Journal of computer-mediated communication (original) (raw)
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The use of social media technologies-such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites, social tagging, and microblogging-is proliferating at an incredible pace. One area of increasing adoption is organizational settings where managers hope that these new technologies will help improve important organizational processes. However, scholarship has largely failed to explain if and how uses of social media in organizations differ from existing forms of computer-mediated communication. In this chapter, we argue that social media are of important consequence to organizational communication processes because they afford behaviors that were diffi cult or impossible to achieve in combination before these new technologies entered the workplace. Our review of previous studies of social media use in organizations uncovered four relatively consistent affordances enabled by these new technologies: Visibility, persistence, editability, and association. We suggest that the activation of some combination of these affordances could infl uence many of the processes commonly studied by organizational communication theorists. To illustrate this point, we theorize several ways through which these four social media affordances may alter socialization, knowledge sharing, and power processes in organizations.
Social Media Affordances and Constraints: Design, Use and Implications for Enterprises
Social Science Research Network, 2018
In this paper we focus on social media use at the individual and organizational level, and we adopt an impression management lens (i.e., Goffman). We aim to single out practices of social media use (i.e., performances), which underpin knowledge sharing (or retention). We analyzed 85 interviews with social media users and focused on space and time, which are two dimensions affecting the choice of a specific medium, because of the available/potential audiences. We illustrate how impression management strategies relate to patterns of social media use (and intensity of use) and suggest implications for enterprise social media (ESM) use.
An affordance perspective of enterprise social media and organizational socialization
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 2018
In response to the challenge of socializing new IT employees, some IT departments are exploring the incorporation of enterprise social media (hereinafter ESM) as an informal organizational socialization tool. Because this is a relatively new phenomenon, little is known about how ESM facilitate employee socialization. In order to contribute to our understanding of how ESM affects employee socialization, this paper invokes a case study to explore how one organization's implementation of an ESM for its IT new hire program influenced the socialization process and outcomes. To delve deeply into how the ESM influences socialization, we draw upon technology affordance theory to uncover the various first and second-order affordances actualized by different actor groups and the various outcomes resulting from the affordances. We then identify five generative mechanismsbureaucracy circumvention, executive perspective, personal development, name recognition, and morale boosterthat explain how the actualization of different strands of affordances by various groups of users produces eight different outcomes. Our results provide insights into the different affordances made possible by ESM in the context of a new hire socialization program and how these affordances have repercussions beyond those experienced by the individuals using the ESM. The results have important implications for new hire socialization and technology affordance research.
Enablers of and constraints on employees' information sharing on enterprise social media
Information Technology & People
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the various enablers of and constraints on employees' information sharing on an enterprise social media platform. It draws on two theoretical perspectives, communication privacy management theory and the technology affordance framework, as well as on empirical data in an attempt to paint a comprehensive picture of the factors shaping employees' decisions to share or not share information on enterprise social media.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative field study is based on semi-structured interviews and enterprise social media review data from a large Nordic media organization.FindingsOn an enterprise social media platform, privacy management principles shape employees' information-sharing decisions in relation to personal privacy boundaries, professional boundaries and assumed risks, online safety concerns and perceived audience. Additionally, the technological affordances of visibility, awareness, persistence a...
Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 2017
Social media is a relatively new and dynamic field dealing with the development and use of social media technologies by individuals and more recently by organizations. Although several frameworks and models have been proposed for studying social media, most provide only limited insights into the complex social activities that are supported by the strategic usage of social media in organizational settings. In this article, we take up this challenge and introduce a Strategic Social Action Framework for analyzing social media technologies and their strategic usage in and by organizations. This framework is based on Habermas’ theory of social action and the idea that social media platforms serve as sets of rules and resources that mediate strategic organizational (inter-)actions involving these platforms. We demonstrate the value of the framework by theoretically delineating the appropriateness of the framework to specific social media tools, as well as by empirically analyzing the strategic use of two publicly available social media platforms—Facebook and Twitter—by three large airlines—Delta, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and JetBlue. Our findings reveal that when implementing social media in organizational contexts, developers and managers should critically evaluate (a) the need for supporting a rich variety of action types, (b) the possible role of social media support in the specific action situation, and (c) the strategic alignment of social media affordances and specific social action categories. Finally, we discuss theoretical and practical implications as well as directions for future research.
Consultant strategies and Technological affordances: Managing organisational social media
Organisations increasingly seek to explore the new opportunities that social media offers in terms of engaging with customers, users, and partners. So far, academic research on organisational practice of social media is sporadic and corporate actors are thus left without level-headed advice as to how best to implement and use social media technologies. In this paper, we examine what sort of advice management consultants offer organisations looking to engage in social media. We use four affordances of social media – visibility, persistence, editability, and association – to analytically explore the fit between social media as a technology and the strategies offered by consultancy firms. We also look at attitudes towards social media and information management, which contributes to practitioners’ understanding of the intrinsic characteristics of social media. Our research concludes that affordances of the technology clashes with a centralised top-down approach to information management that dominates in consultants’ strategy documents.
Organizational Media Affordances: Operationalization and Associations with Media Use
The concept of affordances has been increasingly applied to the study of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organizational contexts. However, almost no research operationalizes affordances, limiting comparisons and programmatic research. This article briefly reviews conceptualizations and possibilities of affordances in general and for media, then introduces the concept of organizational media affordances as organizational resources. Analysis of survey data from a large Nordic media organization identified six reliable and valid organizational media affordances: pervasiveness, editabil-ity, self-presentation, searchability, visibility, and awareness. Eight media scales based on frequency of use of 10 media within each of three organization levels were differentially associated with these affordances. The conceptualization, measurement approach, and results from this study provide the foundation for considerable future organizational communication and ICT research.
ICIS2013 Proceedings, 2013
The evolution of social media has introduced novel possibilities for work and interaction in organizations. The wiki technology is one important kind of social media technologies that is increasingly used to facilitate the creation and sharing of organizational knowledge within communities. Given the increasing use of social media in organizations and the lack of knowledge on their consequences for organizing, we use an affordance lens to explore the enactment of organizational wiki affordances. Using qualitative data obtained through interviews, field visits, and documents from two multinational organizations –CCC and IBM– we first identified eight affordances that describe various wiki possibilities and practices. We then identified four properties of these affordances including multiplicity, referential, situatedness, and communal. These properties represent the main contribution of the paper in that they extend the notion of affordance by theorizing new concepts that describe relational dynamics, situated and contextual conditions, and social factors involved in enacting, perceiving, and exploiting affordances.
New Technology, Work and Employment, 2019
This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affo...