Impact of ESN implementation on communication and knowledge-sharing in a multi-national organization

Organizations often focus on their employees’ abilities to effectively communicate and share knowledge in online collaborative activities. Social media technologies facilitate that process in organizations, where they are known as Enterprise Social Networks (ESN). To increase potential benefits, organizations may run an implementation process to increase the ESN's acceptance and use. This study focused on one such platform, Yammer, which is making inroads into numerous industries. Specifically, we addressed Yammer's impact on communication and knowledge-sharing among organizational units in a multinational organization. This study unobtrusively assessed communication patterns before and after an ESN implementation process to measure impact. Data analysis performed on message interactions between employees on the Yammer platform suggested the implementation process had a positive impact on the number of messages, number of users, and weighted-degree SNA metric. This study also revealed that the implementation process positively impacted inter- and intra-organizational unit interactions.