The deep structure of organizational online networking – an actor‐oriented case study

Abstract

While research on organizational online networking recently increased significantly, most studies adopt quantitative research designs with a focus on the consequences of social network configurations. Very limited attention is paid to comprehensive theoretical conceptions of the complex phenomenon of organizational online networking. We address this gap by adopting a theoretical framework of the deep structure of organizational online networking with a focus on their emerging meaning for the employees. We apply and assess the framework in a qualitative case study of a large-scale implementation of a corporate social network site (SNS) in a global organization. We reveal organizational online networking as a multi-dimensional phenomenon with multiplex relationships that are unbalanced, primarily consist of weak ties and are subject to temporal change. Further, we identify discourse drivers and information retrievers as two mutually interdependent actor roles as an explanation for uneven levels of user contributions to the SNS. Based on our analysis, we elicit abstract order principles, such as topical discourses, and identify transactive memory theory as a potent explanation of the evolving interaction structures. We finally discuss how the deep structure framework can contribute to future research on organizational networks.

Advances in Social Media Research: Past, Present and Future

“…Lundmark et al (2016) reveal that higher usage of Twitter, alongside follower numbers and retweets result in higher levels of under pricing for initial public offerings (IPO). Trier and Richter (2015) find that online organizational networking has many unbalanced multiplex relationships, mostly comprising of weak ties and temporal change. They attribute the uneven user contribution in social networking sites to discourse drivers and information retrievers.…”

“…There were 17 studies (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016) evaluating the integration of social media for varied organizational purposes. While some studies investigated the employee side (e.g., innovativeness, retention, and motivation) of social media use (for instance, Aggarwal et al 2012;Miller and Tucker 2013), the others discussed the relationship between social enterprise systems and organizational networking (for instance, Trier and Richter 2015;Van Osch and Steinfield 2016).…”

“…Van Osch and Steinfield (2016) suggest that future researchers should explore the potential of Enterprise Social Media to gain insights into the tools that support disentanglement of team boundary spanning. Finally, researchers have Mettler and Winter (2016) Design science approach (1) Qualitative methods Miranda et al (2016); Huang et al (2015); Karoui et al (2015); Trier and Richter (2015); Kallinikos and Tempini (2014); Koch et al (2013); Koch et al (2012); Griffiths and Light (2008) Case study (8) Barrett et al (2016); Schlagwein and Hu (2016); Subramaniam and Nandhakumar (2013) Interviews (3) Dong and Wu (2015) Event study (1) Chiu and Huang (2015) Survey (1) Kreps (2010) Theoretical ( Hildebrand et al (2013) Field study (1) established that the lifecycle of information and communication technologies tend to be emancipatory in their infancy but eventually evolve into hegemonic tools. They warn social media policymakers to be wary of reproducing this pattern with digital media; the recommendation is to involve more citizens in the development of Internet governance framework, rather than resting decisions with the members of political or economic power (Miranda et al 2016).…”

Are business users social? A design experiment exploring information sharing in enterprise social systems

“…The applications of ESS range from the business-related use of social networks (Trier and Richter, 2015), blogs/microblogs (Zhao and Rosson, 2009;Zhang et al, 2010), and wikis for communicating and interaction with internal and external stakeholders of the company (Arazy et al, 2009;McAfee, 2009), to more specialized applications that attempt to leverage the newly available information from social technologies within traditional ES environments in order to improve service delivery efficiency, reputation, credibility, and consumer trust (Wang et al, 2007).…”

Atividades de chatbot no marketing de relacionamento em negócios digitais: estudo de caso múltiplos em empresas de varejo eletrônico

“…O meio online diminui as barreiras de comunicação e da formação do relacionamento (McKenna, Green, & Gleason, 2002)Clique ou toque aqui para inserir o texto. entre a empresa e o cliente ao ter menos barreiras sociais na interação mediada por uma máquina (Trier & Richter, 2015), mas também pode levar a uma menor taxa de resposta do cliente às mensagens da empresa pela ausência da pressão social para responder a uma máquina (Trier & Richter, 2015).…”