No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
How social media can fuel innovation in businesses: a strategic roadmap
Abstract
This paper aims to present a framework to guide managerial action for social media (SM) strategies for innovation by exploring its constituent elements – the “what” (SM types), the “who” (stakeholders to be reached), the “for” (innovation types) and the “how” (innovation process stages), as well as the value, benefits and barriers.
SM type and use tend to differ across innovation processes. The authors identify four types of SM in use across four stages of innovation, supporting six types of innovation, influenced by five categories of barriers, benefits and stakeholders each.
The research provides an integrative set of building blocks to consider for developing further studies of SM and innovation.
By highlighting the intertwined aspects of SM and innovation in an open and collaborative environment, the paper calls for development of an SM readiness organisational diagnosis. It empowers managers with a coherent framework of different elements they should take into consideration when defining their SM strategies for innovation.
Research on SM adoption and the extent of its usage for innovation purposes is still at its infancy. Given the increasingly open and collaborative innovation settings, the authors draw managerial attention to the need of SM strategies for innovation activities and provide a coherent analytical framework to guide action for organisational diagnosis.
... Social capital may, therefore, be considered an essential instrument that provides organizations with various benefits. It enables collaboration and the accomplishment of common goals and promotes the exchange and development of intellectual capital (Bhatti et al., 2021;Barlatier & Mention, 2019). The benefit of social capital is addressed through its effect on knowledge sharing, considered as a mechanism for transmitting or disseminating knowledge from one individual or group to another and acquiring and receiving knowledge from others (Hadoussa, 2020;Allameh, 2018;Lefebre et al., 2016;Chang et al., 2012). ...
... Nonetheless, this study complements earlier research in business digitalization and the integration of SM at work which enable organization to modernize their practices and provide them competitive advantage (Theiri & Hadoussa, 2023;Hadoussa, 2022;Mazurchenko & Maršíková, 2019;Barlatier & Mention, 2019). By applying a confirmatory approach, the findings enhance the social capital theory within the diffusion and use of SM at work (Ellison et al., 2015 and2014). ...
This study investigates the effects of social media use on employees’ social capital and knowledge sharing. A research model is proposed and empirically tested with an online survey study of 288 working professionals using social media at a Saudi Telecom Company. Results reveal that social media use in the workplace positively influence knowledge sharing. The findings contribute to clarify the importance of the different dimensions of Social Capital especially shared vision and trust, and their role in enhancing profitable knowledge sharing practices. This study offers effective and valuable HR policies regarding the use of social media at workplace within the MENA context.
... Social capital may, therefore, be considered an essential instrument that provides organizations with various benefits. It enables collaboration and the accomplishment of common goals and promotes the exchange and development of intellectual capital (Bhatti et al., 2021;Barlatier & Mention, 2019). The benefit of social capital is addressed through its effect on knowledge sharing, considered as a mechanism for transmitting or disseminating knowledge from one individual or group to another and acquiring and receiving knowledge from others (Hadoussa, 2020;Allameh, 2018;Lefebre et al., 2016;Chang et al., 2012). ...
... Nonetheless, this study complements earlier research in business digitalization and the integration of SM at work which enable organization to modernize their practices and provide them competitive advantage (Theiri & Hadoussa, 2023;Hadoussa, 2022;Mazurchenko & Maršíková, 2019;Barlatier & Mention, 2019). By applying a confirmatory approach, the findings enhance the social capital theory within the diffusion and use of SM at work (Ellison et al., 2015 and2014). ...
This study investigates the effects of social media use on employees’ social capital and knowledge sharing. A research model is proposed and empirically tested with an online survey study of 288 working professionals using social media at a Saudi Telecom Company. Results reveal that social media use in the workplace positively influence knowledge sharing. The findings contribute to clarify the importance of the different dimensions of Social Capital especially shared vision and trust, and their role in enhancing profitable knowledge sharing practices. This study offers effective and valuable HR policies regarding the use of social media at workplace within the MENA context
... The success of the completion of each step must be evaluated at the end of each step and the steps and the required changes must be taken to assure the success. Company management must focus on the growth of the business and to grab the available opportunities, yet additionally ought to almost certainly continue searching for ideas that would be helpful in increasing the efficiency of business activities and to see and grab the new opportunities in the market (Barlatier and Mention, 2019). ...
