Effective Components of Social Networks in Knowledge Sharing from the Perspective of Experts

In today's world, organizations urgently need to share knowledge in social networks in order to move toward knowledge orientation and achieve competitive advantage. The aim of the present study was to identify the key components of social networks for knowledge sharing.

This descriptive-combined study was conducted using Delphi technique and content analysis. The statistical population of this study consisted of the faculty members of information science and philology in the public universities of Iran, 20 of whom were included in the panel. Claizi method was used to analyze the data in the first round of Delphi, and descriptive statistics (mean and percentage) as well as Excel and SPSS 25 were used to analyze the statistical data in the second round of Delphi.

The identified key components of social networks include the usefulness component and the functions of using social networks with 29 items, of which the most important is the information sharing item with an average of 6.81, the component of problems and challenges of using social networks has 26 items, the most important item is filtering and certain access to some social networks with an average of 5.6, the component of the purpose of using social networks has 57 items, including the speed of information dissemination and transmission with an average of 6.75, the component of improving people's skills in using social networks (8 items), conducting educational workshops on the use of scientific networks (the most important item, 6.62), and finally the component of trust in social networks (6 items), so the most important item is trust in the accuracy of the information shared in social networks with an average of 6.68.

Among the abovementioned components, the most effective component of social network for knowledge sharing is the component of improving people's skills in using social networks, which should be paid more attention than other components.