PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the motivational factors affecting the knowledge sharing through an intra‐organizational social media platform and to answer the following research questions: “What motivates employees to share their knowledge through an intra‐organizational social media platform?”; “What impedes them sharing knowledge this way?”; and “Do these factors differ from those motivational factors regarding knowledge sharing in general?”.Design/methodology/approachThe paper approaches the issue from both theoretical and empirical viewpoints. The motivational factors regarding knowledge sharing in general are summed up from literature. The social media platform perspective to the issue is studied by conducting a survey in two companies.FindingsThe results reveal that the motivation to share knowledge through an intra‐organizational social media platform is the desire to help the organization reach its goals and helping colleagues, while financial rewards and advancing one's career were seen as least motivating. The key issues enabling the success of using a collaborative intra‐organizational social media platform in knowledge sharing are in line with the general knowledge sharing motivational factors, although supplemented with some additional features: reciprocity in knowledge sharing, making every‐day work easier and faster and ease of use are the key factors that make or break the success.Originality/valueThe empirical study reveals what motivates and impedes the employees of the companies to share knowledge via an intra‐organizational social media platform. The results are discussed in the light of those from earlier research about general knowledge sharing motivational factors.

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The paper seeks to discuss how traditional knowledge refining processes differ from those enabled by using social media applications. By addressing the topic with practical examples the paper aims to outline how collaborative work setting and social media tools are used in refining unstructured and unmanaged knowledge for value adding purposes. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is a conceptual analysis with reflections on current practices. Findings -The paper proposes that the collaborative setting provided by social media applications enables sharing of different insights: combining mutual insights as well as discussing conflicting insights helps to form a more multifaceted and truthful understanding on issues. Utilizing social media applications as collaborative tools also enriches information as it can also contain elements that are not predestined as in common business information systems. Social media applications empower employees to collaborate and contribute to intra-organizational information flows in a more informal manner. In addition to factual information insights to it can be shared and discussed. Originality/value -The paper studies the idea of social media, as well as social media tools, from different perspectives, such as leisure or user perspectives or context. However, interest has increased toward usability of such tools also in working or business contexts. The paper points out that social media applications can aid collaboration and informal participation and thus leverage refining of information and knowledge.