How and why Organisations Use Social Media: Five Use Types and their Relation to Absorptive Capacity

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the relation between social media use and the absorptive capacity of organisations. Over the past 10 years, many organisations have systematically adopted social media. Trade press and consulting companies often claim that the systematic use of social media increases the performance of organisations. However, such claims are typically neither empirically grounded nor theoretically examined. In this paper, based on key informant interviews at 20 organisations, we examine these claims empirically and theoretically. Firstly, we examine the ways in which social media are used by organisations. We identify five different social media use types that support different organisational purposes (broadcast, dialogue, collaboration, knowledge management and sociability). Secondly, we analyse how these five social media use types relate to organisations' absorptive capacity. We find that particular social media use types (e.g., dialogue) support organisations' absorptive capacity and, ultimately, their performance although others (e.g., sociability) do not.

Social Media and Absorptive Capacity of Greek Government Agencies

“…Internal Social. [14] and Schlagwein and Hu [36], as explained in more detail in section 2.1) is utilized to a good extent by the examined Greek government agencies: the external dialogue, which can enhance the external exploratory learning ability (i.e. the ability to recognize, acquire and understand potentially valuable new external knowledge).…”

“…In order to investigate to what extent Greek government agencies exploit SM for enhancing their ACAP we have used as our foundation the research of Hu and Schlagwein [14] and Schlagwein and Hu [36]. This research, as explained in more detail in section 2.1, has developed a typology of SM use by organizations, including five SM use types (broadcast, dialogue, collaboration, knowledge management and sociabilityeach of them can be external or internal), which have been associated with support of specific components of the ACAP (exploratory, transformative and exploitative learning).…”

“…There is only one field study of 20 Australian firms described in [14] and [36], which has developed:…”

“…For addressing these research questions we use as foundation a typology of SM use by organizations, proposed by Hu and Schlagwein [14] and Schlagwein and Hu [36], which includes five types of SM use (broadcast, dialogue, collaboration, knowledge management and sociability -each of them can be external or internal), that have been associated with the support of specific components of the ACAP (exploratory, transformative or exploitative learning).…”

Theoretical Analysis of The Use of Social Media in The Enterprise Activity

“…Socialinių medijų naudojimas organizacijose (sudaryta autorių remiantis Schlagwein, Hu 2016;Gray et al 2011;Mueller et al 2011;Jansen et al 2009;Lipsman et al 2012;Stephen, Toubia 2010) Įmonės ir vartotojo ryšys naudojant tradicines medijas Įmonės ir vartotojo ryšys naudojant socialines medijas 1. Įmonės tiesiogiai bendrauja su klientu individualiai arba pasitelkiant masines komunikacijas (spausdinta ar transliuojama reklama).…”