Can technology build organizational social capital?: the case of a global IT consulting firm

Authors:
Karma Sherif;James Hoffman;Bob Thomas
Affiliations:
Jesse H. Jones School of Business, Texas Southern University, Houston, TX;Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX;College of Business, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, TX
Venue:
Information and Management
Year:
2006

Citing 18
Cited 7

Inter-organization networks, computer integration, and shifts in interdependence: the case of the semiconductor industry

ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS)
Knowledge-based systems and knowledge management: friends or foes

Information and Management
IT-intensive value innovation in the electronic economy: insights from Marshall industries

MIS Quarterly
Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know

Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know
Automatic discovery of similarity relationships through Web mining

Decision Support Systems - Web retrieval and mining
Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams

Organization Science
Coordination and Virtualization: the Role of Electronic Networks and Personal Relationships

Organization Science
Network Structure in Virtual Organizations

Organization Science
Strategic contributions of game rooms to knowledge management: some prelimenary insights

Information and Management
Individual Centrality and Performance in Virtual R&D Groups: An Empirical Study

Management Science
Capitalizing on intellectual assets

IBM Systems Journal
Communities of practice and organizational performance

IBM Systems Journal
Evolving communities of practice: IBM global services experience

IBM Systems Journal
Identifying knowledge agents in a KM strategy: the use of the structural influence index

Information and Management
Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: conceptual foundations and research issues

MIS Quarterly
Knowledge management in pursuit of performance: insights from nortel networks

MIS Quarterly
Virtualness and knowledge in teams: managing the love triangle of organizations, individuals, and information technology

MIS Quarterly
Trust and the unintended effects of behavior control in virtual teams

MIS Quarterly

The effects of socio-technical enablers on knowledge sharing: an exploratory examination

Journal of Information Science
Managing knowledge sharing: Emergent and engineering approaches

Information and Management
Bowling online: social networking and social capital within the organization

Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Communities and technologies
Assessing the impact of knowledge management strategies announcements on the market value of firms

Information and Management
To stick or not to stick: The social response theory in the development of continuance intention from organizational cross-level perspective

Computers in Human Behavior
Electronic word of mouth and knowledge sharing on social network sites: a social capital perspective

Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research
Social Capital in Management Information Systems Literature

Journal of Information Technology Research

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) and knowledge management systems (KMS) have been positioned as strategies and tools that enable organizations to create and transfer knowledge in order to sustain competitive advantage. While KM as a strategy gained legitimacy, KMS have struggled to show a causal relationship to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. KMS contribution to the economic performance of organizations has been harder to prove, mainly because of a lack of collection of data and thus analysis of knowledge metrics. This has lead to an unjustifiable move to underplay the role of technology in creating and transferring knowledge. We strived to revive interest in KMS by exploring their ability to accumulate social capital and showing its effect on the creation and transfer of knowledge. We posited that social capital was the mediating factor between KMS and knowledge creation and transfer and hypothesized that: (1) KMS will positively affect an organization's ability to build social capital, and that (2) social capital will enhance a firm's ability to create and transfer knowledge. Qualitative data collected from a multinational IT consulting firm was used to validate the framework.