Effectiveness of Knowledge Seeking Behaviors Embedded in Social Networks: A Perspective of Individuals in Workplaces

In organizations, successful knowledge management is determined by individual workers who engage in two modes of knowledge seeking behaviors: exploitation and exploration. To understand the effectiveness of knowledge behaviors, we define individual exploitation and exploration behaviors in terms of different knowledge outcomes, relevance to tasks and pertinence to situations. Today, social media encourages individual workers to access external and internal sources through formal and informal communications. This paper explains individual embeddedness in virtual knowledge networks, based on the scope of knowledge sources (i.e., external/internal) and the types of ties (i.e., formal/informal) to these knowledge sources. We then propose a contingency framework of how individual embeddedness in knowledge networks enhances the effectiveness of knowledge seeking behaviors, and thereby aim to provide theoretical contributions and managerial implications for knowledge management in social networks.