Will enterprise social networking systems promote knowledge management and organizational learning? An empirical study

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, enterprise social media practitioners and researchers are keen to know how the enterprise usage of social media can be converted into the improved organizational performance. Meanwhile, organizational learning has long been considered as one of the measures of organizational performance. This article investigated the impact of enterprise social networking systems (ESNS) usage on knowledge management processes and organizational learning; in particular, we examined the mediating role of knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. Four theories from sociology and strategic management were used to build the hypotheses in the research model. An online survey was conducted to empirically test the model. Our study results showed that ESNS usage directly and indirectly influences organizational learning; and that knowledge management processes (knowledge creation and sharing) mediate the path between the two. This study contributes to the existing literature on enterprise social media for three reasons. First, it is among the first to connect the three independent concepts (social media, knowledge management, and organizational learning) and explore their relationships in one theoretical framework. Second, this work also specifically examines the influence of ESNS (Yammer in this case) on organizational processes and outcomes. Third, this is a pioneering study that employs multiple theories to address the research questions under the organizational social media context. Therefore, the research gives implications for both practitioners and scholars who are interested in understanding the effectiveness of ESNS usage in the modern organizations today.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• enterprise social networking systems
• knowledge creation
• knowledge sharing
• organizational learning

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cong Qi

Cong Qi is a teaching fellow in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Management and Marketing. She received her Ph.D. degree in Management Information Systems from the School of Business at the University of Hong Kong. Her research examines social media, bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and mobile computing in the areas of education, IT outsourcing, relationship management, and mobile commerce. Dr. Qi’s studies have been published in Decision Support Systems and Information Technology and People, and her works have been presented at such international conferences as PACIS, HICSS, INFORMS, and ALT.

Patrick Y. K Chau

Patrick Y. K. Chau is Padma and Hari Harilela Professor in Strategic Information Management on the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. His research interests include information systems/information technology (IT) adoption and implementation, information presentation, knowledge management, and IT outsourcing. Dr. Chau has published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, Journal of the AIS, Communications of the ACM, and Decision Sciences, among others.