The number of people working from home (WFH) increased radically during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate people’s experiences of WFH during the pandemic and to identify the main factors of advantages and disadvantages of WFH. Data from 29 European countries on the experiences of knowledge workers (N = 5748) WFH during the early stages of lockdown (11 March to 8 May 2020) were collected. A factor analysis showed the overall distribution of people’s experiences and how the advantages and disadvantages of WFH during the early weeks of the pandemic can be grouped into six key factors. The results indicated that most people had a more positive rather than negative experience of WFH during lockdown. Three factors represent the main advantages of WFH: (i) work–life balance, (ii) improved work efficiency and (iii) greater work control. The main disadvantages were (iv) home office constraints, (v) work uncertainties and (vi) inadequate tools. Comparing gender, number of children at home, age and managers versus employees in relation to these factors provided insights into the differential impact of WFH on people’s lives. The factors help organisations understand where action is most needed to safeguard both performance and well-being. As the data were collected amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we recommend further studies to validate the six factors and investigate their importance for well-being and performance in knowledge work.

Purpose Enterprise social media platforms provide new ways of sharing knowledge and communicating within organizations to benefit from the social capital and valuable knowledge that employees have. Drawing on social dilemma and self-determination theory, the purpose of this paper is to understand what factors drive employees’ participation and what factors hamper their participation in enterprise social media. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review, a unified research model is derived integrating demographic, individual, organizational and technological factors that influence the motivation of employees to share knowledge. The model is tested using statistical methods on a sample of 114 respondents in Denmark. Qualitative data are used to elaborate and explain quantitative findings. Findings The findings pinpoint towards the general drivers and barriers to knowledge sharing within organizations. The significant drivers to knowledge sharing are: enjoy helping others, monetary rewards, management support, management encourages and motivates knowledge sharing behavior and knowledge sharing is recognized. The significant identified barriers are: change of behavior, lack of trust and lack of time. Practical implications The proposed knowledge sharing framework helps to understand what factors impact engagement on social media. Furthermore, the article suggests different types of interventions to overcome the social dilemma of knowledge sharing. Originality/value The study contributes to an understanding of factors leading to the success or failure of enterprise social media drawing on self-determination and social dilemma theory.

During the COVID pandemic, many companies, schools, and public organizations all around the world asked their employees to work from home i.e. to adopt what are called “smart working” modalities. This has and will presumably have a serious impact on both employees and employers, which still needs to be clarified and investigated: indeed, if smart working becomes a common working modality, this may have a significant impact on both organizations and employees. This paper reports the results of an online survey of “smart workers” in Italy during the COVID pandemic, when a great number of employees suddenly moved to working from home with no or little preparation. The study offers interesting indications about the involvement and usefulness perception of smart working by the sampled people and makes it possible to single out different categories of employees based on their attitude towards this modality. Also, it points out the potential impact on socialization among colleagues, and the consequent implications for knowledge sharing and knowledge management. From the collected responses, a fully positive or negative conclusion about working from home was not possible, nor a clear indication about the efficiency and effectiveness of this working modality. The analysis, instead, highlighted the presence of different but numerically similar groups of people, i.e. those who were not satisfied at all with the experience, those who were very satisfied, and those who were “undecided”. Furthermore, respondents underlined the importance and the difficulty to maintain working contacts and the intense use of communication systems made for this purpose. Lastly, collected opinions on positive and negative aspects of working from home provided some practical suggestions about how to successfully implement this solution.

Considerable attention has been paid to employees' experiences when working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic, including their well-being and performance. However, less attention has been paid to how managers experience WFH and how this may challenge them in their new role as distance managers. This study investigates how managers of knowledge work experienced distance management during COVID-19. An international survey was distributed in the first weeks of the Danish national lockdown and collected data in spring 2020. Based on Danish responses from 1053 employees and 290 managers of knowledge work, who had limited prior experience in distance management, our analysis revealed 12 items where managers found their work during lockdown to be more challenging than employees did. The implications are that research and practice should consider the well-being and performance consequences of WFH not only for employees but also for managers, as their experiences differ, and the managers express challenges in their leadership.

By using social media, many companies try to exploit new forms of interaction, collaboration, and knowledge sharing through leveraging the social, collaborative dimension of social software. The traditional collective knowledge management model based on a topdown approach is now opening up new avenues for a bottom-up approach incorporating a more personal knowledge management dimension, which could be synergized into collective knowledge using the social-collaborative dimension of social media. This article addresses the following questions: (1) How can social media support the management of personal and collective knowledge using a synergetic approach? (2) Do the personal and collective dimensions compete with each other, or can they reinforce each other in a more effective manner using social media?Our findings indicate that social media supports both the personal and collective dimensions of knowledge, while integrating a social collaborative dimension. The article introduces a framework that classifies social software into four categories according to the level of interaction and control. With certain tools, individuals are more in control. With other tools, the group is in control, resulting in a higher level of interaction and a diversity of knowledge and mindsets brought together. However, deploying and adopting these new tools in an organizational context is still a challenging task for management, owing to both organizational and individual factors.