learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Evaluating the use of Social Networking Sites as a Tool for
Knowledge Sharing for Developing Higher Education in
Developing Countries: An Exploratory Study of Egypt and
Iraq
Elaine Garcia, Ibrahim Elbeltagi, Sawasn Al-Husseini and Ahmed Abdelkader
University of Plymouth, UK
elaine.garcia@plymouth.ac.uk
i.elbeltagi@plymouth.ac.uk
sawasn.al-husseini@plymouth.ac.uk
a.kader006@gmail.com
Abstract: Educational institutions are today facing increasing pressures due to economic, political and social
upheaval. This is only exacerbated by the nature of education as an intangible good which relies upon the
intellectual assets of the organisation in terms of its staff. It is within this context that Social Networking Sites
(SNS) offer an important potential alternative method to manage and share knowledge within educational
institutions. The focus of this research therefore explores the role that SNS could play in relation to the
development of Higher Education (HE) within developing countries with a focus on the countries of Egypt and
Iraq as having one of the highest and lowest rates of internet usage within the Middle East respectively. In order
to gain a better understanding of the potential drivers and barriers to the use of SNS as a knowledge sharing
(KS) tool within educational institutions, within the developing world, a case study approach has been used. This
approach consisted of semi-structured interviews with forty members of staff, both senior managers and
academic staff, within Mansoura University’s Faculty of Commerce in Egypt and Al-Mustansirya University’s
Faculty of Economy and Administration in Iraq. The results show there are both areas of agreement and
difference in the views of staff within both institutions. In both cases issues of culture appear to affect the
participation of female staff and additionally age appears to be a predictor of use. However between the
institutions there appears to be wider differences relating to the existence of KS strategies, the extent to which
staff understand the nature of SNS and technology in general and the extent to which Senior Managers and other
staff views are shared. Overall the results suggest that Mansoura University in Egypt is far more prepared for the
use of SNS as a KS tool and some usage appears to already be occurring. Within Al-Mustansirya University, Iraq
however the usage of SNS as an organisational tool appears to be unlikely to occur within considerable
promotion and changes to strategic drivers.
Keywords: social networking sites, developing countries, case study, higher education, knowledge sharing
1. Introduction
The education sector is today facing an increasingly challenging period. Global recession, increased
competition, globalisation, technological advances and demand for increasing educational quality
(Mathew, 2010) are all leading to a need for education across the world to become increasingly
competitive, efficient and innovative.
Within this context Knowledge Management (KM) represents an imperative area of consideration in
terms of capturing, organizing and sharing organisational knowledge (Liao et al., 2004) to maximise
and fully exploit the intellectual assets institutions hold.
The use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) offers potential to share organisational knowledge within
educational institutions as they allow for the capturing of tacit knowledge and allowing Knowledge
Sharing (KS) to occur which in turn provides greater opportunities for creating new knowledge and
innovative practices.
SNS are also currently appearing to have a substantial impact specifically within developing countries
where a number of political events have recently been reportedly influenced by SNS. These include
Egypt, (Idle & Nunns; 2011; Alexander, 2011; Nabi, 2011) Tunisia, (Delany, 2011), Libya (Beaumont,
2011) and Pakistan. (Sutter, 2011; Hill, 2011, Blair, 2011)
Whilst the growth of Facebook, the largest and most well known SNS has slowed and user numbers
have decreased in the countries in which it was first launched, this has been tempered by growth in
developing countries within the last few months (Arthur, 2011).
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