knowledge sharing and performance tools in companies

There is much social media for knowledge sharing and performance tools. However, as far as I know, many Korean companies use their own knowledge management system for privacy reasons. The company I was working right before I came for Ph. D was an educational company, and it also developed its own knowledge sharing portal in hope that employees can share their knowledge and know-how with colleagues, thereby enhancing informal learning and overall performance. However, it was not so successful. Salespeople had regular meetings and workshops. They preferred sharing knowledge and information in those face to face meetings by having conversations with each other. In fact, they were too busy to sit down and share their experiences. Also, they did not receive any incentives to do so. I heard ‘Slacks’ is very popular in the U.S. I really wonder how American companies and their employees are utilizing these types of external tools in their workplaces in spite of privacy issues.

Research on social media in South Korea

I’ve just searched Korean studies about social media in education on online Korean National Assembly Library with the keywords, social media & education. I got 167 results. Not all these results are directly related to research about social media in education. However, topics are quite similar to those being conducted in the U.S. For example, there is a case study of using social media for collaborative learning in higher education, a study of teachers’ perception of using social media in education, and a study of public perceptions and emotions about self-directed learning based on social media. I don’t see any specific names of social media in titles except YouTube, Facebook, and Google+, though. Studies about social media seem to be rudimentary yet in Korea.

Context collapse…How to manage this?

Facebook is the place where I need to find a unique me or my true identity. I am always “Me” but I feel like there are many different “Me”s in different context with different people. I speak and act differently depending whom I am talking to. Not many people are on Facebook, but I have my family, friends from voluntary work, friends from graduate school, colleagues from my previous companies, and my PLN in ISLT community. Some are close and some are not…Some speak Korean and some speak English…It was quite difficult to define me in this mixed context and I was wondering how I should speak and act in this space…To what extent I would reveal my personal life, my values, and thinking. The first thing I did when I thought about this matter was cancelling the friends with people who I do not want to share my personal life and thinking…Well…It was not an easy decision, but I just did not want to keep up to date with them anymore. Then, I changed my official language on Facebook because I had many American friends since I came to U.S. However, my Korean friends gave me comments in Korea and American friends in English on the same post. Most of my Korean friends can understand English but none of my English friends can what my Korean friends are saying. If they are curious, they will use translation tool, but it will not work well because the language we are using on Facebook are very short, colloquial, and often times very ungrammatical. Anyway, I kind of decide the cyberspace to post something very safe to share with everybody…mostly about my kids, trips, foods, and weather…I do not post my deep thinking, opinion, or emotion…These are for really close friends who know me well…Unfortunately, I cannot name this type of person…Hmm...

SIDE model (Social identity model of deindividuation effects) and language choice across online forums

While I was searching for studies about language choice in the Internet, I found one interesting article which compared two different type of online forums and user behaviors on each forum. The article introduced SIDE model to discuss the differences. SIDE means social identity model of deindividuation effects. The theory was developed as a critique of deindividuation effects. Deindividuation effects tells us that people in crowds show some unusual behaviors that rational individuals would not normally endorse. In contrast, SIDE proposes that anonymity effects are not blanket indiscriminate but can be explained through interaction with the social context. According to Birnie-Smith (2016), young Indonesian users associated strongly with group identities and conform to group norms on Kaskus online forum despite of the high level of anonymity. On Facebook, users adhered more strongly to their personal norms than they did on Kaskus due to the high level of personal identity with their real names. They also designed discourse for their majority audiences who are speaking Indonesian. Some used other languages, but it was regarded as deviation.

I admit that crowd psychology exists in an anonymous environment but I support more on the idea of “it depends on social context.” On Reddit, I use my pseudonym, but I am still me and try to follow my own discretion as well as group norms. I use only English on Reddit because it is a global forum. However, I use both English and Korean on Facebook depending on who I am addressing to. I also try to include general and neutral ideas because my audiences are on all different levels in terms of personal relationship and intimacy. I am going to talk more about context collapse on Facebook in my next blog. :-)

Source:

1.     Wkikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_model_of_deindividuation_effects)

2.     Birnie-Smith, J. R. (2016). Ethnic identity and language choice across online forums. International Journal of Multilingualism, 13(2), 165-183.

(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14790718.2015.1078806)