Presented at the ICBMD 2017

1. Social Networks for
Knowledge Management:
Group Features as
Personal Knowledge Management Tools
Cleopatra T Mushonga
International Conference on Business and Management Dynamics (ICBMD-2017)
Cape Town
June 21, 2017 – June 23, 2017

2. Outline
• Introduction
• The Problem Statement
• Research Questions and proposition
• Theoretical lense and farmework
• Methodology
• Findings

3. Introduction
 The pervasiveness of social media has necessitated the discovery of the capabilities and
full potential of social media.
“Millions of people around the world have integrated social media communication with their way of
life (Boyd and Ellison, 2008:210)”
 At the same time, knowledge management (KM) has also received much attention in the
business sector.
“knowledge management is a key driver of organisational performance and a critical tool for
organisational survival, competitiveness and profitability.(Omotayo, 2015:1)
 Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is an aspect of KM that places emphasis on the
individual and is considered by some scholars as the foundation of organizational
knowledge management (Jain, 2000: Martin, 2006).
“PKM represents the sub-domain of knowledge management that emphasizes the crucial importance
of the individual in every knowledge process, proposing a model of knowledge management focused
on the individual” (Razmerita, Kirchner and Sudzina, 2009: 1023).
 This study investigates the relationship between the social media group feature and personal
knowledge management and how this in turn may influence knowledge management
endeavours for an organization.
A group is a community where individuals with similar interests, profession and expertise come
together to share and exchange ideas within the social-network. It is a feature within the social-
network that is different from the main wall or newsfeed.

4. Problem statement
 Generally Social networks are viewed as marketing and social tools (Han and Lee,
2012:1) as the term implies.
 However, some Knowledge Management theorists realise the potential for
incorporating the collaborative and networking features of Social networks in
Organizational Knowledge Management (Razmerita et al.,2009; Chui et al. ,2012).
 The consensus is that harnessing Social networks features for Knowledge
Management is in its infancy and therefore its success in the social sphere is
difficult to translate to the organizational context.
 Organizations neglect to realize the potential of using social media as part of
their knowledge management practices. The existing problem is that the
functionality of the groups on social media is not fully appreciated; many do
not realize how this tool can be very useful for knowledge management.

5. Research questions and proposition
 This study sought to address the following main research questions:
• How do social-networks groups promote personal knowledge
management?
• In which ways can knowledge sharing activities on social network groups
contribute to organizational knowledge management? ;
 The proposition that was tested in this study was that;
1. Social network groups' users are involved in personal knowledge
management through sharing and create their knowledge and experiences
voluntarily because of trust relationships
2. Social network users harvest knowledge and insights from experts
worldwide from the groups that they belong to and apply this knowledge.
3. Social network groups promote Personal Knowledge Management which in
turn promotes Organizational Knowledge Management.

6. Theoretical lense-SECI Model of knowledge
conversion (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1996)

7. Theoretical framework- PKM 2.0 (Cheong &
Tsui, 2010)

8. Methodology

9. Methodology (continued)
 The empirical research thesis was based on quantitative survey in the form of a
questionnaire.
 The questionnaire was in the form of an online survey using Google Drive Forms.
 The link for the survey was be posted on my LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ profile and
also five LinkedIn groups, three Google+, communities, three Facebook groups and two
Facebook pages that I have received consent from.
 The questionnaire was also be emailed to my mailing list.
 The questionnaire prompted the respondent to reflect on their own use of social
networks and whether or not they gain knowledge.
 The advantage of this questionnaire is that it is being answered by the user who has had
practical experience with the social-network and therefore can provide insights into how
they use it (Selltiz, Wrightsman and Cook, 1981:184).
 The bias is reduced as the questionnaire was completed mainly by members of social
media groups whom I do not have a personal relationship with and also no incentive has
been given for participation.

10. Methodology (continued)
 This study used statistical generalisation using non-probability theory since the sample
population was widely dispersed and it was a cheaper and more feasible option (De Vaus,
2002:90).
 The sampling method chosen was convenience sampling where the conveniently available
people, who met the study criteria who are available and willing to help, are used as a
sample.
This type of sampling on the internet is called unrestricted self-selected surveys which are open to
the public to participate by choice (Oates, 2006:98).

12. The group feature of social networks
 The group feature is a community of practise that is formed on a social
network.
 Its purpose is for the members to share their knowledge and experiences in
order to develop each other’s competencies.
 Through the interactions on the group, that is posting, commenting, reading
other people’s posts, individuals are involved in a process of personal
knowledge management.
 They are involved in reconstructing their own mental models and therefore
learning and creating new knowledge.

