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• Article | Strategic Management Journal | March 2018

  Enacting Knowledge Strategy Through Social Media: Passable Trust and the Paradox of Non-work Interactions

  Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi

  Despite the recognition that knowledge sharing among employees is necessary to enact knowledge strategy, little is known about how to enable such sharing. Recent research suggests that social media may promote knowledge sharing because they allow social lubrication and the formation of trust. Our longitudinal and comparative analysis of social media usage at two large firms indicates that users who participate in non-work interactions on social media catalyze a cycle of curiosity and passable trust that enables them to connect and share knowledge. Paradoxically, the very non-work related content that attracts users to social media and shapes passable trust can become a source of tension, thwarting a firm’s ability to encapsulate knowledge in the form of routines and to use it to enact its strategy.

  Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Strategy; Social and Collaborative Networks; Employees; Interactive Communication; Trust;

  Citation:

  Neeley, Tsedal, and Paul Leonardi. "Enacting Knowledge Strategy Through Social Media: Passable Trust and the Paradox of Non-work Interactions." Special Issue on Strategy Processes and Practices: Dialogues and Intersections. Strategic Management Journal 39, no. 3 (March 2018): 922–946.  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review

  What Managers Need to Know About Social Tools: Avoid the Common Pitfalls So That Your Organization Can Collaborate, Learn, and Innovate

  Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley

  Workplaces have adopted internal social tools—think stand-alone technologies such as Slack, Yammer, and Chatter, or embedded applications such as Microsoft Teams and JIRA—at a staggering rate. In an ambitious study of 4,200 companies, conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, 72% reported using them to facilitate employee communication. We have studied internal social tools in various work settings, including banking, insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, atmospheric science, and computing. The mounting evidence is clear: These tools can promote employee collaboration and knowledge sharing across silos. They can help employees make faster decisions, develop more innovative ideas for products and services, and become more engaged in their work and their companies. Over the past two decades, organizations have sought some of these benefits through knowledge management databases but with limited success. That’s because determining who has expertise and understanding the context in which it was created are important parts of knowledge sharing. Databases do not provide that type of information and connection. Social tools do. But we have found that companies that try to “go social,” as many of them call it, often fall into four traps. In this article, we look at those traps and share recommendations for capitalizing on the promise of social tools.

  Keywords: leadership; management; social tools; Social and Collaborative Networks; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Improvement; Management;

  Citation:

  Leonardi, Paul, and Tsedal Neeley. "What Managers Need to Know About Social Tools: Avoid the Common Pitfalls So That Your Organization Can Collaborate, Learn, and Innovate." Harvard Business Review 95, no. 6 (November–December 2017): 118–126.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2017

  One Life; One Love (A)

  Thomas DeLong and Kerry Herman

  Katie Hood, CEO of the One Love Foundation (One Love), a group dedicated to the prevention of relationship violence, had grown the organization's base of funding support to $6 million by 2017 and broadened its mandate to include relationships across many demographics. But questions about how best to deploy their funding loomed, as well as divergent views on the pace of growth the organization should target. One Love also needed to develop better metrics by which to measure its success. This case explores Hood's plan of action as she aims to bring One Love to greater scale.

  Keywords: leadership; social enterprise; start-up; ＂leading a foundation＂; strategy; Social Enterprise; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership;

  Citation:

  DeLong, Thomas, and Kerry Herman. "One Life; One Love (A)." Harvard Business School Case 418-005, November 2017.  View Details

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