This document summarizes a study on valuing social media technologies for internal business activities. It provides an introduction to social media and its adoption in businesses. It then discusses using an organizational semiotics approach to analyze how social media tools could be used internally and the potential challenges of using social media for internal communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing and management. The aim is to understand stakeholders' perceptions of the benefits and shortcomings of social media for internal business activities and objectives.

1. Valuation of Social Media Technologies for Internal
Business Activities
Aimee Jacobs, Keiichi Nakata
Informatics Research Centre
28 February 2013 © University of Reading 2011 www.reading.ac.uk/irc

2. Outline
• Introduction
– Overview of Social Media
– Social Media adoption in business
• Theory/Methodology
– Organisational Semiotics (OS)
• Valuation Framing Analysis
• Results & Observations
• Summary

3. Introduction
• Web 2.0
“a network as platform, spanning all connected devices” (O'Reilly
2007, p. 17) and
“a more mature, distinctive medium characterised by user
participation, openness and network effects.”(Musser, O’Reilly et al.
2006, p. 4)

4. Introduction
People are rapidly moving towards the use of “Social Media”
90
Percentage Online Global Population
80 1.4
70 9.9 9.9 2.7
5.4 10.3 2.6 2.9
60 4.9 Dec-08
50 Dec-07
12.5 9.6
40 78
65 63 67 64 64
30 61 59 55
20 39 41
10
0 A
y
UK
Au ce
d
ain
ly
n
l
il
Ge ia
ba
an
US
lan
pa
az
It a
an
l
ra
Sp
o
rm
Br
Ja
er
Gl
Fr
st
it z
Sw
Percentage of rise in population for Social Networking sites of Total Online population (Nielsen_Online, 2009)

5. Introduction
Reach and Usage by Country during Apr 2010 (Home & Work)
Social Networking / Blog Sites
(Nielsen, 2010)
% Reach of Active Time per Person
Country Users (hh:mm:ss)
Brazil 86% 05:03:37
Italy 78% 06:28:41
Spain 77% 05:11:44
Japan 75% 02:50:50
United States 74% 06:35:02
United Kingdom 74% 05:52:38
France 73% 04:10:27
Australia 72% 07:19:13
Germany 63% 04:13:05
Switzerland 59% 03:43:58

6. Social Media and Internal Business Activities
Employees have used SM in their personal lives and have
brought this concept to the workplace (Cook 2008)
•Features
– Participation
– Collectivism
– Creativity
– Mass collaboration
– Co-creation
“Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software
platforms within companies, or between companies and their
partners or customers” (McAfee 2006)

7. Stages of Growth Model
6.. ransformation
T
5. Social
4. Social Enterprise
3. Social Business
2. Internal Commerce
Communications Enterprise wide
1. External New business information and What’s
Communications models to meet decisions by next?
Users aid in customer wire
Communication buying and demands
Corporate Collaboration
fanpages and selling
Connections
tweets
Evolution of SM – Stages of Growth Model Derived from Earl's Model

8. SM Tools and Possible Uses
SM Tool Potential Uses
Forums Internal discussions; practical and process questions, and general staff
issues (Cook 2008)
Blogs General information tool (Tredinnick 2006)
Knowledge management, business intelligence, project management
(Cook 2008)
SNS Connectivity, knowledge sharing, strengthen relationships (Cook
2008)
Wikis Commercial content management systems (Tredinnick 2006)
Knowledge management and information sharing (Jansen 2009)
Social bookmarking Classification of knowledge and information (Tredinnick 2006)
Virtual worlds Meetings, training, and socializing with colleagues (Cook 2008)
Podcasts Briefings and recordings of conference calls (Davidson 2006)
Provide information and presentations and sharing of information
(Zhang 2009)
Media Sharing Informal virtual learning or training (Cook 2008)

9. Challenges
• Social
– IT dept threatened - less influence (Cook 2008)
– Fear of loss of control or inappropriateness (McAfee 2006)
– Interactive environment (Chui, Miller et al. 2009) (McAfee 2006)(Li 2007)
– Managers inability to understand the forces of change (Chui, Miller et al.
2009)
– Lack of understanding - create value (Chui, Miller et al. 2009)
– Perception that internal hierarchies will flatten (Ledbetter 2008)
• Technical
– Integration with existing information systems (Cook 2008)
– Data retrieval and analysis may be an issue (Passant 2007)

10. Motivation
• Will the same challenges be applicable if the focus is on
internal business activities?
• If not, what challenges may occur?
• Validate the findings from literature review in the
context of internal business activities

11. Aim & Objective
• Aim
– To reveal the perceptions of the stakeholders in relation to the
benefits and shortcomings of using social media for internal
business activities in organisations
• Objective
– To understand the impact that the use of social media tools
may have on an organisation’s stakeholders using a semiotic
approach

12. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND FOUNDATIONS
Organisational Semiotics Approach
– focuses on the analysis of how information and human
communication work in organisational contexts (Liu et al. 2001)
by concentrating on the relations among the IT system, business
process and organisation (Liu 2000)
– semiotic concepts applied to the analysis and design of
organisations and information systems (IS) through a range of
methods and frameworks (Liu 2000)
• Application of OS for SM…
• Organisational Containment Analysis (Jacobs, et al., 2010)
• The Semiotic Framework (Jacobs, et al., 2010)
• Valuation Framing

13. MEASUR
MEASUR is a set of Methods for Eliciting, Analyzing and
Specifying User Requirements (Stamper, 1993)
• PAM – Problem Articulation Method
• Valuation Framing - Aids in capturing user perceptions of a
technology that is or will be introduced into an organisation

14. Valuation Framing
• Online survey distributed
• 238 responses - 196 were valid and complete responses
• 7-point Likert scale
• 3 questions from each of the valuation aspects

15. Aspects Descriptions
Subsistence Physical livelihood, existences e.g. impact of the new system on job security
Classification Differentiation of people by sex, age, level of education e.g. whether the new
system improve equal opportunity for all
Territoriality Impact of the new system may lead to an erosion of control, influence or loss of
authority
Temporality Time division, synchronous, asynchronous e.g. issues of time zone differences
Learning Sharing knowledge, gaining awareness e.g. de-skill or more opportunity for
learning new skills
Recreation Fulfilment, joy e.g. whether the job becomes more interesting or boring
Protection Fairness, rights e.g. granting file rights access to the appropriate groups of people
and maintain the confidentiality of information
Exploitation Individual’s vs organisation interests e.g. cutbacks on operating costs with salary-
cut, retrenchment or longer working hours
Association Grouping, alliances e.g. formation of teams to evoke competitiveness and sense of
belonging of the employees
Interaction Interrelations, communications e.g. fostering collaborative attitudes in the work
place
Ten Cultural Aspects for Valuating Impacts on Stakeholders (Stamper, 1988)

16. Example questions
How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement about job security and
the use of Social Media within your organisation?
• It will have an impact on my job security.
Strongly disagree ...........Strongly Agree
• It will affect my livelihood.
Strongly disagree ...........Strongly Agree
• It will Not cause me to lose my job.
Strongly disagree ...........Strongly Agree
How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements about how the use of
Social Media affects your job fulfillment?
• It increases the level of fulfilment from my job.
Strongly disagree ...........Strongly Agree
• It will make my job more interesting.
Strongly disagree ...........Strongly Agree
• It will not make my job boring.
Strongly disagree ...........Strongly Agree

17. Valuation Framing Results
Stakeholders
Consultant
Analyst
Technical
Executive (81)
Executive (44)
Owner /
Founder (6)
Trainee
Administrative
Managerial
Marketing /
Specialist
Senior
Sales (6)
Middle
(2)
(7)
(5)
(4)
(2)
(11)
(28)
Sum
Subsistence 0.2 0.8 0.9 0.9 1.5 0.5 0.7 1.2 0.3 0.7 1.5 9.2
Classification 0.2 1.8 0.8 0.4 0.4 0 0.8 0.4 -0.8 0 0.2 4.2
Aspects
Territoriality 1 0.2 1.6 1.3 1.8 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 1.5 2.3 15.7
Temporality 1.2 -0.3 1.7 1.3 1.9 1.3 1.7 1.6 2.3 1.3 2 16
Learning 1.2 0.8 1 2.1 1.7 1.5 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.7 2.2 16.8
Recreation 0.7 0.3 1.2 1.5 1.9 0.7 0.6 1.3 0.9 0.7 1.8 11.6
Protection -0.5 -0.5 -0.8 -0.4 0.2 -0.5 0.1 -0.3 0.4 -0.6 0.7 -2.2
Exploitation 0.8 -1.2 0.2 0.7 0.9 0.5 0.4 0.7 1.8 0.5 0.7 6
Association 0.9 1.2 1.6 1.9 1.6 1.1 1.4 1.7 1.7 1.3 2.7 17.1
Interaction 0.5 1.3 1.2 1.7 1.2 1.1 1.5 1.4 1.1 1.3 1.8 14.1
Sum 6.3 4.5 9.5 11.3 13.3 7.4 10.1 11 11.1 8.4 15.8
VALUATION FRAMING FOR STAKEHOLDERS USE OF SM IN BUSINESS

18. Results & Observations
• Organisational stakeholders value the use of social media for
internal business activities
• Organisational stakeholders feel the use of social media will have the
highest positive impact in the aspects of association, learning and
territoriality
• Organisational stakeholders feel it will negatively impact them in
regards to protection
• It appears that entry level positions place the highest positive value
for the use of social media for internal business activities.
• Contrary to anecdotal data, upper management appears to value
the use of social media for business activities
• Limitations
– Sample size
– Classification of job types

19. Summary
Research context
Increase in social media usage among the Internet population
Gradual and ad hoc introduction of SM into business
What has been done:
Identified the value stakeholders place on SM use for internal
business activities
What is next:
Further analysis of the use of SM tools with internal business
activities to gain understanding of what social media is in
business and how best to introduce these tools
– Semi-structured interviews with organisations and customers will
be conducted for further analysis

20. Thank You
Q&A