The Effect of Social Network Centrality on Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Many companies have been carrying out various knowledge management attempts, hoping that employees share their knowledge voluntary with other members and make synergy. From this point of view, many previous studies have explored the factors that affect individuals’ intention to share knowledge. In this study, we tried to discover the factors affecting from the roles and positions of individuals within the social network. To identify the roles and positions, we used three centrality measures (degree/closeness/betweenness) that can be calculated using Social Network Analysis (SNA). The research findings showed that the network roles and positions of individuals significantly affect their knowledge sharing intentions within and outside the teams. Since the high degree centrality provides a member with the position as a leader or a hub, one tries to actively participate in knowledge sharing within and outside the team in order to maintain the network position. A member who can quickly interact with many other members within a team (high closeness centrality) is more interested in knowledge sharing within the team than knowledge sharing outside the team. Since betweenness centrality offers a member various resources outside the team, a member who has high betweenness centrality plays a crucial role in disseminating and regulating knowledge among multiple teams. The members who play important roles in the network want to engage in knowledge sharing activities more actively than other members to maintain the benefits they can have in the network.