Social Media and Knowledge Management
Discuss about the Social Media in Multinational Organizations.
‘Social Media’ is the term which is a bit off-putting as well as misleading for the managers of multinational organizations, as it seems as an approach for time-pass and diversion. However, when the managers understand the complete scope of attainable activities which could easily be carried out with the help of social websites, its usage for the managers becomes very clear. The social media websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter can be helpful social media allies to promote team-building and knowledge-sharing for the managers of many organizations in Singapore. If social media have been applied suitably and selectively, then these social media facilities will become the important sources of problem-solving and supporting innovation inside the organizations in Singapore. One more positive prospect of these social media websites is their adaptability and malleability to particular organizations’ motives and purposes. Beyond the outstanding sites, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, there is a large group of assorted websites for sharing applications, bookmarks, and pictures. Nowadays, like the use and craze of these social media has enhanced, more of its usage for organizational purposes has also increased. This essay is all about the positive aspects of social media for enhancing knowledge sharing, knowledge management, building social capital, supporting innovation and assisting problem-solving in multinational organizations.
Various multinational organizations in Singapore mostly rely on information and IT as resources to enhance and create value for the organization. The scholastics and management leaders have been guided to pay their attention more to practice and comprehend Knowledge Management (KM). The leaders make their organization more managed and try to make more sustainable competitive benefits for the organization in a quick- paced and quick-changing situations inside the organization (Dalkir, 2016). The social media have totally changed the current paradigm of KM. It might be a great opportunity for organizations to use social media as a tool and create a new framework for KM. The social networking is totally a new way to change a large fragment of the organizations’ values and standards. The online networking takes information and converts that information exceedingly useful. It makes content like a social constituent (Bazarova, 2016). That is, substance or content is the part of a social communication, for instance, discussion. It effortlessly dismantles the mainstays of knowledge as it develops. The business leaders acknowledge that the engagement is the appropriate way to collect the value of the information or knowledge changed in the social media (Bharati, Zhang, & Chaudhury, 2015). The social media gives the means to employees for sharing their knowledge, insight as well as experience with the organization. It ought to imply that there are a large number of advantages which organizations experience with the help of social media, for instance, successful searching, collection of related unstructured information sources, and positioning of significance knowledge. These benefits will prove to be distinct and essential elements for big business solutions (Gurteen, 2012).
Social Media and Knowledge Sharing
Knowledge Sharing (KS) is very significant or essential for the complete success of the multinational organizations in Singapore. For the organizations to stand out in the innovation, it should permit its workers a favorable and affordable mode of sharing knowledge for the exchange of thoughts and ideas (Westlund & Gawell, 2012). The social media websites, like Facebook, Hyves, Twitter, and LinkedIn make it achievable to link with other individuals online. Generally, multinational organizations see social media websites as an active networking place where users show their networks. There are platforms where organizations share thoughts and knowledge, for example, Wikipedia. Microblogging sites, like, Yammer and Twitter are platforms for distributing and sharing short messages and information (Brown, 2014). Twitter is a web access where clients can distribute short messages, and this mixing of the weblog with instant messaging provided it the name microblog. Individuals utilize the social media sites to share their everyday activities as well as to find or share data. The expanded utilization of web-based social networking sites combined with the simplicity of discovering data on the web, bring personal along with work personalities to obscure. The social networking sites or media are suitable locations for seeking advice and for sharing knowledge and information. Ever since the rise of the web and web-based social networking sites, conventional sender no more hold the quality or power of effective communication (Okazaki, Andreu, & Campo, 2016).
The recent experimental proof has demonstrated how web-based social media have a significant place in the business relationships. The usage of LinkedIn like an empowering agent of free development movement in the work market is very outstanding. LinkedIn media is a clear case for this, as it was intended to work as an expert system networking social website. The value or esteem to businesses which social media sites like, Facebook and Twitter provides to organizations is not obvious and clear, but they were initially seen adverse for the primary concern (Collier, 2013). However, since some years, many CEOs of multinational organizations have dynamic and active Twitter or Facebook accounts, similarly, every organization considers it to be obligatory to have proper professionally managed or controlled Facebook page. The social media sites likewise form social capital much tangible. On the other hand, social media sites help to build social or ethnic capital in the business. However, the vast majority of social administration organizations in Singapore utilizes online networking or social media for the promotion of their products and brands (Dalkir, 2016). As data and helpful arrangements are distinctly accessible and reception rates ought to increase thus building the social capital. Generally, social capital increase through work, business groups, and subordinates, as well as social network sites create knowledge and build more tangible social capital for the organization.
