KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: A FUTURE APPLICATION OF SOCIAL NETWORKS?

Knowledge management has been on the agenda for both research and practitioners. Recently social network analysis is gaining more prominence in the knowledge management community. The purpose of this research is to e examine the social aspect of knowledge management (KM) in an organization, and the relationship between social network (SN) and knowledge management. We review the literature of knowledge management and social networks, and explore a new dimension of knowledge management systems. We focus on communication and collaboration between uses of social networks and the future development of knowledge management in an organization. Our result indicate that there exists a general lack of user input (communication and / or collaboration) in traditional knowledge manage approaches. Addressing the drawbacks of current approaches, we conclude that social networks are a way to support knowledge management and collaboration in organizations.