Measuring Expected Participation in Project Knowledge: Analysing Communication Patterns in Social Messaging Application using GUSC Model

Abstract

The advancement of technology has allowed a variety of tools for employees and managers, or knowledge workers, to choose as communication tools, especially for managing project teams. Instead of communicating and updating project progress through emails and short messaging system, social messaging (SM) applications, such as WhatsAppTM, are the current daily choice among them. The over-utilisation of the SM applications has given an opportunity for a research on project knowledge retention within project team, since it becomes an addiction to create new groups each time a new project team is formed. It is believed that project knowledge resides within these virtual groups, and this paper looks into how project knowledge is managed by
analysing the communication patterns against a measurement metrics based on personal knowledge management (PKM) theory called GUSC Model. The
communication patterns found existed in the SM application are qualitatively identified and mapped against the PKM processes within, with weighted score
assigned to each process to quantitatively measure the overall project knowledge management participation. The differences among the organisational communication levels, namely upper and lower level communication levels, are analysed and the final result of participation expectation on member of SM application groups is presented. The outcome of this research recommends the future intervention on SM application usage and the application of knowledge management concept in current communication tool.