Social Media and Building Social Capital
The central area where these social media websites vary from routine sites is the content that is available on these sites. The former produce the personal content, collaboratively making, altering, sharing, labeling, and sorting out data, configuring the efforts of others as well as taking part in distributed discourse (Singh, 2014). The social media is the rising technology, implying that cognition, content, as well as applications, rise with use, from the necessities and exercises of the clients. Along with it, this is a component of impulsive and contemporaneous substance that properly suits knowledge sharing and supporting innovation activities in the organization. The social media supports the innovation in multinational organizations, for instance, if an organization is the only one which provides high-value services or products, social media sites can help: Being continual in learning organizational competitors and finding out what they have said about them and who has said what about them (Zuniga, Barnidge, & Scherman, 2016). Utilizing social media sites to monitor or to track what competitors and people have said: if there is no clarity or consistency, allocating difference between the perspectives of customers and competitors which can help in refining organizational offerings until it becomes unique.
Problem-solving is known as a technique which is used in many large and multinational organizations. The tools or methods which the organizations use or implement are social software which includes Wikipedia, podcasts, blogs, social networks, and much more (Islam & Gul, 2012). The social media or social media sites are known to solve different basic business issues and concerns. The social media sites presently act as an easy going way for the organizations’ businesses. As the quantity of organizations is expanding, social media sites are by and large less utilized for settling the business lawsuits. The use of social media in organizations is picking a trial and actualize free applications and projects on the organization’s intranet, because of which organizations are spending noteworthy finance on reconstructing and overhauling the communication methodologies. With web-based social networking sites, shaping the base of organizations’ operations is done. The problem-solving is supported with the assistance of online networking. This system is being utilized by the organizations to improve its procedures for managing legal circumstances. The online networking gives an assortment of answers for solitary issues (Kim & Ahmad, 2013). The utilization of Twitter for expert improvement is entrenched now. Twitter is essentially used to connect with individual groups of friends, recently, administrations have effectively constructed professional learning platform through this channel (Nuernbergk & Conrad, 2016). Through this platform, workers follow different representatives who have comparative interests. Then again, they agree to set classes of tweets grouped by means of hash labels. For instance, in an agricultural department, determining and grouping apart applicable tweets for organization’s workers by setting proper hashtag channels (Gurteen, 2012).
Social Media and Supporting Innovation
The social media has been effectively adopted by a large number of multinational organizations as a channel for the innovation as well as for research. They have likewise shown their capability in promoting team-building and knowledge-sharing. The value of web-based social networking technologies to enhance general organizational adequacy is borne by measurable and observational proof. The utilization of Twitter for the expert upgrade has increased now. There are several benefits which social media sites provide to organizations, for example, Authenticity and Attachment.
Authenticity: Social media sites assist in building the authenticity when messages and activities of the firm’s pioneers in the “virtual” world are adjusted to their messages as well as activities in the “corporeal” world.
Attachment: Employees’ connections to the organization is produced when workers feel or believe that they all belong to a group with shared interests and values. A few of these qualities are specifically identified with work, while others move beyond straight work-related collaborations (Rode, 2015). As opposed to normal faith in the pre-online networking world, web-based social networking clients frequently don’t consider the time wasted on non-business related talks inside social groups as squandered from an expert stance. At the point, when representatives distinguish regular non-business related interests between each other as well as forge casual securities, they will, in the end, begin talking about business related topics even outside the formal work timings, thickening the data trade all through the organizations and in addition expanding activity in the organization’s online networking groups.
For multinational organizations in Singapore, there are genuine risks when they utilize social media sites. These risks can harm the brand or product by exposing exclusive data of the organization. The growth of these social media sites is inextricably connected with the modification in the mobile computing, which surely brought an immense change in the mobile application evolution. Normally, regardless of whether they utilize their own particular or organizational issued cell phones, representatives commonly download many applications because they have complete access to this. Social engineering is also a big risk which social media brings to the organizations. The lack of social media policies is also at risk because, without any policy, they are inviting a big disaster for the organization (Leistner, 2012). Social media might cause a hazard to an organization’s honor by creating unsupportive publicity. The legal hazards might originate if the organization gives an unsuitable comment or remark about other organization or company on the social media program. The risk of spyware, hacking, and bugs are always there while using social media.
Social Media and Aiding Problem-Solving
Conclusion
This essay concludes that in today’s immense competitive business situations, it is highly imperative or necessary for the multinational organizations to adopt the social media plan of actions for both internal as well as external communication. This communication approach can surely play an important part in the overall success and development of business within Singapore and also in other parts of the entire world, as the utility of social media sites has extended far beyond the marketing services. Inside the multinational organizations, social capital surely enhances by simply integrating the social media sites into the conventional mode of communication, because of the morale and commonality around the organization’s vision, purpose and brand increase. The social media networking makes knowledge management easier and it becomes more natural part of every multinational organization.
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