In this task, we have selected an association which is working at global dimension. This association is going to the Starbucks. It is putting forth espresso administrations to its clients at worldwide dimension and in the global market. In spite of the fact that it has been putting forth most vital administrations identified with the clients yet there is another thought for this association that it must need to give the taste offices in the associations as per request of its clients. It has been examining that there is need high spotlight on the individual need of each culture and requesting taste of each culture and nation as it has been enlisting workers from everywhere throughout the world. All of the provided services are pivotal requirements for the networks which will be given by the organization. It can likewise offer these administrations at global dimension. In this examination, there is a completed discussion about the target advertise for this new idea in the business and there will be a completed examination of monetary, social, political and regular effects of this new business thought. According to the examination of outside factors, it has been bankrupting down that these all are certain in this business to recognize the new idea as there is limit as for starting this unique organization to improve the proficiency and the profit of the continuous business. According to the creative condition, it is analyzed in this examination that these are also positive as the enlistment needs at universal market for the phenomenal administrations. There are a couple of threats to start this new idea in the business which joins the hazard for dissatisfaction and the low appropriateness from the customer side. With the failure of thought, there is a peril for losing the huge proportion of capital which is a remarkable hardship to the association. This contemplation is sensible as it is the enthusiasm of the customers of this relationship as it has been giving selection organizations to the customers and with the associate of planning workplaces with its customers, there will grow interest as the customers don't have need to go for finding another association to get the readiness organizations for the enlistment in global market. As the wrapped-up remarks, it has been exploring that this business thought is sensible and most fitting for this relationship as it has the positive results for affiliation. Starbucks has the open door at worldwide market to develop and to set up its business with the interesting thought. As indicated by all investigation, it has been assessed that it is a more extensive and practical open door for Starbucks to enter with the new and required preference for the global market.
... The digitalisation opens doors and generates economic opportunities for the entire sectors. Thus, in the quest for digital transformation, organisations must take advantage of the technology to develop their business, increase brand visibility, share information, improve employee performance and build new competencies (Barlatier & Mention, 2019). ...
Today, social networks have become essential communication tools. The emergence of internal social media platforms and applications in the workplace has created great digital opportunities for employees to communicate, collaborate, exchange work-related information, and share professional knowledge. Accordingly, the objective of this research is to explore the effect of social media use in the workplace. Specifically, the present study aims to identify the effect of social media use on employees' work performance through their impact on social capital and knowledge sharing. A research model was proposed and empirically tested with an online survey study of 328 working professionals who use social media in a telecommunication company – “Tunisie Telecom„. Results reveal that social media use in the workplace positively influence social capital, which impact knowledge sharing among employees that leads to better work performance. Implications and directions for future work are discussed.
This work results from an internship of two months at a new company of digital media, to evaluate its ‘maturity' in terms of social media performance. For pursuing this objective, it is compared with its main competitors in the area as a panel of experts. Two methods of analysis addressed two main research issues: I1) which key performance indicators are mostly used in a sample of main firms in the area in Portugal; and I2) which new strategies came from their assessment in those firms? In the period considered, the company revealed a more adaptive strategy, missing some key indicators in the area. Its efforts may not be being directed at the greatest potential of social media. It can improve the performance of its social media by monitoring engagement what helps to preserve its reputation and give followers the answers they really want. A common aspect in the compared companies is the absence of outsourcing to digital influencers. However, this practice is growing because, with the demand and speed of response currently required, in-house digital marketing lacks the resources.
