The growing phenomenon of Social Software seems to provide an opportunity to complement the top‑down approach based on central knowledge repositories with tools that are simpler, smarter and more flexible. This article in‑ cludes a brief description of the main categories of Social Software — weblogs, wikis and social networking sites — fol‑ lowed by an analysis of their utilisation in relation to the five core Knowledge Management activities of the Knowledge Management taxonomy proposed by Despres & Chauvel in 1999. Examples that illustrate the support Social Software could provide for knowledge management are presented. Finally, some of the problems that hinder the usage of Social Software tools, together with some of the latest developments and trends in the field are mentioned.

The various dimensions of the problems of productivity and technology cannot be found in technology alone, but rather there are also human factors that either facilitate or constrain the ability of firms and workers to adopt and implement new technologies. This paper discusses the factors that contribute to Knowledge Management Systems effectiveness. Through a case study and literature reviews a general framework has been delineated. This framework describes dimensions involved in the adoption of technology at both the users and organisational level.

The rapid development of virtual worlds has created new possibilities for supporting formal and informal knowledge acquisition and learning processes online. Consequently, greater immersion of “knowledge workers” in cooperation and communication tasks in social virtual worlds should be a more prominent topic in sociological and cognitive‑psychological research designs. The relatively new social potential of virtual worlds can be examined using theoretical models that describe the use and assessment of virtual world technologies in contexts of knowledge acquisition and exchange. In this paper, three co‑created scenarios will be described to help demonstrate how virtual worlds can be used to explore new forms of interaction in (virtual) social contexts. These scenarios and the results of the avatar‑based ethnographic investigation during the process of co‑creation and collaboration will be introduced and used to reflect on the 3D projects. Afterwards, two sets of criteria to evaluate 3D environments for learning and teaching will be presented. The paper ends with suggestions for further research concerning the effects of immersion during collaboration and education in virtual worlds and an outlook on other upcoming 3D projects.

Web 2.0 and Social Software revolutionize the knowledge exchange within and between organizations. This is one of the claims consultants and software vendors in the field have made. But have the promises been kept and has evidence been achieved so far, in particular for knowledge management in globally distributed settings? As a starting point, our paper introduces the field of Global Social Knowledge Management (GSKM). We see this area as one of the main research area for future research in the Knowledge Management domain. A variety of social software applications have already been seen promising and incorporated into the context of knowledge management (Avram 2006; Zheng and Zheng 2010; Levy 2009). One main assumption is that social software could bridge the traditional gap between human‑ and technology orientation (Avram 2006:1; Fiedler & Welpe 2011). However, there is so far only anecdotal evidence how these applications work in globally distributed organizational settings. Within this paper, we present the key issues for GSKM and elaborate on transferability of these aspects to differing contexts. The main research domains related to GSKM are Social Software and Global Knowledge Management. We present a brief review of state of the art research for these domains and focus in detail on Social Software supported knowledge activities. As one of the first efforts, we perform a mapping of Social Software to KM activities and major barriers. Additionally, we will illustrate through a case study how to contextualize the GSKM approach for educational application area. The paper is a starting point for discourse on this promising field, outlining the research field of globally distributed Social Software‑supported Knowledge Management and discussing current research efforts on the main components. By this paper we intend to contribute towards a research agenda for Global Social Knowledge Management.