Scholars from disciplines as disparate as sociology, management science, economics and knowledge management (KM) agree that information technology (IT) has transformed all phases of economic and business activity (Davenport et al., 1997; Soto-Acosta et al., 2016; Evetts, 2009; Corso et al., 2003). Knowledge, yielded from advanced information quality and availability, has replaced matter and energy as the primary resource and sidelined traditional physical and financial assets in terms of organizational importance (Drucker, 1999). In response, in the Journal of Knowledge Management, terms such as post-industrial societies (Pyo¨ria¨, ۲۰۰۵), information revolutions (Bollinger and Smith, 2001) and knowledgebased economies (Uit Beijerse, 1999) have been used to discuss IT-mediated knowledge (Hussi, 2004; Bollinger and Smith, 2001) as a key strategic resource for decision-makers. More specifically, when such IT-mediated knowledge is used to improve strategic processes, core competencies, business performance and value creation, it is commonly referred to as strategic knowledge management (Ratten et al., 2016; Silva et al., 2017; Carlucci et al., 2004)[1]. As internet technologies progress, approaches to KM need to keep pace to stay strategically relevant. Central knowledge repositories have increasingly been replaced by social software choices that allow relatively inexpensive, mobile, cloud-based and more personalized content exchanges that are more effective in meeting individual needs. In fact, today, increasing number of vendors are trying to build on the successes of social networks for private consumers by offering enterprise social media (ESM) platform choices for the use within a firm. Examples are Microsoft’s Yammer, Salesforce Chatter, VMWare Socialcast, IBM Connections and Facebook’s Workplace. They include functions that are familiar to users from personal social media, e.g. the use of newsfeeds, messenger, photo and video sharing functions, as well as search, groups and events at work. These are said to promote openness and sharing across geographical and organizational boundaries (Sweigers, 2011). In turn, they can lead to advantages such as enhanced processes for idea capture and management and a more rapid innovation throughput (Brandel, 2008; Chui et al., 2012; Breslin, 2014). We refer to companies that have adopted these types of technology to enable communications and collaboration between staff as “socially oriented enterprises”. IT and strategic KM continue to move forward with a changing focus from internal IT resource management to “leveraging human, social, relational and intellectual capital dynamically and across boundaries” (Merali et al., 2012, p. 130). Faced with increasingly social choices, managers find themselves at crossroads, wondering if and how social media platforms, which, in their personal form are often viewed as “productivity-killers” can become viable enterprise collaboration tools and “productivity-enhancers” (Frei, 2015). This is particularly relevant for knowledge-intensive professional service firms because of the nature of their work (Von Nordenflycht, 2010).