Knowledge sharing and strategic capital: The importance and identification of opinion leaders

Purpose ‐ This article seeks to propose that the success of an organization's knowledge-sharing strategy and the magnitude of its strategic capital are critically dependent on its having the capability to visualize relationship-networks among its employees, and means to identify and leverage, as appropriate, patterns of positive or negative influence. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The paper is based on the author's own experiences and those of other authors in the same field. Findings ‐ There seems no evidence in the literature that programs can be mounted to deliberately develop opinion leaders by helping them acquire such meta-capabilities or assume archetypical characteristics. Originality/value ‐ Utilization of the NVA-based approach described here will provide an enhanced real-world understanding of how the various sectors and network layers of an organization coalesce, and relate to one another, at micro and macro levels.