Employee Social Capital: Formation via Social Technologies

1

Blogging and Micro-Blogging Inside a Large, High-Tech Corporation: Impacts on the Formation of Organizational Social Capital

Konstanze Alex-Brown, PhD

Results & discussion

Relevance & outlook

AG

EN

DA

Literature review

Methodology

Introduction

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Changes in the

formation of organization

al social capital

Case Study

Research

Corporate employee

blog &micro-blog

INTR

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Why this study?

http://iphonasia.com/?p=2664

Research gap revealed in literature:How do social media communication technologies used for internal (employee) communication change the ways in which organizational social capital is formed? Few studies.

Potential implications:

Find new ways to facilitate the generation of organizational social capitalImpact knowledge transfer efficiencyImpact firm’s ability to innovateChange managers’ ability to foster the creation of organizational social capitalChange employees’ ability to pursue common goals (M&A)Change employee online social networks

The perfect storm:Unique opportunity for research collaboration between industry and academia (Spilka, Gurak and Hill Duin, Clark, Winsor)Opportunity to position TC practitioners as communication strategists / leverage industry insights in TC curriculum (Spilka, Gurak and Hill Duin, Clark, Salvo and Rosinski)Very recent introduction of social media tools for employee communication at DellDell at forefront of social media use not only in IT industry but also overall

http://iphonasia.com/?p=2664

INTR

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Questions guiding this research

1. How do the corporate blog and micro-blog change the ways in which organizational social capital is generated at Dell?

2. How is the existence of the three dimensions of organizational social capital reflected in the information product of the two tools?

3. What are other indicators (beyond those defined in current scholarship) for measuring an increase in organizational social capital generated by the blog and micro-blog?

4. How does the formation of social capital as well as information and knowledge sharing differ on the blog versus on the micro-blog?

5. From a business perspective, what aspects of the blog and micro-blog are valued most by Dell’s leadership?

Network benefits & resources

LITER

ATU

RE R

EV

IEW

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Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

LITER

ATU

RE R

EV

IEW

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• Complement f2f networks

• Individualized networks vs. socialized communities

• Social communication tools create ties via knowledge exchange

• Archived information product

• Benefits resulting from social network relationships

• Firm’s ability to innovate via improved knowledge transfer

• People-centric• Social context• Motivational factors ▪

Organizational knowledge management

(Lesser, Prusak, Cohen, Davenport,

Dalkir, Rao, Hackos, Rockley)

▪ Social capital ▪ Organization

al social capital

(Granovetter, Coleman, Putnam, Portes, Burt, Lin,

Nahapiet and Ghoshal, Tsai and

Ghoshal, Okoli and Oh)

▪ Online social

structures (Dal Fiore,

Wellman, Wellman and Gulia, Gruzd,

Takhteyev, Resnick, Quan-Haase and

Wellman, Hampton)

▪ Blog▪ Micro-

blog (Clark, Gurak and Antonijevic, Hsu

and Lin, Okoli and Oh)

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Organizational social capital – three dimensions

Changes in structure

LITER

ATU

RE R

EV

IEW

(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998)

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Changes in relationships

Changes in common paradigm/knowledge

Changes in structure

LITER

ATU

RE R

EV

IEW

(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998)

Organizational social capital – three dimensions

IRB-approvedSigned NDA

Multi-method

case study

METH

OD

OLO

GY

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Context-sensitive

Mixed methodsHolistic

approachNot one measure

Online

survey

Interviews

Content analysis

METH

OD

OLO

GY

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Web analytics

STRUCTURAL DIMENSION

RELATIONAL DIMENSION

COGNITIVE DIMENSION

Multi-method case study

Follow the person and follow the text (Berkenkotter, 2006)• content evaluation between 2007 and 2011, final corpus assembly between Februrary and

May 2011. • interviews were conducted between August 2010 and February 2011;• the online survey was open to collect responses between October 2010 and February 2011;

RES

ULT

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Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

MICRO-BLOG

Change

Capital

Surplus

Change

Capital

Surplus

BLOG

13

RES

ULT

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1. Both tools do change the ways in which organizational social capital is formed at Dell.

2. The tools do this in different ways. Different activity streams can facilitate different dimensions of social capital.

3. The content analysis is a valuable tool for the measurement of organizational social capital and communicative instances can be used as indicators for the generation of organizational social capital.

4. Results can be used as tools to improve employee social media communication strategies.

5. Lack in leaders’ ability to articulate the tools’ business value.

Main trends in findings

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http://www.coeforict.org/resources/center-of-excellence-presentations-and-powerpoints/

Dell’s moderated blog: facilitating cognitive social capital

So Steve is our expert on VIS! I will contact him.

Steve

VIS solves problems

Great job, Steve!

Excellent, Steve!

Good talk, Steve!

Steve, how does VIS relate to vStart 50?

