Barriers and benefits of using social networking sites for sharing knowledge in professional societies: An exploratory study

This paper aims to assess the benefits and barriers of (SNS) for sharing knowledge in professional societies through a Delphi technique. SNS can be a valuable technology for non-profit organizations. Several studies have investigated how the barriers and benefits of knowledge sharing in firm-based Communities of practice (CoP) or virtual CoP, but not much is known about professional societies' use of public SNS for knowledge sharing. Based on the barnstorming phase of a Delphi study, the results suggest that benefits of using SNS for sharing knowledge in professional societies are related to individual benefits, organizational benefits and knowledge sharing process benefits; whereas the barriers are related to individual, technical, organizational and social issues. The results can be utilized by researchers and practitioners to improve the use of SNS for knowledge sharing and to raise professional societies and individuals' awareness of SNS use.