Social Media At Work – overview
Lecture 1a – The networked organisation
Socio-materiality = the entanglement of the social and the material in everyday
organizational life.
o It integrates human/socio-centric and techno-centric views of the use and effects
of information technologies in organizations and society as a whole, this is called
constitutive entanglement.
o Constitutive entanglement = humans and technology are intrinsically linked and
influence each other.
Theory of modernity = reduction of space-time, dis embedding of social systems,
increased reflexivity (reason over tradition) and information technology revolution.
o Little boxes (1900) = a few groups with clear boundaries, hierarchically and
structured, social activity is bounded by place and time, mainly face-to-face
(door-to-door).
o Glocalization (1960-2000) = the combination of intense local and extensive
global interaction, place-to-place connectivity, people operate more
independently of their surrounded environment.
o Networked individualism (21st century) = people are connected as individuals
rather than being rooted in groups, weak ties become increasingly important,
person-to-person connectivity.
Determinism vs. constructivism
o Hardcore determinism = technology has direct and certain impact, it can only be
used in one certain way.
o Hardcore constructivism = people & context determine technology’s meaning,
uses and outcomes. Focus on cognitive processes through which people develop
their understandings of the world.
Technological relativism = does not account for technological features.
Technological determinism = technology gives structure to human thought and
behaviour, it determines social change. It is an autonomous force and not neutral.
Views on technology
o Dystopian = moral panics: media as causal agents of bad things occurring in
society, as a threat to societal values
o Utopian = media as causal agents of good things occurring in society, as the
motor of positive change
Social constructivism = technology is structured by human thought and behaviour, it
isn’t an autonomous force, it is neutral and ‘written’ by inventors and ‘interpreted’ by
users.
Sociomateriality provides the linking pin between determinism and constructivism and
acknowledges interplay between people and technology.
Adaptive structuration theory (AST) = models the way in which technology is adapted to
an organisation and organisational structures adapt to the technology. Advanced
Information Technologies (AITs) bring certain structures to life, but these need to ‘blend
in’ with existing organizational practices.
Technological affordances = affordances are perceptions of an object’s materiality
Lecture 1b – Enterprise social media
Affordance = perceptions of an object’s utility, its possibilities for enabling (&
constraining) human action.
o Functional – enable and constrain action
, o Relational/social – learned in interaction, need to be perceived to become active
o Not always visible – become visible after use
o Contextual – depend on context (learned by socialization)
Affordances of social media
o Visibility = social media makes information visible
o Associations = social media has the ability to form/create/maintain a network
o Editability = everyone can edit whenever they want (not bounded to place/time)
o Persistence = sustaining knowledge overtime (reviewability/permanence)
Enterprise social media = social media use for exclusively inside of organisations
Lecture 2 – Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) theories
Computer mediated communication theories
o Social presence theory = the degree to which you feel that the person is actually
there, everything below FTF communication is bad (lack of social context cues).
o Media richness theory = communication theories can be classified based on
poor/rich communication. There should be a match between the task and the
medium.
o Social Identity Model of Deindividuation effects (SIDE) = how social groups
interact with each other, helps us understand media and media effects.
Social identity theory = anonymity in the crowd leads to a shift from a
personal identity to a social identity. This leads to a stronger
identification with and adherence to the norms of the social group
Deindividuation theory = a lack of awareness for one’s own (and other
people’s) self-identity due to anonymity, this results in decreased
adherence to social norms.
o Social information processing theory (SIP) = addresses conversational
behaviours that affect interpersonal relations in the absence of nonverbal cues.
People are intrinsically motivated to; reduce interpersonal uncertainty, form
impressions of one another and develop affinity.
CMC has less non-verbal cues than FTF, therefore it takes longer for
relationships to develop.
o Hyperpersonal model = observation that sometimes more intimate social
relationships develop more rapidly online than offline.
Conversational contingency = the degree to which responses over the course of a
conversation implicitly refer and relate to the content of prior statements.
Response latency = the time interval between the message sent and the reply appeared
Lecture 3 – Social media & employee commitment
Organizational identification = the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an
organisation, the individual defines itself in terms of the organization.
Two functions of identification:
o Self-enhancement = to gain and preserve a positive self-image.
o Self-categorization = specific persons that are representative for the group.
Organizational identity = members’ shared beliefs about the organization’s central,
enduring, and distinctive characteristics.
Lecture 4 – Virtual teams
Virtual team = a group of people that work together on a common task, independent
from geographical and temporal boundaries, supported by information and
communication technologies.