Controlled, moderated presentations

Presentation-tied comments/cheering

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Steve

VIS solves problems

Controlled, moderated presentations

RES

ULT

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nDell’s moderated blog: facilitating cognitive social capital


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http://www.networksolutions.com/blog/2009/04/event-review-social-matchbox-dc/

Nick D: Does anybody know an expert in virtualization? (1)

Sameer F: @Nick D check with @Carlos N from IT (2)

Tom G: We sold a full data center solution to a new customer. (1)

Gina A: @Tom G – Nice! (2)

Nick D: @Sameer F thanks! @Carlos N was very helpful. (3)

Katja B: @Sameer F your answer helped me too (4)

(3)

(4)

Dell’s un-moderated micro-blog: facilitating structural and relational social capital

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Dell’s un-moderated micro-blog: facilitating structural and relational social capital

RES

ULT

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Invit

ed c

ollea

ge to

par

ticipa

te

Conta

cted

coll

eagu

e ba

sed

on th

eir p

ost

Answer

ed c

ollea

gue's

que

stion

Forwar

ded

colle

ague

's qu

estio

n

Crowds

ourc

ed q

uest

ion

Met

f2f w

ith o

nline

con

tact

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

70

6062

51

30 30

8581

85

68 67

55

blog micro-blog

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RES

ULT

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nSurvey results – structural social capital

RES

ULT

S

0102030405060708090

57

6860

80

6254

47

80 8478

8580

7669

blog micro-blog

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Survey results – relational social capital

RES

ULT

S

Use D

ell l

angu

age

and

acro

nym

s

Readi

ng to

ol co

nten

t im

prov

es m

y fa

mili

arity

with

Del

l jar

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Readi

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ol co

nten

t im

prov

es m

y fa

mili

arity

with

Del

l cul

ture

Readi

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ol co

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t im

prov

es m

y ab

ility

to d

o m

y jo

b

Post

ed b

est p

ract

ices

Foun

d be

st p

ract

ices

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

47

6976

6459

94

52

65

76

67

7883

blog micro-blog

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Survey results – cognitive social capital

RES

ULT

S

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0

20

40

60

80

100

120

89

6172

7872

100

67

85

6271

Blog Micro-blog

Interview results –structural, relational and cognitive social capital

Structural SC Relational SC Cognitive SC

structural 27%

relational 9%cognitive 64%

Content analysis results: Sample blog posts

structural 80%

relational 10%

cognitive 10%

Content analysis results: Micro-blog - daily activity stream

structural 29%

relational 52%

cognitive 19%

Content analysis results: Micro-blog - topic discussion stream

Structural 39%

relational 30%

cognitive 31%

Content analysis results: Micro-blog - event reporting stream

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Content analysis results: blog/micro-blog activity streams

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Future research

opportunities

Academia &

industry

RELE

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NC

E/

OU

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OK

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BeginningsMore

researchExciting frontier

BeginningsMore

researchExciting frontier

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E/

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OK

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Relevance of results for industry and academia

Industry/DellWarranted investment in tools that facilitate the generation of organizational social capital

Tools are not redundant but fulfill different purposes

Targeted improvements to internal social media communication strategies (activity streams)

Equip managers with tools to foster all three dimensions of organizational social capital

Improve infrastructure for knowledge sharing (innovation)

Improved understanding of how the blog and micro-blog facilitate organizational social capital to improve new employee integration (M&A)

RELE

VA

NC

E/

OU

TLO

OK

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Relevance of results for industry and academia

Academia/Technical CommunicationNew knowledge regarding organizational social capital theory from the perspective of technical communication

New knowledge regarding the use of social communications technologies inside of a global, high-tech organization. (Gurak and Hill Duin, 2004)

Position the technical communication practitioner as communication strategist/leader in digital literacy/pioneer in the digital revolution (Spilka, 2010)

First-hand insights into use of social communication technologies in industry help to prepare students for jobs

Content analysis as viable tool for organizational social capital research

New, early concept for positioning online social structures on a continuum between purely social and purely individual control

RELE

VA

NC

E/

OU

TLO

OK

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Study limitations & research opportunitiesLimitations

Single case study at one organization

Content analysis was experimental, categories need to be validated, single content rater

Corpus of data is relatively small, different activity streams or different data parsing methods could yield different results

Potential bias of researcher (Dell employee)

Research opportunitiesReplicate the case study at another organization for validation

Develop content analysis further, refine categories as viable tool for organizational social capital research

Assess cultural and linguistic impact on tool use

Further develop new concept for positioning online social structures on a continuum between purely social and purely individual control

