Managing knowledge through social networks within multinational real estate consultancy firms: a literature review

Abstract

Multinational Real Estate Consultancy Firms (MNRECF), as “knowledge-based entities”, has progressively distributed their operations to their branches all around the world. Disseminated knowledge expertise across borders may, on the one h, benefit MNRECFs due to its’ multiplicity, but, on the other h, may be difficult to orchestrate. Thus, orchestration of the knowledge across dispersed unit’s conversion of those into innovation competences has become a crucial capability for MNRECFs. Transferring knowledge through one-to-one conversations has been threatened by the increasing movement of the consultants of MNRECFs across different countries. Since the evolution of network relationships has impacted most companies in the modern economy setting, Social Network concept has become the focus of many companies. Organizations’ tacit knowledge sharing is mainly structurally supported by the social networking. In MNRECFs, members belong to one category or department dispersed in widespread locations. Therefore, there is a wide adoption of Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) as a collaborative Knowledge Management (KM) tool. The paper suggests the KM efforts within MNRECFs should identify the ‘Influencers’ in the social network in order to introduce encourage the participation of more actors to the ESN. Therefore, the paper details social networks’ features provide an account of relevant combination of ESN SNA facilitated KM initiatives within MNRECFs.