The Dark Side of Sharing Knowledge in the Social Media Era:

Faculty Members’ Perspectives

Kamla Ali Al-Busaidi

and Ibtisam Al-Wahaibi

Infomration Systems Department, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Business Communications Unit, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Keywords: Social Media Platform, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management, Information Systems Security.

Abstract: This pilot study examines the dark side of social media platforms (SMPs) for knowledge sharing (KS) from

knowledge management (KM) and information systems security(ISS) perspectives. SMPs have become a

mainstream technology with several potential opportunities for KS especially during the COVID 19 pandemic.

However, the literature indicates a dark side to SMPs, and knowledge workers may encounter several

challenges that might negatively affect their use. Hence, this study specifically assesses the negative effects

of knowledge power loss, codification efforts, privacy breaches and cyberattacks on KS through SMPs. Based

on 42 faculty members and structure equation modelling-based analysis, the results indicate that only

knowledge power loss is the main negative influencer of knowledge workers’ use of SMPs for KS. Further

analysis indicated that knowledge power loss negatively affects sharing implicit not explicit knowledge. This

study provides initial insights for researchers and practitioners.

1 INTRODUCTION

Human resources play a crucial role in today’s digital

and knowledge-based economy. Social media

platforms (SMPs) are recognized as one of the

information and communications technologies (ICT)

that facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration

among knowledge workers particularly during the

COVID-19 pandemic (Sakusic et al., 2021). In a time

when digital transformation and virtual connections

were essential for survival in organizations

worldwide (Swart et al., 2022). Drucker (2013)

emphasized that the productivity of knowledge

workers is the most asset in the 21st century.

Knowledge sharing systems, which fall under the

category of knowledge management systems (KMS),

are defined as systems that enable the seamless

dissemination of individual and organizational

knowledge (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). Among

knowledge workers, social media platforms are

widely used technologies due to their various

functionalities including email, chat and discussion

forums tools, content and document management,

search capabilities, and virtual meetings. These

platforms make it effortless for knowledge workers to

share and reshare knowledge and information. SMPs

as knowledge sharing systems have several potential

advantages such as improved reach and richness (Al-

Busaidi and Al-Wahaibi, 2022), improved

connectivity and knowledge collaboration

(Ghalavand et al., 2022), improved learning and

creativity (Al-Busaidi et al, 2017), and improved

relationships with coworkers (Yoganathan et al.,

2021). However, they also have potential threats

including productivity loss , power loss, privacy

breaches, cybercrimes, and many others(Freni et al.,

2010, Chen et al., 2021; Ghalavand et al., 2022). The

success of knowledge management including

knowledge sharing depends mainly on the

willingness of knowledge workers to share their

valuable knowledge and expertise. With these

potential threats, their willingness may be uncertain.

Consequently, this pilot study aims to assess the

threats of social media platforms that may influence

knowledge workers‘ knowledge sharing practices,

based on knowledge management practices and

information systems security. Based on knowledge

management practices, knowledge workers may be

hesitant to share knowledge due to the fear of losing

knowledge power and the effort required for

codification (Kankanhalli et al. 2005). From the

perspective of information systems security, Chen et

al. (2021) indicated that users can encounter several

Al-Busaidi, K. and Al-Wahaibi, I.

The Dark Side of Sharing Knowledge in the Social Media Era: Faculty Members’ Perspectives.

DOI: 10.5220/0012204700003598

In Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2023) - Volume 3: KMIS, pages 219-223

ISBN: 978-989-758-671-2; ISSN: 2184-3228

219

threats with social media platforms including privacy

breaches and cyberattacks. Understanding the

negative factors on sharing knowledge through SMPs

is critical for analysing and understanding an

organization’s status in any SMPs deployment (Al-

Busaidi, 2014; Phadermrod et al., 2019).

2 THE DARK SIDE OF SOCIAL

MEDIA PLATFORMS

The literature on KM, ISS and SMPs has highlighted

several potential threats of using social media

platforms to share knowledge among knowledge

workers in organizations. According to the KM

literature, knowledge workers may experience a loss

of knowledge power and face time loss due

to codification efforts (Kankanhalli et al. 2005).

Additionally, Chen et al. (2021) have pointed out that

social media platforms raise several security concerns

including privacy breaches and cyber-attacks.

2.1 Knowledge Power Loss

Knowledge is a powerful asset not only for

organizations but also individuals. The concept of

knowledge power loss refers to the perception of the

knowledge workers that their unique value and power

will be diminish due to the sharing of knowledge

(Davenport & Prusak (1998), Kankanhalli et al.

