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Social Networking

RIT

Organizational Learning

Sara Cegelski

November 7, 2015

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Purpose

The goal of this paper is to gain an in-depth knowledge about the characteristics and evolution of

social networking in the context of a knowledge management tool. According to Cegelski (2015)

knowledge management is a never ending cycle that goes through 3 very distinct phases.

a) Knowledge Creation and Codification

b) Knowledge Sharing and Dissemination

c) Knowledge Acquisition and Application.

It is also important to note that these steps are nonlinear and give its users the ability to function

in any phase without direct involvement in the prior. Although each and every step is important

when discussing knowledge management, this paper will only focus on the knowledge sharing

and dissemination phase, specifically looking into the implications of social networking on a web

based platform.

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Analysis

According to Dalkir (2001), social networking is a term coined to emphasize the

importance of knowledge management in the 21st century. In fact, “social networking has rapidly

become a part of everyday living and working” (Dalkir, 2015, p 288).

Looking at the evolution of learning, one can see the shift from the behaviorist theory of

the 60’s, to the rise of cognitivist theory in the 60’s eventually leading to the social learning

theory of the 70’s (Swanson, Elwood, 2009). This belief in the social learning theory, i.e.

learning through others, and the recent advancement in technology have helped give rise to what

we now call social networking.

In fact, Dalkir (2015) takes social networking a bit further by grouping it together with

other resources the define the next generation of the internet, “the combination of social

networking, blogging, wikis, and other related technologies together define Web 2.0 or the next

generation of the web” (Dalkir, 2015, p 289).

In essence, social networking can be closely modeled to resemble Communities of

Practice (COPs) as it also relies on human-to-human interactions- but takes it a step further by

using technology to make the interaction and sharing of knowledge transfer on a digital and

global platform more efficient.

For example, the company that I currently work in sometimes will have certain issues

arise that need a fresh pair of eyes (an external evaluation). In this scenario the issue is non

sensitive and management uses social networking platforms like LinkedIn to ask sub-groups of

likeminded professional in the hotel industry to come up with a best practice to rectify internal

policies- within a few hours we receive input from all over the globe, something that would not

be feasible prior to the social networking and the rise of Web 2.0

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Since every keystroked entered into the social network is documented and stored; the

analysis of the social networking can also help measure, in detail, the extent of interaction and

sharing between all entities on the web-based platform. Social networking, once analyzed can

help shed light on the “relationship flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, or

other information/knowledge processing entities” (Dalkir, 2015, p 289). Point being, it is not just

the networking that sheds light on knowledge sharing, it is also the analysis of this networking

that enables us to better understand how knowledge flows.

When done right, social networking can be a great knowledge management tool that can

not only give the users control over their own data, but also harness the collaborative knowledge

of the group to confront a particular problem (Dalkir, 2015).

Since social networking can eliminate the need for a physical office space to collaborate

and achieve common goals, it can directly be tied to a more cost effective and efficient

knowledge management tool. For example, Dalkir (2001) talks about using popular file sharing

software, BitTorent and other resources such as wiki, Google, eBay to help navigate and

facilitate through flow of information and knowledge from the web. And since, the web 2.0 is an

active platform, it constantly keeps engaging its users through the help of RSS feeds (software

designed to alert its users to any possible changes).

As mentioned in the example on page 3, our hotel belongs to a sub-group on LinkedIn

known as the “Hotel Group Network”. This groups is user generated, and no company claims

ownership over its content. The group has a global presence because the members are from all

over the globe. Their moderators/ facilitators in place that send out weekly correspondence

notifications and updates to all its members via email, or the phone LinkedIn phone app.

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Dialogue is encouraged among its users by allowing the members to contribute their

knowledge directly in the to the discussion topics. And by subscribing to the RSS feeds, it allows

the users to stay current with any new information. Hence, social networking is a deliberate

attempt to capture and encourage communication between all its users.

Benefits

Looking from a more holistic point of view, we can also correlate certain changes in our

world to social networking. Just 10 years ago, a lot of social media companies were not even in

existence. In the last decade, we have seen an evolution in social networking from a simple

communication tool to one that has a galvanizing presence in our politics, professional careers

and our social lives.

Social networking websites like Facebook and Change.org have helped connect an

unprecedented amount of like-minded individuals who have collaborated over similar interests in

government policies, environmental activities and other causes of interests. Thanks to social

networking, people now have a platform to voice their concern and opinion directly with the

lawmakers in charge. This cuts down on valuable time and makes the entire process more

efficient.

