5. The summary and discussion
The research problem of this paper was set by three questions and it was approached by
operationalizing the motivational factors in form of a survey. The first of the questions was:
what motivates an organization’s employees to share their knowledge within an
intra-organizational social media platform. As stated above, the general attitude towards
knowledge sharing is positive and it is found useful, that is, the respondents see the value of
sharing. However, the emphasis was on recognizing usefulness of knowledge sharing, not
on the ease of actually doing so.
The employees’ attitude towards knowledge and knowledge sharing is decisively shaped by
the organization culture of the company. If the culture does not support knowledge sharing, it
does not matter what channel is used for it. Therefore, in order to make the most of the
potential of social media tools, such as a social media platform, in intra-organizational
knowledge sharing the mindset and attitude towards knowledge should be prepared to
better accept the sharing of knowledge in general.
The motive to share knowledge through an intra-organizational social media platform is the
desire to help the organization reach its goals and helping colleagues, while financial
rewards and advancing one’s career were seen as least motivating. That is, in the case of a
social media platform the top two motivating factors were both intrinsic and correspondingly
the bottom two were extrinsic. A rough explanation for that might be that people who are
accustomed in knowledge sharing through social media platforms would do it. Those who
are not accustomed would not share even if there was a reward. This is related to the issue of
the affordance of such platforms.
What comes to the barriers keeping respondents from using an intra-organizational social
media platform for knowledge sharing, the most significant one was the fear of using such
platformwould take additional time and effort compared to existing practices and that it would
be just another information system on top of the existing ones. In general, people use the tools
they find useful and practical. Avoiding wasting time on, yet another, information system is an
indication of emphasizing the issue of practicality, that is, effort should not exceed gains.
Based on the results it can be concluded that the key issues enabling the success of using a
collaborative intra-organizational social media platform in knowledge sharing are in line with
the general knowledge sharing motivation factors, although supplemented with some
additional features. In the case of a social media platform the benefits of using a platform
should be implicit: reciprocity in knowledge sharing, making every-day work easier and
faster and ease of use are the key factors that make or break the success. Moreover, there
might be several intervening factors that explain usage or non-usage. The issue of using
social media platforms was not approached from that perspective and therefore the results
this far concern using platform only from the perspective of the users.
The results discussed in this paper underline the importance of intrinsic motivation, but the
analysis is based on operationalization done by the authors. The issue of intrinsic or extrinsic
motivation was not directly asked nor explained to the respondents. It is not a shortcoming
per se, yet it should be taken in account when evaluating the findings. The findings, and
therefore the conclusions, were based on partial analysis of a larger survey thus there might
be at least some gaps, for example, descriptive nature of the results. Moreover, due to
sampling used for survey the results remain descriptive and explorative. As presented
above, any strong correlations between presented factors cannot be made. For such results
more comprehensive research should be conducted, yet the results of this paper serve
significant role when composing hypothesis for further research. As applying social media
platforms in value creating business activities is novel, this paper serves well as new
opening in the field of managerial information system research.
Most important practical implications rise from respondents’ attitude towards social media.
As presented above such platform was mainly seen as tool, thus value of such tool is
dependent on perceived value of usage. Especially the motivational factors (see Figure 2)
give important lesson by pointing out the importance on intrinsic motivation. To put it vice
versa: usage of social media platforms cannot be forced as it should be based on
voluntarism and mutual benefit and it cannot be forced.
Further research calls for examining also factors also that might enlighten affordance of
social media platforms. Motivation to use tools and affordance are tightly knit together and
this relationship needs also deeper analysis in order to draw a more complete picture of the
motivational factors of using intra-organizational social media platform in knowledge
sharing. The issue of affordance should be studied more thoroughly in order to enlighten
indirect personal, social and organizational factors.