Social network analysis to explore the organizational knowledge transfer patterns – From a social capital perspective

Abstract

In a modern society, organizations have a great interest in how organizational members share knowledge and accumulate social capital to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Social capital can be accumulated when knowledge is actively transferred and shared in social relationships among members. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the structure of knowledge transfer and sharing in a Korean construction company. Data for analysis were collected from 270 employees of a construction company. Netminer 4.0 was used for social network analysis. The results of a social network analysis revealed that requests for knowledge transfer were concentrated on several individuals even though most of the members of the organization participated in the knowledge transfer network. The blockmodeling analysis also demonstrated that the product development department was most active in transferring knowledge to other departments. © Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2019.