Complexity and Social Networks Blog

Building on our last entry, Hansen's search-and-transfer problem, we would like to highlight that effective knowledge creation and sharing is, among others, is dependent on one's structural and relational embeddedness in the organizational network. When analyizing knowledge sharing within firms, one might have to ask the following questions:

- Who are the persons that most effectively spread new throughout the organization. In every firm, there is an information communication network, which might be helpful to spread the news. What ist the structural embeddedness of the "communication hubs"?
- How do individuals within the organization think about sharing novel information? Are the knowledge "realms", do people tend to protect their personal knowledge, or is there an open communication atmosphere? What is the people relational embeddedness when it comes to information/knowledge sharing?

One can often see that firms spend huge amounts of money into knowledge management tools in order to foster knowledge sharing and creation. In many cases without even knowing how the (information) communuication network within the firms look like. Along these lines one might ask the question, whether or not awareness of the firm's (informal) communication networks can supplement at least parts of a big and expensive IT knowledge management infrastructure?