The use of social media offers tremendous innovation potential. Yet, while current research emphasizes success stories, little is known about how firms can leverage the full potential of their social media use for open innovation. In this article, the authors address this gap by conducting a configurational analysis to develop an integrative taxonomy of social media‐enabled strategies for open innovation. This analysis stems from the integration of internal and external variables such as social media communication activities, organizational innovation seekers, potential innovation providers, the stages of the open innovation process and their relationship with different performance outcomes and barriers to social media adoption for open innovation. Through an empirical study of 337 firms based in 8 countries, 4 clusters have been identified that are characterized as distinct strategies: ‘marketing semi‐open innovators’, ‘cross‐department semi‐open innovators’, ‘cross‐department full process semi‐open innovators’ and ‘broad adopters open innovators’. The findings reveal the trade‐offs associated with different strategies for implementing social media for open innovation and provide insights of the use of these strategies. By doing so, they suggest a more nuanced approach that contrasts with the traditionally positive (or even rosy) depiction of the effects of social media on open innovation. Accordingly, managers are encouraged to contemplate their organizational competencies, capabilities and their strategic intent when drafting social media strategies for open innovation. Selective approaches, along with greater adoption leading to greater benefits, are shown to be more rewarding than a middle way that spreads things too thin. Avenues for further research include qualitative explorations of the trajectories unfolding through implementing social media strategies for innovation activities and the use of objective performance measures rather than subjective perceptions from informants to understand the complex relationships between social media adoption and performance.
Purpose
The outbreak of COVID-19 is one of the most serious health events in recent times. In the business landscape, its effects may be more detrimental to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) because they tend to have limited financial and human resources to manage the challenges caused by COVID-19. To help MSMEs enhance their resilience, this paper aims to discuss how they can leverage mass collaboration to build social media-based knowledge ecosystems to manage interactions among internal and external stakeholders for knowledge creation and innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes a model for MSMEs to build an online knowledge ecosystem and a standalone text analytics tool to use the advanced data analytics, e.g. topic modeling, to analyze and aggregate collective insights. Design science research methodology is used to develop the model and the tool.
Findings
Through mass collaboration using social media and advanced data analytics technology, MSMEs can generate new business ideas, leading to enhanced resilience to meet the challenges caused by COVID-19 or other unexpected or extraordinary circumstances, such as natural disasters and financial crises.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first papers in social media adoption for knowledge creation and innovation research, providing detailed approaches for MSMEs to build a knowledge ecosystem on social media and to use advanced data analytics to mine the meaning of the generated data.
• Purpose
This article explores how social media can be used strategically for delivering the promises of open innovation and examines the types of structure that can foster the integration of these new tools with more classic top-down innovation approaches.
• Design/methodology/approach
Single case study: ALPHA (pseudonym), a multinational company that combined an integrated strategy and the creation of a lean structure with the full potential of social media.
• Findings
To take on the challenges of energy transition, ALPHA has implemented a low-cost approach allowing it to harness the promises of open innovation. This combined the introduction of a lean structure, two social media platforms and processes that ensured the integration of open innovation activities with existing departments.
• Research limitations/implications
The research is based on a single case study. Further research should be conducted to establish the generalization of the results.
• Practical implications
This paper highlights the key success factors in making such a light approach successful: controlling cost and disruption of open innovation; integration matters; leveraging complementarities with existing social media initiatives; and bottom-up adoption.
• Originality/value
The research provides a unique approach that can be practically implemented to leverage social media to deliver the promises of open innovation and offers an original way of integrating social media lead innovation and open innovation strategy with more classic R&D activities.
Purpose
The exchange of knowledge in social networks is fundamental to innovation. Open, interactive, innovation requires collaboration through social networks. This social networking is increasingly carried out across the Internet through social media applications. The purpose of this study is to explore the use of social media in open innovation, and explain how this practice is carried out in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). With less resources than large firms, SMEs both have a greater need for open innovation and a less resources to invest in the process.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors study the case of open innovation in start-up Aurea Productiva and induce a framework for open innovation in SMEs powered by social media.
Findings
The authors explore how the main advantages of the Web 2.0 translate into opportunities, challenges and strategies for open innovation that can be directly applied by managers.
Research limitations/implications
The authors contribute to research on open innovation by social media and to research on the innovation process of SMEs. Future quantitative research could confirm and extend the authors’ findings.
Practical implications
Companies that want to fully exploit the benefits of social media can create a strategy that emphasizes coevolution of innovation and resources, sharing their vision and objectives and providing a framework for innovation.
Originality/value
The authors introduce an original analysis of opportunities, challenges and strategies for open innovation in SMEs.