2005). Employees, who view their knowledge as

private and powerful, are likely to be unwilling to

share it, as they believe doing so would result in

losing their competitive advantage (Bock et al.,

2005). Consequently, knowledge power loss hinders

knowledge sharing (Kankanhalli et al. 2005) because

individuals’ fear that losing their knowledge power

will make them replaceable.

Hypothesis 1 (H1): knowledge power loss concern is

negatively associated with sharing knowledge

through social media platforms.

2.2 Codification Efforts

Codification efforts refer to the amount of effort and

time required for knowledge workers to organize and

codify knowledge into the system (Kankanhalli et al.

2005). Common risks associated with knowledge

sharing include wasting time on private conversations

and un-related issues (Hysa & Spalek, 2019).

Time waste and decreased productivity are identified

as major threats to the use of SMPs, as irrelevant posts

and information overload negatively impact

employees’ time and productivity (Al-Busaidi, 2014;

Nusrat et al., 2021).

Hypothesis 2 (H2): Codification efforts/time concern

is negatively associated with sharing knowledge

through social media platforms.

2.3 Privacy Breach

Privacy threats such as location privacy and absence

privacy (i.e. users’ presence or absence at a specific

location during a given period) are common risks

(Freni et al., 2010). Using SMPs for work activities

poses privacy risks as it may lead to the in disclosure

of confidential project data by employees (Hysa &

Spalek, 2019). Ghalavand et al.( 2021) indicated that

physicians' use of SMPs in healthcare settings may

violate patients' privacy. Additionally, Chen et al.

(2021) suggested that privacy breaches can occur

through various activities, such as SMPs providers

sharing or selling users’ data, or coworkers

accidentally revealing private users’ data without

their knowledge. Thus,

Hypothesis 3: Privacy breach concern is negatively

associated with sharing knowledge through social

media platforms.

2.4 Cyberattack

With the emergence of the Internet and SMPs, cyber-

attacks are ever-increasing (Arora et al., 2022). The

widespread use of SMPs and the amount of

information shared put users at risk of identity theft

and hacking (Hoy and Milne, 2010, Al-Busaidi,

2014). Insufficient security controls may also result

in several cyberattacks that exploit human

vulnerabilities. Some common cyber-attacks using

SMPs to exploit human vulnerabilities include in

scams, malicious content, social weakness jacking

and spam as identified by the FBI, Symantec, and

TrendMicro (Chen et al., 2021). Employees consider

fear of internet piracy as one of the main inhibitors of

using SMPs (Al-Busaidi et al, 2017).

Hypothesis 4: Cyberattack concern is negatively

associated with sharing knowledge through social

media platforms.

KMIS 2023 - 15th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Systems

220

3 METHODOLOGY AND

RESULTS

3.1 Research Methodology

3.1.1 Data Collection and Questionnaire

The data was collected through online questionnaire

using the SurveyMonkey website. An online

invitation was sent to academic institutions

(universities and colleges) in the Sultanate of Oman.

Forty-two faculty members participated in the study.

The questionnaire was developed based on the

literature. The measurements for the knowledge

sharing construct were adopted from Bock et al.

(2005). The measurements for knowledge loss and

codification effort constructs were adopted from

Kankanhalli et al (2005), and the measurements for

privacy breaches and cyberattacks constructs were

adopted from Chen et al. (2021). A 5-point Likert

scale was used to rate the measurements: 1= Strongly

Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Neutral, 4-Agree and 5-

Strongly agree.

3.1.2 Participants

This pilot study included responses from 42

academicians. Approximately 54.76% of participants

were from the private sector, while 45.24% were

from the public sector. Around 35.71% were Omani.

Approximately 59.52% were female, while 40.48%

were male. Approximately 42.86% of participants

had a master’s degree, while 47.62% had doctoral

degree; the remaining participants did not identify

their degree. Approximately 4.76% of participants

were below 30 years old, 35.71% were in their 30s,

45.24% were in their 40s, and 14.29% were 50 years

old and above. Participants classified their level of

expertise as: 0% as novice, 14.29% as advanced

beginner, 9.52% as competent, 47.62% as proficient,

and 38.10% as an expert. Participants indicated their

frequency of using social media platforms for sharing

knowledge with co-workers as always(45.24% of

participants), very often (38.10%), sometimes

(16.67%), and rarely (0%).

3.2 Analysis and Results

3.2.1 Analysis Method

Smart PLS 4.0 software was used for data analysis.

