Can technology build organizational social capital? The case of a global IT consulting firm

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) and knowledge management systems (KMS) have been positioned as strategies and tools that enable organizations to create and transfer knowledge in order to sustain competitive advantage. While KM as a strategy gained legitimacy, KMS have struggled to show a causal relationship to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. KMS contribution to the economic performance of organizations has been harder to prove, mainly because of a lack of collection of data and thus analysis of knowledge metrics. This has lead to an unjustifiable move to underplay the role of technology in creating and transferring knowledge. We strived to revive interest in KMS by exploring their ability to accumulate social capital and showing its effect on the creation and transfer of knowledge. We posited that social capital was the mediating factor between KMS and knowledge creation and transfer and hypothesized that: (1) KMS will positively affect an organization's ability to build social capital, and that (2) social capital will enhance a firm's ability to create and transfer knowledge. Qualitative data collected from a multinational IT consulting firm was used to validate the framework.