Social Media and Knowledge Management
How can social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter be used to improve knowledge sharing, build social capital, support innovation, and aid problem solving in Multinational corporations (MNCs).
Knowledge management is a multidisciplinary approach used by the organizations for the achievement of its objectives by way of utilizing knowledge in the best possible manner. It is a process of creating, managing, sharing and using knowledge and information associated with an organization. The exchange of knowledge among different organizations, communities and people is termed as knowledge sharing (Donate and Sanchez de Pablo 2015).
Social media provides a platform for millions of users to interact with each other on daily basis. Social media has gained immense popularity with the passage of time and is increasingly being used by the multinational organizations for the purpose of enhancing their image. It also plays a key role in shaping up of the organization. This is done for the purpose of encouraging the employees of the organization to interact socially so that new ideas can be generated which in turn have the capability of leading the organization towards a new direction.
Knowledge management can be defined as the systematic management of the knowledge assets of the organization for value creation and fulfillment of strategic and tactical requirements (Webb 2017)There is a relationship between social media and knowledge management as social media enables knowledge sharing and supports a number of knowledge management practices. Social media allows the companies to incorporate knowledge management and organizational learning by gaining knowledge from the experiences of the companies and using such knowledge for the improvement in the products and services.
Social Media
Social media can be defined as a computer-based application that makes the use of the internet with the help of information can be exchanged between the users (Bretschneider and Parker 2016). Web 2.0 is the current online technology which offers greater collaboration and user interactivity, enhanced communication channels and more persuasive network connectivity. It is advantageous in case of social media as it allows the expansion of the social contacts of the business by building connections through individuals.
The traditional marketing tactics such as public relations, advertisings and publicities have changed completely after the emergence of social media. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are widely used by individuals and organizations. For the effective marketing of the products, organizations have started using these platforms. Effective communication in the organization can perform the task of reducing uncertainty and ambiguity of the business. Moreover, social media acts as the shortest route for the marketing and communication for an organization (Du Plessis 2007).
Social Media
Knowledge Sharing
Most of the multinational organizations encourage knowledge and information sharing among the employees and allows them to access intellectual capital. Such practices are followed in a number of organizations and the employees are rewarded for the actions undertaken by them. For example, in IBM, employees are rewarded for encouraging them to share knowledge. The company is being further developed as a result of this initiative of the company (Wang, Noe, and Wang 2014).
Knowledge sharing allows the knowledge of the individuals to get transferred to the company which in turn results in the generation of innovative ideas within individuals and ultimately leads to enrichment of the organization. It further assists the organization in facing competition from other major market players. Multinational organizations are capable of gathering information along with improving them for the purpose of keeping up with the customers. Therefore, the organizations are able to win the competition against the competitors in the market and can easily achieve the goal (Bharati Zhang and Chaudhury 2015).
Interactive individuals are more capable of producing creative knowledge. Multinational organizations such as P&G have developed pages on the social media so that the customers can easily follow the companies on the social networking sites and can share valuable information related to the products of the organization. Moreover, the company can also share facts and information for publicizing the products.
Social media encourages multinational organizations for effectively communicating with the clients and other prospective customers and to find out their personal views through instant transmittal of messages and posts. Teams of people are also created with the help of interaction over social media which discusses several matters on the platform (Garrido-Moreno, Lockett and Garcia-Morales 2015).
The employees of the multinational organization can often be termed as its intangible assets. Therefore, social media acts as a knowledge sharing tool among such employees and allows the organizations to have a competitive edge over the other major players in the market. It allows the employees to easily get connected through the use of the internet so that the relevant knowledge can be shared among different organizations. The company gains from the valuable information that is conveyed to the organization by the employees and therefore, adequate importance should be given to the organizations to the management and maintenance of social capital (O’Donohue 2016).
The social capital is of immense benefit to the multinational organizations as effective communication is facilitated by it within the organization and among the employees. The stronger relationship is developed between the employees which are the result of a boost in the knowledge of the employees facilitated by the social capital. Social media such as Facebook facilitates the exchange of videos, pictures, and ideas along with facilitating video conferencing with the employees working in different countries. Social media leads to the increase in performance of the employees in the organization along with bringing an increase in the knowledge base. Knowledge sharing leads to the development of teamwork spirit along with the employee’s personal development. In other words, it can be said that a number of benefits are obtained by the multinational corporations through social capital development (Darroch 2005).
Knowledge Sharing
Supporting Innovation
For the purpose of sustaining in the market, multinational corporations require to constantly introduce innovations in the products. The flow of new ideas is facilitated in the business through the process of innovation. The chance of people showing active involvement in the improvement of ideas in the business also increases. This is done so that the organization attains a competitive advantage over the competitors. This can be made possible when the employees of the organization make every possible effort for bringing innovative ideas forward (Obeidat et al. 2016)
The social media platform provides a platform to people for discussing their ideas with other people from or outside the company thereby gathering new and valuable ideas. No additional cost is required on part of the company or the employees for making the use of this platform and therefore the company can easily focus on the generation of innovative ideas without worrying about the increasing cost to the company (Meihami and Meihami 2014).
