Social media for the purpose of knowledge creation and creativity management - a study of knowledge workers in Germany

Internet users apply social media platforms such as blogs, social networks, and wikis to create and share content. This phenomenon not only dramatically influences sales and marketing but also affects knowledge management and creative collaboration. Social media in working environment seems to be on the verge of establishment due to its potential capabilities. On the other hand, concerns persist that social media use at workplace may reduce productivity, reliability, and work performance. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand if and how the usage of social media in working environments for networking, information search, and idea generation may influence creativity, knowledge creation, and innovation. On the basis of structured interviews with knowledge workers from universities and public research institutes in Germany, the paper aims to examine the sources of information in the course of idea generation as well as the impact of social media on creative processes.