Social Networking Sites In The Work Environment Developing - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Social Networking Sites In The Work Environment

Developing criteria for successful application

André Calero Valdez Anne Kathrin Schaar Martina Ziefle

Agenda

• Demographic change and changes in

employment biographies

• Social Networking Sites (SNS)
• Two phase Study - Criteria for SNS

Agenda

• Demographic change and changes in

employment biographies

• Social Networking Sites (SNS)
• Two phase Study - Criteria for SNS

Demographic Change

• Experienced workers

who retire take their knowledge with them

• In 2030 workforce size

will shrink dramatically

• Why is this a problem

and how can we compensate for this loss?

retirement age

Skill Shortage

• retirement of baby boomers
• changes in employment biographies
• shift to project work
• short-term contracting
• temporary employment
• parental leave

New Innovation Requirements

• fast information interchange, resource

allocation, training of new employees

• conservation of business critical

information

• flexible working hours, international

business relationships

Agenda

• Demographic change and changes in

employment biographies

• Social Networking Sites (SNS)
• Two phase Study - Criteria for SNS

What is a SNS?

• For instance: Facebook
• web-platform which allows users to

connect each other

• communication platform
• allows group forming

SNS Benefits

• SNS can be used to satisfy these new

innovation requirements

• conserve information (on the fly)
• flexible worldwide access
• support different ways of communication

SNS Usefulness

• n - network size
• value of the network:
• Metcalf‘s law: n²
• all possible connections
• Reed‘s law: cⁿ
• sub-networks multiply value
• Dunbar‘s # - brain can handle 150 relationships
• value depends on # of active participants

Get employees to use it!

Important Criteria

• user diversity: age, gender, technical

expertise

• barrier‘s and motives like privacy, control,

functional scope, relationship topology

• percieved usefulness, percieved ease of

use

• How do people use SNS already?

Agenda

• Demographic change and changes in

employment biographies

• Social Networking Sites (SNS)
• Two phase Study - Criteria for SNS

Two Phase Study

• qualitative focus group (n=10)
• IT-related employees (ages 25-45)
• high adoption of private use (i.e. Facebook)
• important for SNS success were:
• variety of communication media (IM, email, SNS)
• depending on context of communication
• voluntariness of use (in small organizations)
• strong company policy (in big organizations)

Questionnaire

• online survey with preselected target

audience

• independent variables
• demographic data
• company size and hierarchy position
• private social media usage

Dependent Variables

• amount of interaction with relationships

(on-/offline)

• media preferences for 10 scenarios
• type of media: vis-á-vis, phone, mobile,

texting, email, IM, SNS

• context: with whom + topic

Results

• n = 194 (♂/♀=1), Mage= 31.9 SDage= 9.9

Social Media Usage

• Average # of relationships equal

Social Media Usage

• Women interact with bigger proportion of

relationships

• self-reported
• pon<.01 poff<.05
• male online

♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♂ ♂ ♂

Social Media Usage

• Women interact with bigger proportion of

relationships

• self-reported
• pon<.01 poff<.05
• female online

♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♂ ♂ ♂

Social Media Usage

• Women interact with bigger proportion of

relationships

• self-reported
• pon<.01 poff<.05
• male offline

♂ ♂ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♀ ♀ ♂

Social Media Usage

• Women interact with bigger proportion of

relationships

• self-reported
• pon<.01 poff<.05
• female offline

♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀

Media Preference

• with customers

Media Preference

• with colleagues about private matters

Influence of Age

• Age has a strong influence on SNS usage

preference (older users = less SNS preference)

• Age has a strong influence on private

communication

subordinates

Size and Hierarchy

• bigger companies
• use less texting, IM, SNS
• communicate less often with their

subordinates

• communicate less often privately
• employees that have a higher hierarchy

position communicate less often in general

Conclusion

• A SNS for the work environment should allow

different media for different purposes.

• „Call now“ button for customers
• „Send text“ button for colleagues that are your friends
• Bigger companies require more formalized

means of communication along with informal means.

• A SNS site must be able to reflect company

hierarchies.

Thank you for your attention!