Social media (SM) allow users to easily create, edit, or share content. The vast numbers of individuals that converge around sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter embody a rich source of external knowledge that could be utilized for new product development (NPD). Complementing other channels for open innovation (OI), SM can provide access to novel information about customer needs and technological solutions unknown to the firm. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are considerable benefits from using SM during an innovation project, but empirical evidence is scarce. Contributing to the perspective of openness in search, a number of hypotheses propose how SM as a new channel for OI can contribute to firm performance. This model is tested using data from the PDMA Comparative Performance Assessment Study, identifying factors influencing the relationship between SM and NPD performance. The findings indicate that utilizing information from SM channels can lead to higher performance, but that this link is influenced by the formalization of a firm's NPD process. This study also finds that the ability of a firm to benefit from external search in SM strongly depends on complementary internal processes when organizing and conducting this activity. Furthermore, managers have to take care when utilizing information from SM channels in radical projects, as for this kind of project only a weak significant performance contribution of SM could be found.
Although some companies have been able to use social media to develop new insights that lead to successful new products, many others simply do not know how to utilize social media for innovation. Whats more, some companies have seen their innovation performance negatively affected. Nevertheless, social media provides a game-changing opportunity for companies that learn how to exploit it. In order to use social media for innovation, organizations need clear strategies and objectives. The authors of this article recently studied the social media practices of large global companies as they relate to new product development, using data from the Product Development Management Associations 2012 Comparative Performance Assessment Study. Broadly speaking, we found that for many companies, the results of using social media for new product development fell short of expectations. Less than 50% of the companies surveyed use social media during the new product development process. Many of the companies we surveyed didn't seem to recognize the differences and functionalities of different social media platforms and media sources. It is critical that top leadership play an active role by encouraging cooperation and idea sharing among the various players.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and illustrate how organizations may use online communities strategically in order to adapt to a changing business environment, specifically from a dynamic capabilities perspective.
Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents empirical evidence from three cases.
Findings: Online communities may help organizations to adapt to a changing business environment by allowing them to sense opportunities and threats, seize opportunities, and reconfigure organizational assets.
Research implications: The paper contributes to both the strategy and the information systems literatures by providing empirical insights into the strategic use of online communities.
Practical implications: The results of the paper are relevant for managers, helping them to understand the strategic role online communities (may) play and illustrating ways to employ them accordingly.
Originality/value: The paper closes a previously defined gap in the literature and provides novel empirical evidence. As online communities become integral parts of digital strategy and open innovation initiatives, the paper is both timely and relevant.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide a set of measures that enable better understanding of online communities, their value and the strategic decisions best suited to them.
Design/methodology/approach
– After an initial definition of terms and classification of online communities, a framework for assessing the value of communities is presented, enumerating benefits by their relationship to risk and reward. The disconnect between such benefits and the normal statistical measures of success is then addressed. The paper concludes with a short review of a range of other factors that should influence the valuation of online communities.
Findings
– There are three key points that should allow a structured approach to estimating the value of communities: a 12-part model for classifying online communities by their purposes; a consideration of how these should be measured; and a review of some other factors affecting the valuation of communities.
Originality/value
– The paper allows a framework for stakeholders of online communities to converse, plan and make decisions regarding those communities. The paper uses a framework already tested in the charity sector by Z/Yen Group and applies it in the online community space.
Purpose – When comparing the annotated relevance and the actual application of social media, enormous discrepancies show. This paper aims to introduce the concept of “Social Media Governance” as a means to accelerate the establishment of social media in communication practices and seeks to analyse its status quo in German organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – The data presented here stem from a quantitative online survey among communication professionals that was carried out in Germany.
Findings – The results indicate that although many organizations claim to have strategies for social media communications, nine out of ten had no explicit regulatory frameworks. Strategic pillars, such as managerial commitment and a participative corporate culture, were reported by one third of the organizations. This is crucial, because correlation analyses have revealed that the presence of such structures has a positive effect on skill levels, strategies and the level of activity.
Research limitations/implications – In terms of theory, the concept of governance may be used in order to analyze the dynamics of introducing new modes of online communication.