From a business perspective, using social networking can also allow a company to

directly engage in a dialogue between its employees, customers and the community. In fact, if a

business does not have a social presence in the 21st century, it can face possible challenges with

its growth. In essence, a social network presence gives a business a dimension of legitimacy.

By engaging in social networking, businesses can not only help information and

knowledge flow both top down and bottom up, but in every direction i.e. communication and

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exchange of knowledge takes place not only among immediate managers and employees, but

also other departments within the organization and external members such as vendors, the

government and the customers.

According to Dalkir (2001), in this scenario, the companies are less focused on control

and more focused on transparency and information flow. By allowing information and

knowledge to flow freely both inside and outside the company business are able to gain valuable

insight directly from their environment.

According to Experian Marketing Services (20015), the top social media websites for the

past month on the internet are described in Table1 below.

Websites Total Visits Visits Share Rank 10/31 Rank 10/24 Rank 10/17

Facebook 1,655,657,726 45.31% 1 1 1

YouTube 815,732,548 22.32% 2 2 2

Twitter 173,927,643 4.76% 3 3 3

Reddit 163,466,084 4.47% 4 4 4

Pinterest 59,518,767 1.63% 5 5 5

Instagram 49,394,410 1.35% 6 7 8

Tumblr 49,347,002 1.35% 7 6 6

Yahoo!

Answers46,523,693 1.27% 8 9 9

LinkedIn 46,353,107 1.27% 9 8 7

Google+ 32,137,640 0.88% 10 10 10

Source: Experian Marketing Services Hitwise

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In the table above one can see that these websites all target a different audience, some

more successfully than others. What’s important to note here is that all these companies

successfully manage to attract an audience, some more than a billion.

All these companies, which can be grouped under the social networking umbrella, believe

in the same philosophy of sharing information among like-minded individuals. They successfully

use social networking to not only target their user’s particular interests but also to become a

platform for interaction with others from around the globe.

Websites such Yahoo Answers, Google+, LinkedIn act as a community driven social

networking platform that helps to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and communication

throughout the globe.

This interaction can have a profound impact on knowledge management with an

organization, as more and more users contribute their own experiences and knowledge on these

community-driven platforms, organization can now collect that information that was

unobtainable (tacit knowledge).

Generated by the users themselves, this tacit knowledge can be codified, and become

explicit knowledge enabling the organization to make informed business decisions. For example,

before the rise of social networking and the web, if an organization was thinking about

expanding its business overseas, it would have to spend a lot of time, money and other resources

researching, interviewing and codifying knowledge about cultures and practices in the new

market.

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Now with the help of social networking and Web 2.0, that same task can be done in a

fraction of the time, with a fraction of the cost- a single individual can go on these social

networking sites and acquire such information with ease.

Challenges

Even with everything good about social networking, there are challenges that still plague

this platform. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to social networking is the concern for trust and

privacy. Even with clear warnings and copyrighted signs on a majority of social networking

platforms, information that is once entered in the digital world has the possibility to be accessed

by un-intended recipients who can exploit the knowledge for their own malicious agenda.

In the case of Facebook, which has the highest amount of active users, privacy is a real

concern. According to Wilson, et all. “The benefits associated with Facebook, such as the

strengthening of social ties, are tempered by concerns about privacy and information disclosure.”

(Wilson, et all. 2012, p 2). Other concerns with social networking could also be information

overload and online bullying, some of which can directly affect the user’s personal and

professional career.

As an additional concern the often unproductive commentary that takes place after

posting. Users will react strongly to a phrase or idea, or will take it out of context, thus derailing

the intent of the individual or group who made the posting. This could potentially have damaging

effects to a business.

Another possible shortcoming of using social media tool as a possible recruitment tool

can be the demographics of the social networking cite. LinkedIn for example, a very popular

recruitment and professional networking website might not represent all the likely candidates.

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In the context of knowledge sharing within the organization, it’s important to realize that

any information that is being shared and any new knowledge that is being created must have a

way to be authenticated. i.e., the organization must have protocols and systems in place that can

not only capture knowledge, but also validate its usefulness before sharing it with other stake

holders.

In doing so, the information not only becomes reliable but can also help map out patterns

of interactions and key personnel. According to Dalkir (2001), these key personnel “act as

gatekeepers” and help “maintain good knowledge circulation throughout the community”

(Dalkir, 2015. p 359).

HR Role

The benefits of social networking in recruiting are quite clear. According to Segal,

“employers can use social media in two ways when hiring: to recruit candidates by publicizing

job openings and to conduct background checks to confirm a candidate’s qualifications for a

position” (Segal, 2015).

