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Knowledge is recognized as a vital element for organizations in the pursuit and gain of competitive advantage (Nguyen & Prentice, 2020; Asrar-ul-Haq & Anwar, 2016; Davenport & Prusak, 1998). It is the key factor leading to innovation (Drucker, 1999), decision making (Al-Busaidi & Olfman, 2017), improving a firm’s performance, and creating value (Bock et al., 2005). The secret of any firm’s success is in capitalizing on its knowledge as an intellectual asset rather than its physical assets (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Knowledge is a valuable resource because it critically focuses on taking the most effective action regarding the uncertainties in a business environment.
The concept of knowledge management (KM) has been defined as handling and improving the process of creating, distributing, and sharing knowledge within an organization (Bock et al., 2005; Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Knowledge sharing (KS) is defined as process of transferring knowledge between individuals, groups, departments, or across all levels of an organization (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995), allowing workers to solve problems and provide new ideas. It communicates both tacit and explicit knowledge between individuals, allowing an effective transfer of knowledge to take place between individuals and across groups, departments, and organizations (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, 2014).
Information and communication technology (ICT), which is immensely valued, has experienced enormous growth since the 1990s. ICT provides optimal value in facilitating KS in two ways: by storing explicit knowledge and by improving the efficiency of transferring the knowledge. Social media is web 2.0, which refers to the technologies and collaborative online applications that motivate people to participate, share their knowledge, and contribute to solving issues and proposing new ideas (Meneghello et al., 2020). As such, social media embraces tools such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tencent, and WeChat. Enterprise social media (ESM) has been introduced to democratize participation among employees to share experience and knowledge across organizational boundaries without being constrained by hierarchical and geographical boundaries (Lacosta & Thomas, 2020; Rozaidi et al., 2017). ESM consists of web-based platforms that allow active participation between co-workers through posting, editing, viewing, and sorting text and files with a specific co-worker or broadcasting a message to anyone in the organization at any time (Rahman, 2020; Wei et al., 2020; Leonardi et al., 2013).
KM in the telecommunications industry is considered to be a competitive weapon that enables a company to survive and stay ahead in the era of knowledge-based economy. In line with this, some western telecommunications companies have created a new position in their organizations called Chief Knowledge Officer to assure that KM operates effectively in terms of capturing and sharing knowledge to be used as intellectual assets (Strouse, 2001).