Practical implications – According to structuration theory, the actions of individual agents will only succeed if everyone involved can resort to structures in the sense of a common stock of (informal) rules and resources. This research indicates that public relations (PR) practices should focus on developing basic structures for social media communications and should not be limited to communications activities.
Originality/value – While previous studies have focused on single aspects of social media governance, e.g. guidelines, very little research has been done on the overall concept. Also, the interconnection of strategic and structural aspects of social media communication has been neglected as a research topic so far.
The aim of dynamic capabilities research is ambitious: to understand how firmscan sustain a competitive advantage by responding to and creating environmen-tal change (Teece, 2007). As one of the most central and difficult questionswithin the strategy domain, this might well be characterized as the Holy Grailof strategic management. The topical domain of dynamic capabilities, in conse-quence, is as broad and as complex as any in the field. It spans the domains ofstrategy process and content, and involves multiple levels of analysis, from man-agerial decision-processes, to organizational routines, to competitive inter-actions and environmental change. The complexity of the topic is matched,fittingly, by the complexity of the theoretical underpinnings. Undoubtedly, thishas generated some confusion. It is therefore not surprising that the critique ofArend and Bromiley (A&B) in the preceding essay reflects some of this confu-sion. Here, we address this by clarifying the dynamic capabilities concept, inrelation to its development and the challenges faced.We first survey the development path of dynamic capabilities research, anddiscuss the different theoretical bases of this emerging area of scholarship. Thenwe clarify issues regarding the definition of dynamic capabilities and discuss thelink between dynamic capabilities and firm performance. As part of our analy-sis, we address the two main conclusions of A&B regarding dynamic capabil-ities research. The first is that we should abandon the dynamic capabilitiesapproach if it does not ‘quickly develop a theoretical foundation’. The second isthat regardless of the pace of theory development, we should replace theseefforts with ‘work on strategic change tied to fuller theories of strategic organ-ization’. In what follows, we explain why these conclusions are premature andunwarranted. We also address other issues raised by A&B, focusing on the mainissues raised in the body of their commentary.
Social media applications are slowly diff using across
all levels of government. Th e organizational dynamics
underlying adoption and use decisions follow a process
similar to that for previous waves of new information
and communication technologies. Th e authors suggest
that the organizational diff usion of these types of new
information and communication technologies, initially
aimed at individual use and available through markets,
including social media applications, follows a three-stage
process. First, agencies experiment informally with social
media outside of accepted technology use policies. Next,
order evolves from the fi rst chaotic stage as government
organizations recognize the need to draft norms and regulations. Finally, organizational institutions evolve that
clearly outline appropriate behavior, types of interactions,
and new modes of communication that subsequently are
formalized in social media strategies and policies. For
each of the stages, the authors provide examples and a set
of propositions to guide future research.
Traditionally, consumers used the Internet to simply expend content: they read it, they watched it, and they used it to buy products and services. Increasingly, however, consumers are utilizing platforms--such as content sharing sites, blogs, social networking, and wikis--to create, modify, share, and discuss Internet content. This represents the social media phenomenon, which can now significantly impact a firm's reputation, sales, and even survival. Yet, many executives eschew or ignore this form of media because they don't understand what it is, the various forms it can take, and how to engage with it and learn. In response, we present a framework that defines social media by using seven functional building blocks: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. As different social media activities are defined by the extent to which they focus on some or all of these blocks, we explain the implications that each block can have for how firms should engage with social media. To conclude, we present a number of recommendations regarding how firms should develop strategies for monitoring, understanding, and responding to different social media activities.
The concept of Social Media is top of the agenda for many business executives today. Decision makers, as well as consultants, try to identify ways in which firms can make profitable use of applications such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life, and Twitter. Yet despite this interest, there seems to be very limited understanding of what the term “Social Media” exactly means; this article intends to provide some clarification. We begin by describing the concept of Social Media, and discuss how it differs from related concepts such as Web 2.0 and User Generated Content. Based on this definition, we then provide a classification of Social Media which groups applications currently subsumed under the generalized term into more specific categories by characteristic: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds. Finally, we present 10 pieces of advice for companies which decide to utilize Social Media.
