Knowing what we know: Supporting knowledge creation and sharing in social networks

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how four important drivers-awareness, access, engagement, and safety -influence how knowledge travels across informal networks. It describes a research program to determine the means for improving employees' ability to create and share knowledge in important social networks. In the first phase of the research, characteristics of relationships that forty managers relied on for learning and knowledge sharing in important projects were assessed. In the second phase, social network analysis was employed to map these dimensions of relationships among strategically important networks of people in various organizations. Working with a consortium of Fortune 500 companies and government organizations, empirical support for relational characteristics that facilitate knowledge creation and sharing in social networks was developed as well as insight into social and technical interventions to facilitate knowledge flow in these networks.