Node-Link Diagrams as Lenses for Organizational Knowledge Sharing on a Social Business Platform

Abstract

This poster shows to what extent simple node-link diagrams based on social business network data reflect knowledge sharing behavior within an organization. We show that the number of in- and outgoing messages and key positions of employees in the network are not necessarily good indicators of knowledge sharing. Filtering work-related messages and encoding visually specific attributes of (sets of) employees provide more reliable diagrams that allow us to gain insight into the way social media tools are used for knowledge sharing purposes within an organization. It turns out that currently, most organizations do not exploit social business software to its full knowledge sharing potential.