Social networks on the Internet are becoming extremely popular and have begun to change the way we live and work. Many enterprises are assessing the potential of exploiting the commercial opportunities of this technology. Although social networking commercial activities may be the next big productivity booster for firms, some consider such activities to be time wasters and security traps. Therefore, it is useful to develop a framework to consolidate the issues in adopting this technology. This article reviews the opportunities provided by enterprise social networking and proposes using the fit-viability model to evaluate concerns related to the successful implementation of enterprise social networking. We also examine the major potential risks and the mechanisms for their management.
Social media are privileged vehicles to generate rich data created with unprecedented multi-faceted insights to drive faster ideation and commercialisation of client-centric innovations. The essence of data generated through social media is rooted in the connections and relationships it enables between firms and their stakeholders, and represents one of the greatest assets for data-driven innovation. As most of the firms are still experiencing and trailblazing in this matter, the current challenge is therefore to learn how to benefit from social media's potential for innovation purposes. In the last decade, research interest has increased towards understanding social media – innovation interactions. The reliance on the wisdom of the crowd in driving major business decisions and shaping society's way of life is now well acknowledged in academic and business literature. Social media is increasingly used as a tool to manage knowledge flows within and across organisation boundaries in the process of innovation. Yet, conceptualisation of social media and innovation interaction and a systematic review of how far the field has come remains providential. Therefore, through a systematic literature review we aim to identify research trends and gaps in the field, conceptualise current paradigmatic views and therein provide clear propositions to guide future research. Based on a systematic review, 111 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and found in EBSCO Host® and Scopus® databases are descriptively analysed, with results synthesized across current research trends. Findings suggest social media is seen as enabler and driver of innovation, with behavioural and resource based perspectives being the most popular theoretical lens used by researchers. The originality of the paper is rooted in the comprehensive search and systematic review of studies in the discourse, which have not been unified to date. Implications for advancement of knowledge are embedded in the purposefully proposed theoretical, contextual and methodological perspectives, providing future research directions for exploring social media capability in innovation management.
Keywords
Social media, Innovation management, Systematic literature review, Research propositions, Business perspective, Open innovation
Purpose
Collaboration facilitates competitive advantages. That’s the reason why every leader should be concerned with whether his or her part of the organization embraces collaboration or not. Collaboration in itself is an instrumental value, and it should be pursued as part of an organization’s enterprise-wide strategy, especially in merged organizations. Unfortunately, the natural inclination in merged organizations is for the merged entities to continue the past practice of independent, autonomous operations. When merged, the separate entities of the new organization naturally resist integration. The leader must infuse collaboration to enable knowledge sharing and the integration and employment of the new organization’s capabilities. The following discussion presents a roadmap to collaboration focused on the leader’s employment of seven critical practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Concept Paper
Findings
Scholarly study points to collaboration as an instrumental value. If it must become a value in the organization, then leaders must use seven practices as part of an enterprise-wide strategy and carefully follow the implementation of the seven practices until collaboration becomes a value and the natural instinct of the organization.
Originality/value
Leaders struggle with how to bring collaboration into an environment where inertial forces impede it. The following discussion presents a roadmap to infuse collaboration and grow an appreciation for it because this process will facilitate the development and implementation of goals, objectives and action plans for the organization. Seven practices are discussed and integrated into an operational design-like method just like the one commanders use to achieve victories in military campaign planning and execution.
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze how business units can use their employees’ external social capital to explore and exploit the resources available in their environment. Based on multiple interviews with the employees of the global commodity firm Gamma Chemical (around 50,000 employees), the research aims at gaining an understanding of the contextual conditions required to successfully build and leverage individuals’ external social client network ties for business unit ambidexterity.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a single-case study at Gamma Chemical that entailed 33 semi-directive interviews, each of which lasted 1-4 h, at different organizational levels (ranging from top-level management to production workers). We had access to three regional business units. The interviews addressed the links between the individuals in the business units and external actors. The authors also collected information about the company’s strategic objectives, the local competitive environment and work organization. Open-ended questions were used to allow the interviewees to freely relate anecdotes about their own network development. In particular, the authors asked the respondents to identify business contacts with whom they interacted privately and to describe the relationships.
