Analysis of the Role of Social Media in Knowledge Based-Organizations: Definitions, Functions, Conceptual patterns

In the age of information and knowledge, knowledge-based organizations play an effective role in the development of every country. Some distinctive features of such organizations such as a fairly high degree of independence and autonomy, highly qualified individuals doing knowledge-based activities, lack of administrative hierarchy, high adaptability of the organization, special client services, asymmetry in power and communications, and high need to share knowledge have caused the management and the nature of the work in such organizations to be different. On the other hand, social media have forever changed the way people communicate, interact, share, and ultimately conduct their relationships. Social media capabilities such as emergence, persistence, transparency, collectivity, participation and independence correspond to the main aspects and processes of a knowledge-based organization, seriously influencing it through components such as relationships, identity, sharing, presence, reputation, groups and conversation. In this paper, effort has been made to analyze the various aspects of capabilities of social media and their impact on knowledge-based organizations by reviewing the literature through document research. The study investigates these capabilities by reviewing the definitions, functions and different patterns in both fields of knowledge-based organizations and social media. Finally, the various aspects of these impacts have been pointed out by presenting a conceptual pattern in the studied documents on "the impacts of social media on creating value added in knowledge-based organizations". In the end, suggestions and strategies have been put forward in order to make optimum use of these efficient means in knowledge-based organizations