Due to the dynamic nature of the market, it is the responsibility of the employees to stay updated with the changing taking place in the market so that the threats can be identified in advance and required action can be taken in due time. Therefore, bringing innovative ideas in the company should be set as a target to be achieved by the employees so that the company can derive benefits from such practice. If this practice will not be undertaken, the company will not be able to stand out in the market and will lose the opportunities to the competitors (Overall 2015).
Multinational organizations can also utilize social media for taking ideas from the ideas of the customers who are not the employees of the company. When the point of view of the customers is considered by the organization, it gets to see some issues and opportunities that were earlier not visible to the organization.
Aiding Problem – Solving
Multinational organizations constantly face a number of problems due to the external service providers. Such problems can be easily resolved with the help of social media as it allows open communication. Various features of social media are connected with one another in several ways. Therefore, knowledge sharing and communication process helps the companies such as Cisco and Symantec in resolving their problems instantly (Ahern, Leavy, and Byrne 2014).
A communication channel can be opened between employees of the company and the external service providers and also with the employees of other organizations by making the use of social media as a tool. The problems that were affecting the company’s previously can be easily solved in this way. When the knowledge will be shared in respect of the problem areas, there are chances that such problem will not arise in the future. The social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn offer the companies to have one to one relationship with the employees.
Building Social Capital
Social media provides the multinational organizations with an option that for resolving the problems by way of providing the information and solutions to people through social networking process. Customers are also offered online solutions through social media so that their respective problems can be resolved with a great ease (Heisig et al. 2016)
Furthermore, social media assists in the creation of internal communication channel within the organization with the help of which the problems are resolved on instant basis. This is done through the effective transfer of knowledge between various departments within and outside the country facilitating instant resolving of problems.
Marketing with Social Media
Marketing with Social Media- the use of social media by multinational organizations allows them to use it as a platform for the promotion of its products and services. Such platform also provides built- in tools of data analytics which facilitates the organizations to instantly track the success, progress and engagement of the campaigns. It is of great use for the organizations as it allows the internet users and customers to post user- generated content in the form of product reviews and online comments with the help of which organizations are able to review the performance of the products and can also come in contact with the customers (Girard and Girard 2015).
Increased Exposure/ Brand Awareness
Increased Exposure/ Brand Awareness- multinational organizations are able to increase the exposure of its products and brand by way of publicizing it on social media. They are capable of offering free demo and can engage the customers by asking questions and creating contests. Further, the organizations socially share their environmental friendly activities in order to make the brand popular among the customers. When the exposure is increased, the multinational organizations are able to increase their sales and thereby resulting in increased profits (Cohen and Olsen 2015).
Competitor Research
Competitor Research- social media also helps the multinational organizations to conduct in-depth researches regarding the competitors. They come to know about the strategies, ways of engaging the public, the type of followers of the competitor, etc. It further allows the organizations to understand the competitors, gathering intelligence on them and breaking that data down for deriving meaningful conclusions. (Du Plessis 2007)
Phishing Scams
The multinational organizations sometimes become the victim of social media phishing when the social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter of the are used by the attackers for the purpose of obtaining sensitive information regarding the multinational organization or clicking on the malicious links. Social media phishing portrays wrong results to the multinational organizations regarding the statistics presented by social media which in turn leads to the formation of wrong strategies which may not be able to attract the clients and the prospective customers (Birasnav 2014).
Supporting Innovation
Data Collection, Protection and Security
The data of the multinational organizations which is openly displayed on the social media sites may get used by the wrong hands in the wrong way thereby presenting the risk for the organization. Such collected data might also get used by the hackers for their illegal purposes. Therefore, it is advisable to protect the sensitive information and data for getting openly displayed on the social media sites otherwise the security of the data might get compromised (Rasmussen and Hall 2016).
Reputation Management
The reputation management has also become difficult through the use of social media and has created threat for the multinational organizations. Reputation management through social media allows the organizations to get involved in the process of tracking, monitoring and finally eradicating the negative material on the social media for the purpose of improving the standing and name of the brand. There are billions of people on social media and it is not easy to manage all the content posted by them. When such number of people get engaged in the bad publicity of an organization then it becomes next to impossible to effectively manage the reputation of the organization. Therefore, it is a risk of making the use of social media (Evans, Dalkir and Bidian 2015).
Conclusion
Multinational organization derives benefits from the integration of knowledge management and social media such as marketing with social media, increased exposure/ brand awareness and competitor research. Apart from the advantages, there are several risks involved in the use of social media by the multinational organizations such as increased risk of phishing scams, the risk to the security of data and difficulty in reputation management.
It is recommended that the multinational organizations should make the use of social media by taking into consideration certain security aspects so that there is less risk of the loss of confidential information in public or to the competitors.
Also, it is recommended that the organizations should use social media for publicizing the environmental friendly activities in order to enhance their image in the public.
Therefore, it can be concluded that social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have gained immense popularity with the passage of time. It also plays a very important role in case of the multinational organizations by facilitating easy communication process among the employees of the origination. Employees are able to develop internal and external relationships with the help of social media which further helps in the development of innovative ideas. It has become an effective tool for the purpose of improving knowledge sharing, supporting innovation, building social capital and aiding problem-solving for the multinational corporations.
References
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