Findings
The research findings are two-fold. First, and contrary to prior studies, the authors find that individuals’ social capital contributes to both exploration and exploitation at the business unit level. Second, developing and leveraging individuals’ external social capital requires a specific organizational context at the business unit level that allows employees to develop and nurture their personal business relationships with clients.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited by the scope of the sample (a study of one large multinational firm). Further research conducted in similar contexts may therefore be useful for comparability purposes and to generalize the results.
Practical implications
Several practical recommendations describe how managers can effectively make use of their employees’ social connections with clients. In particular, the results suggest that managers should seek business unit flexibility on the basis of team-based structures, an autonomous leadership style and by actively creating a degree of critical social network tie redundancy, encouraging a shared network culture. These three specific conditions allow employees’ personal client networks to not only flourish but also contribute to business unit ambidexterity.
Originality/value
Prior social capital studies have analyzed intra-firm and inter-firm relationships in terms of contributing to firm ambidexterity. However, these findings have often been difficult to translate into specific organizational levels. Given business units’ critical role in identifying and implementing business opportunities for a firm, the authors focus on the micro-foundations of exploratory and exploitative learning by using a social capital perspective to explore the link between employees’ private external social relationships with clients and business unit ambidexterity. In this way, we contribute to the social capital literature and research on business unit ambidexterity and to extant contextual ambidexterity research by specifying the conditions that help firms develop and leverage their employees’ own external social capital for exploration and exploitation.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore social media’s impact on organizational knowledge quality through the theoretical lens of social capital and resource exchange.
Design/methodology/approach
– This is a theory-confirming, quantitative study using panel data collected through a Web-based survey.
Findings
– The results show that while social media affects structural capital and cognitive capital directly, it only affects relational capital indirectly through structural and cognitive capital. Moreover, overall social media and the enhanced social capital do help promote organizational efforts in knowledge management, which subsequently leads to a higher level of organizational knowledge quality.
Research limitations/implications
– All survey respondents were from the USA, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. The authors also call for more research in establishing the time sequence in the proposed causal relations and in the individual-level mechanism through which social media promotes organizational knowledge quality.
Practical implications
– This study highlights both the potential and limitations of social media in promoting organizational knowledge management. Businesses must consciously manage the assimilation and use of social media to benefit from them.
Originality/value
– The authors position the study at the intersection of social media, social capital and knowledge management and explicate how social media work through social capital and organizational knowledge management efforts to affect knowledge quality.
Innovation is essential for firms to survive in today's global economy. Cocreation is a strategy where customers and providers participate in the innovation process. Social media is a perfect tool for cocreating value because it promotes communication between the organization and the customer. It's fast becoming an integral part of business operations and has many important uses, including innovation. This article explores the use of social media in cocreating business value. The authors' study provides a conceptual framework for understanding core elements and processes of cocreation using social media. Using the conceptual framework, they examine and analyze case studies from IBM and SAP in the context of use of social media in cocreation.
Companies have traditionally managed innovation as an internal process, relying upon their own skills and capabilities. However, this closed approach to innovation is no longer viable in a period of rapid diffusion of commercially valuable knowledge. If leading firms are to retain their capacity for innovation, they must begin to manage intellectual property via the logic of open innovation. Such an approach is much more fluid, emphasizing both the use of R&D produced outside the firm and the development of internal systems to reward commercially viable innovation within the firm.
Over the past two decades, firms have increasingly adopted information technology (IT) tools and services to improve the new product development (NPD) process. Recently, social media tools and/or tools that include social networking features are being utilized to allow users both inside and outside the organization to easily communicate and collaboratively design, manage, and launch new products and services. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence to suggest what influence these new IT tools have on NPD performance. Through a project-level, exploratory, empirical study, the impact of these new IT tools on the development phase of the NPD process is investigated. We find that the use of these new tools is significantly lower than the adoption of traditional IT tools such as e-mail and computer-aided-design. Traditional tools have a significant, positive impact on NPD outcomes, including team collaboration, the concepts/prototypes generated, and management evaluation. Interestingly, new media tools such as project wikis and shared collaboration spaces also have a significant, positive impact on concepts/prototypes generated, and management evaluation. Surprisingly, social networking tools like weblogs and Twitter negatively impact management evaluation while having no impact on NPD team collaboration and concepts/prototypes generated. These results suggest that social networking tools in their current guise are not helpful to the NPD team and may in fact be distracting to innovation management during the development phase.
