Using Social Media for Knowledge Sharing

Dates: Fall 2012-Current
Graduate Student Researchers: Casey Spruill, Samantha Meyer, and Blair Beverly
Funding: Robert and Kaye Hiatt fund for Media, Technology, and Society Research

The goal of this study is to explore whether social media technologies can help improve internal organizational knowledge sharing. Using three empirical studies in four organizations I am to achieve the following objectives: (1) to examine how and to what extent use of social media technologies for routine work-related communication can improve people’s accuracy of knowledge about who knows what and who knows whom within the organization; (2) to uncover what types of activities and incentives can encourage people to communicate with specific partners publicly on a social media platform for the benefits of others, and how to encourage people to routinely scan the communications made by others; and (3) to explore whether the visible residue of communications conducted through social media can be used to create perceptions of the strength of one’s ties with communication partners.