The use of social media in kuwait university among faculty members

Sharing knowledge is an essential tool used in most organizations to success in knowledge management and achieve their value propositions and objectives. Sharing knowledge is the process of academics, scholars and researchers, employees, managers and all levels of management share and publish their research results, experiences and failure or success so it will be accessible to the organizational community (Al-Aufi &Fulton, 2014).

One example of sharing knowledge tools is the social media. Social media changed the forms of sharing knowledge from traditional ways to more interesting and active ways. Social media is considered as Internet based applications that let the individuals or organizations to generate, or exchange information, images, and videotapes in public. Panahi, Watson & Partridge, (2012) defined social media as “ collaborative online applications and technologies which enable and encourage participation, conversation, openness, creation and socialization amongst a community of users”. Some examples of social media platforms are the following: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

By using social media platforms, academics may provide quick responses, share experiences, announce for meetings to the users including the students. Furthermore, they can break all the walls to promote their new research activities and events (Vuori & Okkonen, 2012). Also they use social media to announce any new activity or event of their departments and university activities. Academics and librarians often use social media platforms such as Twitter to form their arrangement for meetings, conferences, and events. Besides, academics use social media in order to build up a great reputation and image for themselves. Using social media for knowledge sharing at Kuwait University increased to announce latest updates, academic meetings and conferences using social media platforms for knowledge sharing. Most faculty members use social media for knowledge sharing in their organization.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the availability of social media in KU. Besides, it clarifies what obstacles and constraints do faculty members face when using social media. This study also provides the impact of using social media for knowledge sharing that supports knowledge management.