Construct measures were evaluated for internal

consistency reliability and validity, which was

measured by the average variance extracted (AVE) is

representing the amount of variance a latent

construct captures from its indicators. The

recommended level for internal consistency

reliability at least 0.70 and is at least 0.50 for AVE

(Chin, 1998). Table 1 indicates that the constructs’

reliability and AVE are above the recommended

levels for all the constructs. Table 2 illustrates that the

constructs’ discriminant validity is satisfied, which is

assessed by the square root of the AVE of each

construct, which should exceed the correlations

shared between this construct and the other (Fornell

and Larcker, 1981).

Table 1: Constructs’ Reliability and Validity.

Construct

Total

Measures

Composite

reliability

Average

variance

extracted

(AVE)

Knowledge

Power Loss

( KPL)

0.958 0.852

Codification

Efforts/Time

(

CET

)

0.944 0.809

Privacy

Breach(PRB)

0.935 0.826

Cyberattack

(CYA)

0.981 0.927

Knowledge

Sharing

(KSH)

0.902 0.649

Table 2: Constructs’ Discriminant Validity.

KPL CET PRB CYA KSH

KPL 0.923

CET 0.658 0.899

PRB 0.611 0.835 0.909

CYA 0.413 0.726 0.769 0.963

KSH -0.468 -0.192 -0.263 -0.090 0.806

3.2.2 Constructs’ Significance Results

With PLS, R2 values are used to evaluate the

predictive relevance of a structural model for the

dependent latent variables, and the path coefficients

are used to assess the effects of the independent

variables (Chin, 1998). A 95% confidence level was

used to assess the significance of all statistical tests.

Table 3 shows the significance of the constructs and

the results of hypotheses testing. The R2 value of the

dependent construct “Knowledge Sharing” through

Social Media Platforms was 0.247, indicating that the

model explains 24.7% of the variance in knowledge

The Dark Side of Sharing Knowledge in the Social Media Era: Faculty Members’ Perspectives

221

workers’ knowledge sharing through Social Media

Platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

The pilot study found the only significant

construct on sharing knowledge through social media

platforms by knowledge workers during the COVID

19 pandemic lockdown is the knowledge power loss

construct (β = -0.553; p-value = 0.003); Therefore,

hypothesis 1 is supported. The effects of codification

efforts/time loss (β =0.344, p-value =0.245), privacy

breach (β =-0.283, p-value =0.423), and cyber-attack

(β = 0.114, p-value =0.662) were not significant on

sharing knowledge through social media platforms by

knowledge workers during the COVID 19 pandemic

lockdown; hence hypotheses 2, 3 and 4 were not

supported. Further analysis, which separated implicit

knowledge sharing measurements from explicit

knowledge measurements indicated that the negative

effect of knowledge power loss is only on sharing

implicit knowledge (β =-0.588, p-value =0.009), but

not tacit knowledge (β =-0.305, p-value =0.330).

Table 3: Constructs Paths Significance.

Hypoth. OS SM SD TS P-V

KPL ->

KSH

(

)

-0.553

0.472 0.255 2.165 0.030*

CET ->

KSH

(

)

0.344 0.194 0.296 1.162 0.245

PRB ->

KSH(H3)

-0.283

0.228 0.353 0.801 0.423

CYA ->

KSH

(

)

0.114 0.151 0.262 0.437 0.662

*significant

Hypoth.= Hypothesis; OS= Original sample; SM=

Sample mean; SD= Standard Deviation; TS= T

statistics; P-V= P values

4 CONCLUSIONS

This pilot study examined the effect of various factors

including knowledge power loss, codification efforts,

privacy breach and cyberattack on sharing knowledge

through SMPs during the COVID-19 pandemic by

faculty members. The findings revealed that only

knowledge power loss has a significant negative

effect on sharing knowledge through SMPs. The

COVID-19 pandemic may have heightened job

insecurity among knowledge workers, leading to an

intensified perception of knowledge power loss. As a

result, employees may be inclined to conceal their

knowledge to maintain a competitive advantage

(Nguyen et al., 2022). These findings have

implications for both practitioners and researchers.

Decision makers should address this issue to foster a

knowledge-sharing culture within their organizations,

particularly regarding the implicit tacit knowledge,

which is highly valuable (Chugh, 2012).

However, it is important to note that this study has

certain limitations. The sample size was relatively

small, and a larger sample size would enhance the

significance of the other factors. Additionally, this

study solely focused on the negative aspects that

affect using SMPs for knowledge sharing. Therefore,

it is essential to also consider the positive aspects.

Furthermore, this study was conducted in a Middle

Eastern country, and future research could compare

findings across different countries and culture.

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