Lecture 1a – The networked organisation
Socio-materiality = the entanglement of the social and the material in everyday
organizational life.
o It integrates human/socio-centric and techno-centric views of the use and effects
of information technologies in organizations and society as a whole, this is called
constitutive entanglement.
o Constitutive entanglement = humans and technology are intrinsically linked and
influence each other.
Theory of modernity = reduction of space-time, dis embedding of social systems,
increased reflexivity (reason over tradition) and information technology revolution.
o Little boxes (1900) = a few groups with clear boundaries, hierarchically and
structured, social activity is bounded by place and time, mainly face-to-face
(door-to-door).
o Glocalization (1960-2000) = the combination of intense local and extensive
global interaction, place-to-place connectivity, people operate more
independently of their surrounded environment.
o Networked individualism (21st century) = people are connected as individuals
rather than being rooted in groups, weak ties become increasingly important,
person-to-person connectivity.
Determinism vs. constructivism
o Hardcore determinism = technology has direct and certain impact, it can only be
used in one certain way.
o Hardcore constructivism = people & context determine technology’s meaning,
uses and outcomes. Focus on cognitive processes through which people develop
their understandings of the world.
Technological relativism = does not account for technological features.
Technological determinism = technology gives structure to human thought and
behaviour, it determines social change. It is an autonomous force and not neutral.
Views on technology
o Dystopian = moral panics: media as causal agents of bad things occurring in
society, as a threat to societal values
o Utopian = media as causal agents of good things occurring in society, as the
motor of positive change
Social constructivism = technology is structured by human thought and behaviour, it
isn’t an autonomous force, it is neutral and ‘written’ by inventors and ‘interpreted’ by
users.
Sociomateriality provides the linking pin between determinism and constructivism and
acknowledges interplay between people and technology.
Adaptive structuration theory (AST) = models the way in which technology is adapted to
an organisation and organisational structures adapt to the technology. Advanced
Information Technologies (AITs) bring certain structures to life, but these need to ‘blend
in’ with existing organizational practices.
Technological affordances = affordances are perceptions of an object’s materiality
Lecture 1b – Enterprise social media
Affordance = perceptions of an object’s utility, its possibilities for enabling (&
constraining) human action.
o Functional – enable and constrain action
, o Relational/social – learned in interaction, need to be perceived to become active
o Not always visible – become visible after use
o Contextual – depend on context (learned by socialization)
Affordances of social media
o Visibility = social media makes information visible
o Associations = social media has the ability to form/create/maintain a network
o Editability = everyone can edit whenever they want (not bounded to place/time)
o Persistence = sustaining knowledge overtime (reviewability/permanence)
Enterprise social media = social media use for exclusively inside of organisations
Lecture 2 – Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) theories
Computer mediated communication theories
o Social presence theory = the degree to which you feel that the person is actually
there, everything below FTF communication is bad (lack of social context cues).
o Media richness theory = communication theories can be classified based on
poor/rich communication. There should be a match between the task and the
medium.
o Social Identity Model of Deindividuation effects (SIDE) = how social groups
interact with each other, helps us understand media and media effects.
Social identity theory = anonymity in the crowd leads to a shift from a
personal identity to a social identity. This leads to a stronger
identification with and adherence to the norms of the social group
Deindividuation theory = a lack of awareness for one’s own (and other
people’s) self-identity due to anonymity, this results in decreased
adherence to social norms.
o Social information processing theory (SIP) = addresses conversational
behaviours that affect interpersonal relations in the absence of nonverbal cues.
People are intrinsically motivated to; reduce interpersonal uncertainty, form
impressions of one another and develop affinity.
CMC has less non-verbal cues than FTF, therefore it takes longer for
relationships to develop.
o Hyperpersonal model = observation that sometimes more intimate social
relationships develop more rapidly online than offline.
Conversational contingency = the degree to which responses over the course of a
conversation implicitly refer and relate to the content of prior statements.
Response latency = the time interval between the message sent and the reply appeared
Lecture 3 – Social media & employee commitment
Organizational identification = the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an
organisation, the individual defines itself in terms of the organization.
Two functions of identification:
o Self-enhancement = to gain and preserve a positive self-image.
o Self-categorization = specific persons that are representative for the group.
Organizational identity = members’ shared beliefs about the organization’s central,
enduring, and distinctive characteristics.
Lecture 4 – Virtual teams
Virtual team = a group of people that work together on a common task, independent
from geographical and temporal boundaries, supported by information and
communication technologies.