However, the concern for using social media in the hiring process can provide the

employer with valuable insight in not only the potential candidate’s professional career, but also

their personal lives. Having access to their pictures, information about their ethnicity, race,

gender and political ties can have a very significant impact on their recruitment. Hence, it would

be unethical to use protected information to make potential employment decisions.

What’s important here is that while employers may not overtly discriminate, their

unconscious (or conscious) biases may get in the way of making objective, fair hiring decisions.

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According to a survey by Spherion Staffing, “we’ll see more forward-thinking HR

leaders making the connection between having a solid social media strategy and finding top

talent. After all, 47 percent of Millennials now say a prospective employer’s online reputation

matters as much as the job it offers” (Meister, 2014).

Another recent trend that can be noticed in the workplace and can potentially help Human

Resources is called gamification. According to Meister (2014) gamification “in the business

context describes essence of games—attributes like puzzles, play, transparency, design and

competition—and applying them to a range of real-world processes inside an organization, from

new hire on-boarding, to learning & development, and health & wellness” (Meister, 2014).

Meister (2014) states that gamification leverages certain game mechanics, such as critical

thinking, team building, strategy and cooperation between the different players, in order to help

engage their employees, resulting in higher level of business performance.

This can directly be seen in practice when NTT Data used gamification to align “with its

overall employee engagement framework and developed five key skills for leaders: negotiation,

communication, time management, change management and problem solving” (Meister, 2014).

This resulted in a total of 70 leaders within the organization to complete the gamified leadership

program, and further resulted in 50 employees taking up leadership roles with the company

(Meister, 2014).

Social learning theory dictates that learning will happen anywhere and it is grounded in

the belief that human behavior a sum of a three-way relationship between environmental,

cognitive, and behavioral factors.

By acknowledging that knowledge can happen anywhere, Human resource personal can

map out a particular organizations culture and employee behavior both inside and outside the

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organization. For example, “socialization is the process by which organizations pass on the

culture of the organization to new employees and teach them how to be more effective in the

organization” (Swanson, Elwood, 2009, p 201).

This realization can result in not only a having a better onboarding process in place to

help the new employees transition more smoothly into their roles and responsibilities, but it can

also help map out and develop the existing talent within the organization, i.e. By clearly

identifying employee engagement through CoP’s and other social networking platforms, human

resource personnel can directly link their engagement to their overall evaluation.

According to Meister (2014) recent surveys show a discrepancy in the demographics of

the job market and other social sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. Not all social networking

platforms capture global demographics. And companies like Facebook and LinkedIn only

represent a small portion of the actual employment market.

Any information and or knowledge captured form these sites for the sole purpose of

recruitment should be used along with other tried and tested methods that work for a particular

organization; social networking in this sense will not act as a crutch, but actually help siphon the

right talent towards the organization.

Conclusion

As with any social networking system, the content is only as good as its contributors; and

a good social networking system utilizes all the traits mentioned earlier to effectively engage and

encourage the capture, analysis, dissemination and generation off all knowledge within the

organization. A good social networking approach also

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Social networking, in the context of knowledge management, helps improve the

communication flows within an organization. Instead of just having a downward flow of

communication- social networking encourages communication flow in all directions (external,

horizontal and upward flow). This transparency and ease in communication flow can also stop

the organization from re-learning best practices already in place.

By walking the ethical line between information sharing and social media and looking

out for possible new trends, human resource personnel should leverage all forms of social

collaboration between the organization and other individuals both inside and outside the

company. In doing so, the Human Resource personal will be not only re-imagine how they

recruit, but they can also focus on further engagement and development of their internal

employees.

Social networking is replacing the gathering by the water cooler station. This is an

ongoing, evolving tool which is deliberate in its attempt to capture tacit knowledge from its users

resulting in better communication flow within the organization. Going forward, more and more

companies will realize its potential.

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References

Experian. (2015). Social Media Trends. Online-trends-social-media. Retrieved from

http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/online-trends-social-media.html

Wilson, R. E., Gosling, S. D., & Graham, L. T. (2012). A Review of Facebook Research in the

Social Sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(3), 203–220.

http://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612442904

Segal, J. A. (2014). Social Media Use in Hiring: Assessing the Risks. Retrieved from

http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/editorialcontent/2014/0914/pages/0914-

social-media-hiring.aspx

Swanson, Richard A., and Elwood F. Holton. Foundations of Human Resource Development.

2nd ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009. 200-01. Print.

Meister, J. (2014). The Year Social HR Matters. Forbes. Retrieved from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2014/01/06/2014-the-year-social-hr-matters/

Work cited

Cegelski, S. (2015). Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management Tool Project. RIT