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Social Media Networking Tools (SMNT): Concepts,
Challenges and Corollaries of Organisational Work
Practices
Aurilla Aurelie Bechina 1 and Eli Hustad 2
1
Buskerud University College, Faculty of Technology, Kongsberg, Norway
2
University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
aurillaa@hibu.no
eli.hustad@uia.no
Abstract: During the last decade, enterprise strategists started to recognize that business success and
performance improvement was more and more related to the degree to which new technological trends were
used in the organisations. Indeed, the role of the information communication technologies has increased in
improving the social and business life of people. Internet and Web 2.0 has brought a revolution in the way people
are interacting with each others. Although that several benefits have been reported in using social network for
business processes improvement; there is still a stringent need to investigate more closely the implication of
using social technologies in organisational work practices. This conceptual paper based on a literature review
intends to shed a light on the concepts, opportunities and challenges of social networking tools in business
practices. The paper outlines a framework encompassing factors that could facilitate or hamper the adoption of
the Web 2.0 technologies by organisations.
Keywords: Web 2.0, social networking, networks of practice, knowledge sharing, Enterprise2.0, Folksonomies
1. Introduction
The advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have influenced on the emergence
of the contemporary networking society based upon a decentralized, information-driven and
knowledge-based economy (Castells, 2000).
The evolution of Internet as a large scale information infrastructure provides opportunities for social
networking where individuals take part in online communication to share information and knowledge
across spatial and temporal boundaries.
Internet technologies and web-based applications are continuously developing and advancing. This
innovation has caused improved usability attracting several communities to popular online activities.
Individuals make new friendships differently than before by sharing personal profiles (e.g.
Facebook.com), exchanging multimedia files (YouTube.com) and by taking part in virtual games
(WorldofWarCraft.com). People share common interests by participating in different discussion forums
and by making their own blogs. Furthermore, Wikis are increasingly used for easy creation and
frequently updating of information content at web-sites (e.g. Wikipedia). People are making and
sharing their own metadata in terms of social tagging and bookmarks (i.e. Folksonomies). Scholars
and practitioners alike suggest that these contemporary trends of Internet development represent a
paradigm shift towards the second generation of the web conceptualized as the Web 2.0
phenomenon (Musser & O’Reilly, 2006).
While Web 2.0 in terms of social networking technologies is widely applied among people within their
private life for amusing purposes, for meeting new friends and for pursuing and discussing common
hobbies within their leisure time, there is a still a need to further investigate whether social media
could improve the organisational work practices.
The last couple of years, several research studies discussing the new trends based on the usage of
social media within business context have been published (Grossman & McCarthy, 2007; Harrison &
Thomas, 2009; Sau-ling, 2010). However, there are still too little investigations done on the corollaries
of the usage social media technologies on organisational work practices.
This conceptual paper aims to discuss the Web 2.0 perspectives related to business context. For
instance, the main principle of self organizing which social networking build upon may challenge the
traditional organizational ontology in terms of structural, cultural and managerial perceptions. This
paper discusses important challenges and opportunities that Web 2.0 may bring along within an
organizational context.
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