Leveraging social network sites is high on the list of priorities for a lot of businesses that are eager to find more effective ways to reach, learn about, and engage customers in new product development ( NPD ). However, the rapidly changing landscape of social network sites can be difficult to navigate successfully and doubts remain about whether and how they can be used to good effect. In fact, empirical research confirming a positive relationship between the use of social network sites in NPD and business performance is scarce.
This paper reports on research examining the use of social network sites for three purposes, namely for market research guiding the development of new products, for getting customers to collaborate in the NPD process, and for new product launch. The results of this research suggest that the benefits expected from using social network sites in NPD are largely not being realized by businesses. Using social network sites to conduct market research leading into the NPD process was not found to contribute to business performance, and in fact was found to have negative relationships with both profitability and market growth. Using social network sites to get customers to collaborate in the NPD process was found to be positively related with innovativeness but not with market growth or profitability. Finally, using social network sites for new product launch was where the most positive indications were seen, since this was found to be positively related with innovativeness, market growth, and profitability.
Thus, it appears that while businesses may get good results from using social network sites for product launch, they still have a learning curve to traverse before they can successfully use them for market research or customer collaboration in NPD . While there is currently a great deal of enthusiasm—even hype—about the potential opportunities of using social network sites for NPD , this research suggests that businesses should move carefully and recognize that just jumping on the social network bandwagon will not insure success.
Knowledge management is commonly understood as IS implementations that enable processes of knowledge creation, sharing, and capture. Knowledge management at the firm level is changing rapidly. Previous approaches included centrally managed, proprietary knowledge repositories, often involving structured and controlled search and access. Today the trend is toward knowledge management by social software, which provides open and inexpensive alternatives to traditional implementations. While social software carries great promise for knowledge management, this also raises fundamental questions about the very essence and value of firm knowledge, the possibility for knowledge protection, firm boundaries, and the sources of competitive advantage. I draft a strategic research agenda consisting of five fundamental issues that should reinvigorate research in knowledge management.
Social media are increasingly implemented in work organizations as tools for communication among employees. As these technologies begin to proliferate across the enterprise, it is important that we develop an understanding of how they enable and constrain the communicative activities through which work is accomplished because it is these very dynamics that constitute and perpetuate organizations. We begin by offering a definition of enterprise social media and providing a rough historical account of the various avenues through which these technologies have entered and continue to enter the workplace. We also review areas of research covered by papers in this special issue and papers on enterprise social media published elsewhere to take stock of the current state of out knowledge and to propose directions for future research.
In the networked world, firms are recognizing the power of the Internet as a platform for co-creating value with customers. We focus on how the Internet has impacted the process of collaborative innovation—a key process in value co-creation. We outline the distinctive capabilities of the Internet as a platform for customer engagement, including interactivity, enhanced reach, persistence, speed, and flexibility, and suggest that firms can use these capabilities to engage customers in collaborative product innovation through a variety of Internet-based mechanisms. We discuss how these mechanisms can facilitate collaborative innovation at different stages of the New Product Development process (back end vs. front end stages) and for differing levels of customer involvement (high reach vs. high richness). We present two detailed exploratory case studies to illustrate the integrated and systematic usage of Internet-based collaborative innovation mechanisms—Ducati from the motorbike industry and Eli Lilly from the pharmaceutical industry. We derive implications for managerial practice and academic research on collaborative innovation.
This study aims to identify the influence of co-operation practices and the use of internal and external information sources on the propensity of firms to introduce new to the market innovations in the service sector. Data come from the 4th Community Innovation Survey, which covers the years 2002-2004. A logistic regression model is applied with the degree of novelty of good/service innovation as dependent variable. The analysis of the parameter estimates shows that firms provided with information from market sources and from internal sources as well as firms involved in science-based collaboration for their product innovations are more likely to introduce new to the market innovations, whereas information coming from competitors seems to have a negative influence on the degree of novelty of innovation.