 2009), articulation
personal-collective (Razmerita et al., 2014)
Liana Razmerita, lr.ibc@cbs.dk

7. LEVERAGING PERSONAL AND COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE
Controlled by
Level of interaction
Low
High
Individuals
Blogs, Mblogs
Social Networks
Collective
Content communities
Wikis
Level of interaction and control in social media (Razmerita, Kirchner & Nabeth, 2014)
The ‘network effect’ is critical for the adoption of social media.

8. SOCIAL MEDIA IN ORGANIZATIONS
Purpose?
Social
Media
Context
Processes
Structure
Culture
Liana Razmerita, lr.ibc@cbs.dk
8

9. MOTIVATION AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING THROUGH
SOCIAL MEDIA IN DANISH ORGANIZATIONS
Pia Nielsen
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

10. ENTERPRISE SOCIAL PLATFORMS
Powered by Citrix
McKinsey (2012)
Powered by Salesforce
Powered by Microsoft
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

12. FACTORS THAT AFFECT EMPLOYEES’ KNOWLEDGE SHARING
Based on previous studies: Paroutis & Al Saleh
(2009), Lin (2007) and Kirchner, Razmerita &
Sudzina (2008)
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

13. SURVEY
WHERE: Denmark
PARTICIPANTS: 114 employees / Male: 58% - Female: 42%
INDUSTRY SECTORS: Telecommunications, media and
marketing, banking and financial services and shipping and
logistics
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

14. KEY KNOWLEDGE SHARING DRIVERS
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

15. KEY BENEFITS AND BUSINESS VALUE
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

16. KEY KNOWLEDGE SHARING BARRIERS
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

17. SOCIAL MEDIA –challenges
LOW ADOPTION RATE AND USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
TRADITIONAL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
1. Email 91%
1. Google docs 24%
3. Wikis 14%
2. Social networks
Chatter 14%
Yammer 14%
Podio 14%
4. Blogs 4%
2. Face-to-face meetings 79%
3. Chat 41%
4. Intranet 27%
VS
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

18. FACTORS THAT AFFECT EMPLOYEES’ KNOWLEDGE
SHARING
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

19. KNOWLEDGE SHARING –A SOCIAL DILEMMA?
Knowledge sharing is NOT a ‘social dilemma’
…like previous studies, Cabrera & Cabrera, (2002) and Kimmerle et al., (2008), have found.
 Employees are willing to share knowledge, because it is more beneficial than to hoard it.
 Employees are more concerned about sharing relevant content.
Pia Nielsen, pn.ibc@cbs.dk

20. COMPARISON TO OTHER STUDIES
Kathrin Kirchner
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

21. ARE THESE KNOWLEDGE SHARING FACTORS “TYPICAL DANISH”?
Comparison to other studies:
 Management Reports (e.g., McKinsey, Altimeter Group, Deloitte, …)
 Research studies / Case studies in Companies
Questions:
 What are knowledge sharing drivers?
 What are the key benefits and business drivers?
 What are knowledge sharing barriers?
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

22. KNOWLEDGE SHARING DRIVERS - COMPARISON
Nielsen & Razmerita (2014), forthcoming:
Contribution valuable for organization
Enjoy helping others with problems
Gain social reward
Increase social network
Increase chance of getting monetary
reward
 Altruistic desire to help others (Wasko & Faraj, 2000)
 Employees share knowledge because of: (Ryan & Deci, 2000)
 Self-satisfaction
 Benefit in long term
 Rewarded or paid contributions
 Motivation depends on benefits: discussed content (Kirchner &
Stegmann, 2014)
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

23. KEY BENEFITS AND BUSINESS DRIVERS - COMPARISON
McKinsey (2009, 2010, 2011)
Basis: 4200 global executives
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

24. KNOWLEDGE SHARING BARRIERS - COMPARISON
Unclear Goal/Purpose
“You get to the YAQ– Yet Another Queue problem. You don’t want to give your users yet another
queue that they need to check”
‐ Jeffrey Abbruzzi, Williams ‐Sonoma
Generational Gap
“You can’t assume that everyone in the organization understands the value of social software…
not everyone is on Facebook”
‐ Gia Lyons, Jive Software
Chang & Khanna (2011): Enterprise Social Software. Barriers to Adption. (based on qualitative interviews)
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

25. KNOWLEDGE SHARING BARRIERS -COMPARISON
Lack of Executive Support
“A lot of the companies we spoke to said that they encouraged collaboration… we move the
discussion to metrics… If you are not prepared to measure it, it doesn't matter to you.”
‐ Kathryn Everest, Jive Software
Lack of Ownership
“The Sales team did not see a lot of value in the system… they saw their role as selling and
being on the field”
‐ Debbie Cheng, Chevron Energy Solutions
Chang & Khanna (2011)
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

26. KNOWLEDGE SHARING BARRIERS - COMPARISON
Incentive & Reward Structures
“Product and project managers were heavy users, whereas developers were not interested in
doing what they saw as the manager’s job.”
‐ Larry Wagner, SonicWall
Concerns about sensitive information
“Even if the solution will only be used within walls, there is a lot of anxiety about the kind of
information that gets out there”
‐ Brad Dedrick, Model Metrics
Chang & Khanna (2011)
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

27. FUTURE OUTLOOK
POSSIBLE CHANGES IN ORGANIZATIONS IN NEXT YEARS CAUSED BY SOCIAL MEDIA
 Boundaries between employees, vendors and customers will blur.
35%
 Teams will self organize.
32%
 Organization‘s formal hierarchy will become much flatter or disappear.
27%
 Individual performance will be evaluated by peers rather than by managers.
14%
McKinsey (2011) Basis: 4200 global executives
Kathrin.Kirchner@uni-jena.de

28. OPEN QUESTIONS
 What is your experience with Social Media in Organizations (SMiO)?
 How many of you have experience with SMiO?
 How many of you use SMiO for internal communication?
 What are the benefits - from your own experience?
 What are the challenges?
 Is Social Media, fundamentally, going to change work processes?
 Can anybody share best practice use of these social platforms?