Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to help us better understand if it is beneficial for individuals to use social networking sites (SNSs) to expand their networking opportunities, translating into greater career success. A significant key to career success is networking. SNSs are changing the way employees develop their networks with businesses and with other individuals. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses archival data including academic records for 1,182 accounting alumni from a large Canadian public institution. This dataset was expanded by obtaining social network information (presence and use) for each individual’s record. Findings – After controlling for a number of indicators of career success, the study found that presence on SNSs such as LinkedIn and the amount of activity therein has a strong and consistent association with metrics of professional success not found with non-professional sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Originality/value – This study provides empirical support for the value of social networking as a proxy for the development of social capital. Support is in establishing the link between a group of social network profile characteristics and metrics of one’s career success. Distinguishing LinkedIn as chiefly connecting to alumni successes may be reflected in the weights attached to the profile characteristics as opposed to information coming from other sources.

As explorers once opened up new trade passages, thus attracting hordes of both honest traders and dishonest pirates, so too has the Internet opened new lanes of commerce and attracted the modern versions of the same. One of the widest of these lanes undoubtedly runs through eBay, located at http://www.ebay.com . From its humble beginnings as a little-known auction site hawking PEZ candy dispensers, broken laser pointers and other garage-sale pickings, eBay has transformed itself into a reputable public sales powerhouse where a Gulfstream II jet, million-dollar sports artifacts, and Madonna’s wedding tiara might easily change hands.4

Purpose – This paper aims to adapt Simons’ (1995b) theory of the role of information technology (IT) in shaping and facilitating the levers of control (i.e. the Levers of Control Applied to Information Technology – LOCaIT) as a framework for investigating how eBay’s business strategy was realized through its management control system (MCS) in the first 10 years of the online auction market. Design and method – The qualitative method uses data from public record interviews, teaching cases, books, Securities and Exchange Commission filings and other archival sources to longitudinally trace the realization of eBay’s strategy through its MCS and IT. Findings – Realizing its strategy through the eBay MCS necessitated a diagnostic control system unlike any previously seen. This system created a close-knit online community and enabled buyers and sellers to monitor one another’s performance and trustworthiness. Research limitations and implications – The LOCaIT theory facilitated understanding the core aspects of the realization of eBay’s strategy through its MCS and IT. However, LOCaIT largely omits the strong linkages evident among elements of the MCS, the importance and necessity of building a core IT infrastructure to support eBay’s strategy and the central role of building consumer trust in the realization of this strategy. Practical and social implications – eBay’s MCS is now, perhaps, the world’s most widely imitated model for creating online trust and user interactions (e.g. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Amazon). In addition, eBay’s MCS was “sold” as a consumer product that was instrumental in facilitating consumer trust in the online auction market. Originality/value – Contributions include: tracing the creation, growth and evolution of, perhaps, the world’s largest and most widely imitated MCS, which redefined the boundaries of accounting systems monitoring; and testing the range, usefulness and limitations of Simons’ LOCaIT theory as a lens for understanding eBay’s use of IT in their MCS.

This paper adapts and extends routine activity theory (RAT) to investigate the co-evolution of eBay's controls with mundane crime in the rapidly growing auction market of 1997–2005. A suspected deceptive seller's eight-year account history indicates the presence of the three market characteristics that RAT identifies as essential for deception: (1) a motivated offender, (2) suitable targets, and (3) an absence of capable guardians (i.e., regulation and eBay controls). The results document the co-evolution of a deceptive seller's tactics with eBay's controls. The investigation introduces (1) a new market, i.e., the early online auctions, (2) a new theory, i.e., RAT, and (3) new data, i.e., of a long-term deceptive seller, to the accounting controls literature. Contributions include tracing the evolving eBay control system, considering eBay's feedback system as an emergent form of continuous monitoring, and investigating the potential of RAT as an alternative theory for understanding control violations and informing accounting control analysis and design. Data Availability: The archival data are available from public sources. The primary data are available to scholars willing to sign agreements that protect the confidentiality of the sources.