Emerging Themes: Knowledge Management, E-Commerce, Social Media Impact

This essay explores the impact of emerging themes, specifically knowledge management, e-commerce, and social media, on organizational decision-making. It highlights how these themes, driven by technological advancements and evolving customer expectations, are reshaping business strategies and human resource management practices. The essay emphasizes the importance of knowledge management in leveraging customer and employee feedback, the transformative role of e-commerce in cost reduction and talent acquisition, and the communication revolution brought about by social media. It also examines the integration of these themes to enhance customer databases and brand identity, concluding that a proactive and adaptive approach is crucial for organizations to thrive in a rapidly changing business environment. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools and resources for students.

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EMERGING THEMES
The business environment is rapidly changing due to various factors like technological
changes, customer taster and preferences, social media, market competitiveness, government
policies, environmental factors etc. and those organization who perceived these changes
before time can able to survive in this competitive market. The business decisions are also
influenced by the emerging themes which include the trending factors in the market governed
by the demand of customer and various other market practices.
In this case, the key emerging themes which have an impact on organization decision
directly or indirectly are related to knowledge management, e-commerce and social media.
These themes are evolved with the web 2.0 which is the second stage of development of the
internet and included growth of the social media. These emerging themes will help the
organization to tap browsers to purchasers and makes loyal customers by synchronizing and
coordinating with every aspect.
In relation to Human Resource Management, it enables the HR manager to discover
new trends in the market and implement in the organization before any competitor. An HR
manager can use knowledge management which helps the organization to realize the
competitiveness feature and thereby improve performance. For example, A Company may
have a database of feedback from customers and employees which they can share with
research and development team for further development. Social Media also helps the
management and organization in various important functions of the organization like
planning and staffing. It enables HR managers to find a suitable source for the purpose of
recruitment like LinkedIn and Facebook, finding relevant information of employee for
verification purpose and for the purpose of communication (Beaudin, 2014). In next 5 years,
there will be the massive impact of these emerging themes as the customer expectations is
continuously rising and for gaining competitive advantage, the companies are needed of
various competitive tools to make customer delight by raising satisfaction than expectations.
For example, if a customer goes into a pizza shop, the customer expect delicious and tasty
pizza, but if a company provides good ambience with peaceful music system, the customers
will be satisfied more than they expected and the idea of setting up good ambience can come
from knowledge management, i.e., (including Social Media).
E-Commerce a platform available to the company where they can use digital
information processing technology so that the business transactions can be done by saving
costs at multiple levels and focusing on a hike in profit (Huang, Benyoucef, 2013). The
importance of e-commerce is increased with time and thus its play a vital role in the
organization. Creating and holding a talented staff in the scenario of e-commerce is quite
difficult and managing this is a very tough task for the HR managers (Srivastava, 2018). In e-
commerce, there is a need to borrow talent from various sectors and making them fit into a
new environment is a very tough work as proper training programs are to be made and
scheduled for integration purpose. For e.g., in the mentioned case, when the Starbucks has
created the blog for communication purpose, it is necessary to put talented people to handle
that page and various queries given by the customers and this is a very complex process of

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HR (Guest, 2015). Currently, a big challenge for the e-commerce industry is that it does not
have a readily employable workforce. The role of an HR manager in the e-commerce industry
is of quirkiness and out of box thinker for the purpose of hiring, retention, rewards and
recognition policies.
Social Media changed the way of communication as over years ago there was an army
style leadership and management where only orders are delivered without any feedback
(Miller, 2012). For example, a company name RockShox invite customers online for
designing their bicycle by assembling each and every part which is affected by various
factors like price, need etc. Also, before there were no direct and two way communications
between employees and customers but social media starts the revolution by implementing its
strategy with the HR system (Creative HRM, 2018). Social Media help the HR by increasing
their presence and visibility through the right mix of different social media tools and with the
HR resources and checked the impact on employees and external audience (Shareholders,
Suppliers etc.). For e.g., Starbucks exercise many commercial activities on the Facebook
where millions of fans argue on related matters. The HR department of the organization also
uses social media to reinforce the brand of the company (Kluemper, Mitra, Wang, 2016).
Also, the activities of the employees on the social media can be analyzed by HR manager so
that to know the personal objectives which later on can be integrated with Organizational
objectives. So, the role of social media in the human resource management has grown
exponentially over the last five years.
Knowledge Management is a multi-disciplinary approach which allows the
organization to attain respective goals through the optimal use of knowledge and its emphasis
on collective knowledge of both individual and organization (Sass, 2012). The combination
of social media and knowledge management has the power to enhance and support
knowledge management in many ways like it provides confidence for individuals, help in
building the organizational memory etc.
So with the combination of knowledge management, e-commerce and social media,
an organization can increase their customer databases and also can promote their customer
database by making buyers from loyal customers. HRM also plays an important role here due
to their vital work in every aspect and that will only lead to building a strong brand identity.
Conclusion
A proper plan is needed for implementing anything in the organization and all factors
are needed to be analyzed also for supporting the plan. Various critical factors like
globalization, diversity, competition etc. has forced the company to change their policies and
strategies continuously as per the need of the market and so it is needed to analyze these
factors before time so as to be fast and adaptive. These emerging trends will have a vast
impact in the future on both organization and customers but a proper set of the plan is needed
with an ability to see future perspectives. Also in the next five years, there can be seen huge

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changes as the need of employees and the customers can rise with the expectations in the
market (Latukha, 2016).
References
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Available from: http://langlois.ca/human-resources-management-in-the-era-of-social-
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Creative HRM. (2018). Using Social Media in Human Resources [ONLINE] Available from:
http://www.creativehrm.com/hr-social-media-visibility.html. [Accessed 04/07/2018].
Guest. (2015). The dynamic role of HR in e-commerce [ONLINE] Available from:
https://yourstory.com/2015/10/e_commerce-hr-role/. [Accessed 04/07/2018].
Huang Z, Benyoucef M. (2013). From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at
design features. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), pp. 246-259.
Latukha, M. (2016). Talent Management in Emerging Market Firms: Global Strategy and
Local Challenges. Russia: Springer.
Kluemper, D. H., Mitra, A., & Wang, S. (2016). Social Media use in HRM. Research in
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Miller, S. (2012). HR Role in Social Media Strategy [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/hr-role-social-media-strategy. [Accessed
04/07/2018].
Sass, V. (2012). The Link between Knowledge Management and Human Resource
Management. UK: GRIN Verlag.
Srivastava, R. (2018). HR strategies in e-commerce industry [ONLINE] Available from:
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