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Social media is no longer a negligible phenomenon; tools like Facebook, Blogs or YouTube have taken the world in a storm. Social media has become a mainstream, modified personal relationships, allowed individuals to contribute to number of issues and generated new possibilities and challenges to facilitate collaboration. Organizations have urgent need of not only focusing on innovation of new products and services, but also paying specific attention to effective knowledge sharing, which is of vital importance for their success. The potential advantage of embracing and implementing social media is enormous. Although the interest in social media is increasing, on the one hand knowledge workers and managers are waiting to get involved in this collaborative world, because they may not feel motivated or may not be aware of the advantages of using these tools for work purposes. On the other hand, organizations do not tend to allow their employees to use social media technologies because they may be concerned about the risks and consequences of a potential misuse. Our exploratory survey investigates how internal or external (available through official internal network) social media technologies are being used for knowledge sharing during work or for professional development. The study was accomplished with the help of enterprises and institutions operating in Hungary from profit and non-profit sectors, applying quantitative research methods. In total 299 individuals (white-collar workers, middle level managers, top management) participated by completing the online, web-based questionnaire. The results have shown that Hungarian organizations prefer not to allow the usage of external social media; but where the employees are supported to reach these tools, high proportion of the people utilize them. The paper provides recommendations to the organizations how to foster motivating employees for using social media technologies for work purposes in knowledge sharing. In the discussion, a short summary of our empirical study, managerial implications and new research direction are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge. Knowledge management. Knowledge economy. Web 2.0. Social media. All these phrases are very popular and "trendy" expressions in today's business life. The shifts from the industrial economy to knowledge economy are influenced by the accelerated social ("Generations") and technological (Web 2.0; social media) changes. Therefore organizations are faced with an unpredictable economic environment that is more than ever competitive. In our globalized world, knowledge is seen as the most important strategic asset and "individual" knowledge workers play central role. As huge amount of knowledge is encountered in employees' minds, it is important to understand what encourages them to share their knowledge and what retains them from doing that. When organizations understand the determinants of knowledge sharing, effective management technologies/practices can be implemented to improve productivity, innovation and organizational competitiveness. The recent growth of Web 2.0 - the landscape of blogs, video sharing, instant messaging, social networking and other social media tools - has evolved so rapidly that organization might not keep up with, even though it provides a frame that enables an agile handling of knowledge and encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration among employees. Although individuals might recognize the importance of knowledge management practices for the success of their daily business life, it might be presumed that the degree of the willingness of knowledge sharing depends on their personal demographic characteristics like their age. One typical assumption about approval of knowledge management and social media technologies is that the younger generations have a greater affinity for using them. In our exploratory study we have investigated the characteristic feature of knowledge sharing in 299 organizations, applying quantitative research method. We have examined the peculiarities of the different generations (Baby boomers, Generation X and Generation Y) using Web 2.0 technologies by exploring willingness of employees' participation in knowledge sharing. Most of our findings were unexpected and not track along with stereotypes about the generations. The paper reviews the results of our empirical study and concludes with a discussion of a potential new research direction, and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way knowledge is shared by organizational members plays an essential and central role in the success of organizations. It should not be forgotten that those who take part in the knowledge sharing process also benefit from it. Middle managers after playing a significant role in the vertical communication their organization influence the knowledge sharing process within their organization as well. Our paper makes an attempt to present those components of middle manager's individual characteristics that result in differences in their maturity of knowledge sharing. The method and results of revealing these differences are introduced in this paper. Since 2007 an empirical survey has been conducted during which 400 middle managers working at medium- and large-sized enterprises in Hungary have been investigated by a questionnaire. The answers of this survey have been analysed first using decision tree than using analysis of variance or post hoc test. Our paper presents one of the elements of middle managers' maturity of knowledge which is the availability among middle managers and their subordinates. According to our research availability is the time and willingness of a person to find the time to help other colleagues when they ask for help. The investigated individual characteristics are the middle managers' age, their working years and their functional area at their organizations. Findings of the research have indicated that difference has be found in the availability among the middle managers and their subordinates who work at medium and large sized enterprises in Hungary on the basis of at least one of the individual characteristics which are functional area and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge is becoming is becoming an increasingly important factor of organizational competitiveness. The way knowledge is shared within the organization is essential and central not only to the success of the organization but also among those employee who share it, since those who take part in the knowledge sharing process also benefit from it. Since middle managers have an important position of within the organization and play a significant role in the process of knowledge sharing this paper has focused on the knowledge sharing of these middle managers in Hungary. A new method of how to measure middle managers' maturity of knowledge sharing is presented in this paper. Between 2007 and 2010 an empirical survey was conducted during which 400 middle managers working at medium- and large-sized enterprises in Hungary were investigated by a questionnaire. The answers of this survey have been analysed using Principal Component Analysis and four different components regarding the maturity of knowledge sharing have been identified. These four components are the availability among middle managers, the availability among the middle manager and subordinates, the usefulness of knowledge among middle managers and the usefulness of knowledge among the middle manager and subordinates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What inspires employees especially managers working under top managers to share their knowledge within their organization at middle and large sized enterprises in Hungary? The authors, at the University of Pannonia, Department of Management in Hungary, have conducted an empirical survey, which intends to answer this question. Beyond studies focusing mainly on the regions of the USA, Japan and Western Europe, there is barely any research work focusing on knowledge sharing in the Central-Eastern European region, including Hungary as well, which increases the importance of this research. The purpose of this research was to reveal the factors which affect the maturity of knowledge sharing of these managers (for instance managers work in the field of HR, manufacturing, production, maintenance, logistics, finance, accountancy, controlling, commerce, supply, sale, marketing, project management and R&D) and to measure the role of these managers in the maturity of knowledge sharing. A questionnaire, which was based on our model, was used to conduct the survey since 2006 in Hungary and since 2008 in other Central-Eastern European countries such as Serbia and Bulgaria. According to our model one of the influencing factors of the maturity of knowledge sharing was revealed to be organizational culture. Our paper makes an attempt to compare the organization culture types of the investigated Hungarian managers before and during the crisis, and to analyze the effect of the dominant organization culture types on these managers' maturity of knowledge sharing before and during the crisis as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do people share their knowledge? Who and what inspires them to do it especially within organizations in Central-Eastern European countries? The authors, at the University of Pannonia, Department of Management in Hungary, have conducted an empirical survey, which has investigated the characteristic features of knowledge sharing of managers, working under top managers at medium- and large sized enterprises. Beyond studies focusing mainly on the regions of the USA, Japan and Western Europe, there is barely any research work focusing on knowledge sharing in Central-Eastern Europe. This increases the importance of this research. The aim of the research was to reveal the factors which affect the maturity of knowledge sharing of these managers and to measure the role of these managers in the maturity of knowledge sharing. Before showing the initial results of our survey which was conducted before the beginning of and during the economic crisis, our paper first presents the growing importance of knowledge sharing in these days by giving a brief description of knowledge and knowledge sharing. The central part of this paper makes an attempt to compare the results of two assumed influencing factors of our survey, and their effect on the maturity of knowledge sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]