Social kapital som fundament for organisatorisk viden_ Speciale af ...

Abstract
Abstract
Social Capital as Basis for Organizational Knowledge
-How IT can promote the creation and sharing of knowledge in
organizations by supporting social capital.
This thesis investigates the linkages between social capital, organizational
knowledge and IT in the form of social software. A central theme for this
investigation is to examine how social capital in the form of social networks,
trust, norms etc. impacts on the ability to create and share organizational
knowledge. Expanding on this theme it is further examined how the building
blocks of social software impacts on the creation and maintenance of social
capital.
The thesis is inspired by a rapport made by McKinsey & Co. that points out how
companies can develop competitive advantages by increasing employees ‘tacit
interactions’. In terms of supporting tacit interactions this thesis points to
collective knowledge (tacit and social knowledge) as the most important type of
organizational knowledge. This type of organizational knowledge is mainly
created in a socialization phase in which employees engage in interaction with
each other creating shared experiences, norms, values and beliefs. The defining
characteristics of Communitites of Practice (such as joint enterprise, mutual
engagement and shared repertoire) seem in particular to support the creation
and sharing of this type of organizational knowledge.
With reference to Coleman, Bourdieu and Putnam this thesis explores the
concept of social capital and points out how social networks, norms, trust etc. as
a resource and productive factor have a major influence on how actors engage
and interact with each other. By allowing as well as limiting peoples’ actions,
social capital plays an influential role on how organizational knowledge is created
and shared. This understanding can be improved by looking at social capital as
being constituted of three dimensions being a structural, cognitive and relational.
These three dimensions each act as conditions for the construction of
organizational knowledge and influence actors’ possibilities, abilities, and
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