13. The survey/questionnaire
 Divided into themes based on PKM 2,0 an other literature reviewed for Sections A, B and C
were grouped as follows:
Motive/purpose- Analyses the motive or the reason for participating or joining the social
network.
Internalization/ Personal Knowledge Internalization (PKI- Demonstrate how the individual
converts the explicit knowledge available on the social network to their own tacit knowledge that
is, by reading and sometimes commenting to ask for clarification they are converting the shared
information to become their own tacit knowledge.
Externalization/ Inter-Personal Knowledge Transfer (IKT) - Demonstrate how individuals are
converting their tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and making it available on the groups they
belong to. Activities such as posting and commenting are knowledge sharing activities where
individuals are share their tacit knowledge making it explicit to other social network users.
Community of Practise- Demonstrate that these groups on social networks are indeed
communities of practice and how individuals benefit from belonging to the groups on the social
network which provides a conducive environment to interact with diverse people who share
similar interests (Hislop, 2013).
Trust- Trust is an important factor for knowledge sharing (Gordeyeva, 2010:11). These questions
show that group members in a social network trust each other and therefore share knowledge
readily.
Technological adoption- Demonstrate how individuals have accepted social media as a way of
collaboration and how they use it for accessing and organising information.

14. Findings
 Different people of different age groups participate on the social networks.
 Different levels of qualification and hold different positions.
 There are various forms of participations on the social network which include
scanning news feed, posting, reading post, reading comments and commenting.
 The respondents use their account for purposes other than socializing and job
hunting.
 The study shows that trust relationships exist and are critical for knowledge
sharing
 The study shows that reciprocity is a factor that influences knowledge sharing to a
larger extent; there is therefore notable externalisation of knowledge that takes
place on the social network groups.
 The study shows that social network groups stimulate collaboration and that they
are useful in finding solutions to problems.

15. Activity Form of
knowledge
conversion
PKM 2.0 concept Social network Groups’ feature
ocialization Tacit-to-tacit Personal wisdom
creation
 Creation of connections with similar interests & skills from
different organizations and countries
 Participation in group discussions
 Observation by reading through posts and understanding the
message in the post and learning from the comments
 Creative chaos where different comments and opinions and
presented
xternalization Tacit-to-explicit Inter-personal
Knowledge
Transferring
 The ability to comment freely
 The availability of different perspectives
 The availability of experts with experience allows for corrections
to be given
Combination Explicit-to-
explicit
Personal
Information
Management
 Sharing information by starting a post and receiving comments
from other member
 Obtaining information from others and then using it in your own
context
nternalization Explicit-to-tacit Personal
knowledge
internalization
 Reflecting on information received and being able to use it when
the need arises

16. Conclusion
 This paper is consistent with previous research that indeed, knowledge
sharing exists among social-networks by providing evidence from the social
network platforms.
 The paper highlights the importance of communities that are on the social
networks in facilitating PKM.
 It shows that users find benefits from knowledge sharing processes on the
groups on public social networks.
 This insight will encourage integration of public social-networks in
organizational knowledge management.

17. References
Boyd, D.M. & Ellison, N. B. 2008. Social network sites: Definition, history and
scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13: 210-230.
Gordeyeva, I. 2010. 'Enterprise 2.0: theoretical foundations of social media tools
influence on knowledge sharing practices in organizations”, Master's Thesis
submitted at University of Twente. Available at:
http://essay.utwente.nl/59921/1/MA_thesis_I_Gordeyeva.pdf [15 March 2017].
Hislop, D. (2013). Knowledge management in organisations: A critical
introduction. 3rd Ed. UK:Oxford University Press.
Omotayo, F.O., 2015. Knowledge Management as an important tool in
Organisational Management: A Review of Literature. Library Philosophy and
Practice, p.1.

18. Limitations & Recomendations
 The limitation of this study is that it does not measure the actual
organizational impact of the knowledge gained from the social network. It is
highly limited to social networks that have a “Groups” feature
 Another limitation is the number of responses obtained which may not be
truly representative as this was an attempt to determine patterns across
various parts of the world.
 Future studies may focus on determining the impact of the learning that
takes place on social networks in the organization through a case study.
 Future studies may also focus on big data analysis on the social networks for
organizations to mine the knowledge direct from the social networks.