Social Network Analysis for Knowledge Management

In an interview with Alakh Asthana of eClerx Services, Verna Allee talks about social network analysis (SNA) and the impact of SNA on knowledge management (KM). Verna starts off by explaining that while SNA has been around since the 1930's, it's only in the last few years that an increasing number of organizations have started using SNA graphs to identify individual connectors and knowledge flows facilitated by people. Knowledge management has successfully adopted SNA for identifying experts and quick decision making.

Verna recommends books in the area of SNA by Rob Cross and Patti Anklam, who have done substantial amount of work in the area organizational network analysis.

On the implementation front, Verna advises that just because an employee is well networked, he / she should not be judged as a better or worse employee. She cautions that companies are often inclined to use social network graphs for performance evaluation and that is potentially a very dangerous thing to do. Verna sums up the interview by highlighting two key uses of SNA - help locate expertise and understand knowledge flows.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Verna Allee
• Value Networks
• SNA
• social network analysis
• KM
• Alakh Asthana
• eClerx Services
• knowledge management
• Rob Cross
• Patti Anklam