Uncovering the role of social media and cross-platform applications as tools for knowledge sharing

Online knowledge sharing and creativity in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

The COVID-19 lockdown has forced many organizations and employees to work from home. In such uncertain and unprecedented context, it is crucial for organizations to stimulate their employees’ creativity to adapt to new working environment and thus to sustain and improve organizational performance. This paper aims to examine how to stimulate employees’ creativity by focusing on their online knowledge sharing (OKS) behaviors, their use of online platforms and their organizations’ innovation climate in a working from home (WFH) context because of the lockdown. For empirical analysis, this research uses data from Vietnam – a developing country in the Southeast Asia.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are collected from employees working in Ho Chi Minh City but WFH during the COVID-19 lockdown. Structural equation models are used for analyzing the data.

Findings

Online platform use and organizational innovation climate are positively associated with creativity directly and indirectly via the mediating roles of internal and external OKS.

Research limitations/implications

This research provides policymakers, organizational leaders and managers with an important evidence on how to stimulate creativity by emphasizing the roles of knowledge sharing, online platforms and innovation climate. Accordingly, relevant practical implications are also drawn to sustain or improve organizational performance in the context of WFH context because of COVID-19 lockdown. This research also contributes to knowledge management literature by providing an evidence on the relationships between online platform use, organizational innovation climate, OKS and creativity.

Originality/value

This research is among the early attempts that explore the associations between employees’ use of online platforms, their organizations’ innovation climate, their internal and external OKS behaviors and their creativity in the context of WFH because of a lockdown.

Empirical Investigation of Work-Related Social Media Usage and Social-Related Social Media Usage on Employees' Work Performance

The trend of using social media in the workplace is now becoming ubiquitous. Along witbenefits, social media also has negative consequences. Employees use social media for both work and social purposes. Therefore, using a quantitative approach, this study explores the impact of work-related social media usage and social-related social media usage on employees’ work performance. This study also investigates the mediating effect of extra-role behaviors on social media usage (professional and personal purpose) and work performance relationships. We examined survey data of 241 employees working in different organizations with the help of the partial least square (PLS) 3.0 version. Convenience sampling has been used to reach respondents. The outcomes of this study demonstrate that both professional and personal-related social media usage have a positive and significant impact on employees’ work performance. This study also highlighted that extra-role behavior positively and significantly mediates the relationship between social media usage (work and personal) and employees’ work performance. This study provides practical insights to managers, such as that, instead of banning social media usage in companies, there must be some limits and regulations for using social media that would facilitate firms to increase employees’ engagement and productivity.

Factors affecting online knowledge sharing and its effect on academic performance

Purpose

This study aims to explore the factors that affect online knowledge sharing among the scientific performance of academics at the University of Mosul, Republic of Iraq.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected by using a random sample by means of an electronic questionnaire distributed to 211 academics at the University of Mosul via online platforms. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses using AMOS 24 software.

Findings

The results showed that collaboration, perceived flexibility and willingness to share had a significant effect on online knowledge sharing behavior and that which in turn had an effect on the academic performance of respondents, while the results showed no influence of knowledge self-efficacy and communication on the behavior of online knowledge sharing.

Research limitations/implications

In this research, the effects of five factors on online knowledge sharing behavior were studied, in addition to the effect of the latter on academic performance. The research did not study the effect of the participants’ personal characteristics on the behavior of knowledge sharing online, which could be an area of future investigation. The study was limited to online knowledge sharing for academics working in public universities, and the authors suggest conducting a future study from the perspective of medical staff working in hospitals and its impact on their performance.

Practical implications

Based on the findings of the current study, this study suggests that the academic staff at the University of Mosul and similar universities pay attention to scientific cooperation between researchers and teaching staff, by creating online groups to carry out joint research projects that contribute to sharing knowledge among participants through social media in general and scientific platforms in particular. Establishing a scientific research portal could serve this well for example.

Originality/value

Most previous studies have focused on areas related to knowledge sharing in higher education institutions from the traditional perspective and therefore studies that examine the factors affecting online knowledge sharing among academics are limited, so this study fills this gap. This paper focuses on identifying the scientific benefits for academics through knowledge exchange and the use of electronic platforms at the University of Mosul. The study is expected to contribute to enhance the exchange of knowledge online between academics in similar universities in Asia and Africa due to the convergence of cultures and the nature of the work of these universities, as well as the possibility of generalization due to the research’s use of the deductive method.

Human resource management practices in creating a committed workforce for fostering knowledge transfer: a theoretical framework

Purpose

This paper aims to review existing literature on the role of human resource management (HRM) practices in nurturing employee’s organisational commitment (OC), which subsequently promoting knowledge transfer (KT) within an organisation and propose a conceptual framework for future empirical research.

Design/methodology/approach

An extensive review of existing literature was undertaken in an attempt to build the conceptual model for KT.

Findings

The proposed conceptual framework illustrates the role of OC as a focal mediating mechanism in fostering KT. This paper identifies “high commitment” HRM (HCHRM) (e.g. staffing, job design, training and development, performance appraisal and reward system) as the factors influencing the development of OC, which subsequently affecting KT (i.e. knowledge sharing and application). Also, this paper integrates the potential moderating roles of leader-member exchange (LMX) between HCHRM practices-OC, as well as information and communication technology support in the OC-KT linkage into the proposed framework.

Research limitations/implications

This paper presents a comprehensive view of fostering KT. However, the major limitation of this paper is that it remains at a conceptual level. Further empirical investigations would be helpful to test propositions, hence validating the proposed conceptual framework.

Practical implications

The proposed conceptual framework could serve as practical guidance for managers and/or practitioners in developing policies that will facilitate KT in business organisations.

Originality/value

While KT is often viewed as a single phenomenon, this paper considers the KT into two components (i.e, sharing and application) in accordance with the practice-based perspective on knowledge and behavioural approach to KT. In addition, the adoption of the general workplace commitment model in conceptualising KT could further validate its applicability in knowledge management research. Also, the integration of LMX as a moderator in the proposed framework could contribute to the scant research on LMX-related moderation models upon validation.