The Use of Social Media to Dissolve Knowledge Silos in Government

Abstract

Knowledge sharing in the public sector is mostly regulated through rules, a clear sense of hierarchy with fi xed reporting structures, standard oper-ating procedures, and laws that tend to restrict the free fl ow of information across or gan i za tion al boundaries. The result is that information produced in one agency might not be available to entities in other corners of the overall system. This can and often does lead to reinventing the wheel and the fact that innovative knowledge is detained within knowledge silos (Noveck 2009). Con-sequently, ideas that might meet the knowledge needs of several similar stake-holders in government are prevented from spreading through the whole system. Social media tools are challenging this traditional “need to know” information- sharing paradigm (Dawes, Cresswell, and Pardo 2009) and are increasing the degree of participation of all stakeholders in the pro cess of cre-ating, maintaining, sourcing, and sharing knowledge. The resulting — partially informal — emerging interactions between the public and government itself are creating opportunities for increased transparency, accountability, participation, and collaboration (Orszag 2009). Moreover, social media tools are potentially disruptive and might have transformative effects on knowledge sharing that have not been fully covered in the public administration literature (Mergel,

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