Case study 1
Kira Morris
3/14/2015
Identify the people, organization, and technology factors responsible for slow adoption rates of internal corporate social networks. Incorporating social networking systems in a business setting doesn’t always work out as desired. There are a few factors as to why these systems don’t return on the investment put into them, and they are factors such as people’s habits, organization’s needs, and technology competition or issues. To begin identifying these factors, let’s start with why people won’t want to change what they’re used to. When a company begins using something like a new social network to try encouraging workers to collaborate in new ways, most of the time the workers don’t feel comfortable with the change. In a work area, it’s more common to collaborate with your colleague face-to-face or by sending emails, and having to learn how to use/navigate a new social networking program may prove to be nothing more than stressful. As for the factors of organization, it would be a burden to keep these systems up to date, and having to rely on them for organization may not end well if any details were missed/left out. A common complaint is that social media efforts are severely under-resourced, so gaining accurate, factual resources can be proved difficult (1). Not only would maintenance be an issue, but most companies also lack the capability to measure performance/value the network creates.
The other factors that may make adoption slow is technology itself. When it comes to interacting in work areas, it would seem more convenient to email what’s needed. If the company’s customers are used to emails or other forms of communication, incorporating a social media system may cause them to be discouraged. To add to this there is also a legal limitation to technological advancement in some organizations. “Legal approval is