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Futu

re R

ese

arc

h

Anschuetz, L. & Rosenbaum, S. (2002) Chapter 9: Expanding roles for technical communicators. Reshaping technical communication: New directions and challenges for the 21st century. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Baehr, C., & Alex-Brown, K. (2010b). Assessing the value of corporate blogs: A social capital perspective. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 53, 358-369. Berkenkotter, C. (2002). Chapter 3: Analysis Everyday Texts in Organizational Settings, 47-65. In Gurak, L. & Lay, M. (Eds.) (2002). Research in technical communication. Westport, CT: Praeger.Burt, R. (2005). Brokerage and closure : An introduction to social capital. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Chen, D., & Hu, N. (2007). Corporate blogging and firm performance: An empirical study. International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing, 1-15, 6158-6161.Clark, D. (2010). Shaped and shaping tools: The rhetorical nature of technical communication technologies. Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. Routledge.Cohen, D., & Prusak, L. (2001). In good company: How social capital makes organizations work. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.Coleman, J. (1988a). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 94, Supplement: Organizations and Institutions: Sociological and Economic Approaches to the Analysis of Social Structure (1988), 94, S95-S120.Dalkir, K. (2005). Knowledge management in theory and practice. Amterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.Davenport T. & Prusak, L. (2000). Working knowledge. How organizations manage what they know. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press.Davidson, E., & Vaast, E. (2007). Tech Talk: An investigation of blogging in technology innovation discourse. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 52(1), 40-60.Fiore, F. D. (2007). Communities versus networks: The implications on innovation and social change. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 857-866. Granovetter, M. S. (1973) The strength of weak ties. The American Journal of Sociology, 78, 6, 1360-1380.Gruzd, A., Wellman, B., & Takhteyev, Y. (2011). A research primer for technical communication : methods, exemplars, and analyses. Special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist on Imagined Communities.Gurak, L., & Antonijevic, S. (2008c). The psychology of blogging: You, me, and everyone in between. American Behavioral Scientist, 52, 60-68. Gurak, L., & Duin, A. H. (2004). The impact of the internet and digital technologies on teaching and research in technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 13(2), 187-198. Hackos, J. (2007). Information development. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing Inc.Hampton, K., & Wellman, B. (2001). Long distance community in the network society: Contact and support beyond netville. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 476-495. Hsu, C., & Lin, J. (2007). Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation. Information & Management, 45(1), 65-74. Lesser, E. & L. Prussak (Eds.) (2004). Creating value with knowledge. New York: Oxford University PressLesser, E. (2000). Knowledge and social capital: Foundations and applications. Boston; Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.Lin, N. (2008). Social capital : A theory of social structure and action (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Longo, B. (2010). Human + machine culture: Where we work. Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice. Routledge.Miller, C. & Shepherd, D. (2003) Blogging as social action: A genre analysis of the weblog. Into the Blogsphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. The Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242-266.Ojala, M. (2005). Blogging: For knowledge sharing, management and dissemination. Business Information Review, 22(4), 269-276. Okoli, C., & Oh, W. (2007). Investigating recognition-based performance in an open content community: A social capital perspective. Information & Management, 44(3), 240-252. Portes, A. (1998) Social Capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1-24Prusak, L. & Cohen, D. (2001) How to invest in social capital. Harvard Business Review, 79 (6), 86-93, 147.Prusak, L. (1997). Knowledge in organizations. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.Putnam, R. (2000) Blowing alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster:Rao, M. (Ed.) Knowledge management tools and techniques. (pp. 185-196) Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heineman.Rao, Madanmohan. (2005). Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heineman.Rockley, A. (2003). Managing enterprise content : A unified content strategy (1st ed.). Indianapolis IN.: New Riders.Spilka, Rachel. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication : 21st century theory and practice. New York: Routledge.Tsai, W. & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital and value creation: The role of intrafirm networks. The Academy of Management Journal, 41(4), 464-476.Van Deth, J. (2003). Measuring social capital: Orthodoxies and continuing controversies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 6(1), 79-92. Wellman, B. (2001). Does the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement social capital? Social networks, participation, and community commitment. American Behavioral Scientist (45), 3, 436 – 455.Wellman, B., Haase, A. Q., Witte, J., & Hampton, K. (2001). Does the internet increase, decrease, or supplement social capital? Social networks, participation, and community commitment. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 436-455. Winsor, D. (2001). Learning to do knowledge work in systems of distributed cognition. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15(1), 5-28.

Texas Tech University28

References

BACKUP

Texas Tech University29 7/25/2014

METH

OD

OLO

GY


Dimensions of organizational social capital structuring research methods Dimension of Organizational Social Capital

STRUCTURAL

Examine whether connections to other employees can be made via the blog/micro-blog

RELATIONAL Examine whether relational assets can change via the use of the blog/micro-blog

COGNITIVE Examine how the blog/micro-blog helps to build a shared paradigm among users

METH

OD

OLO

GY


Research participants / data corpusSurvey

participants

Recruitment:Link to survey on blog and micro-blogRespondents- 60GlobalCross-functionalDiverse Dell tenureDiverse seniority

Interview

participants

Recruitment:Via emailInterviewees- Blog 18- Micro-blog 15GlobalCross-functionalDiverse Dell tenureDiverse seniority

Information

product

Blog - Subset of monthly activity streamMicro-blog- Daily activity stream- Topic discussion stream- Event reporting stream

1. How do the corporate blog and micro-blog change the ways in which organizational social capital is generated at Dell?

– Survey, interviews and content analysis confirm changes in structural, relational and cognitive social capital› Structural ties are generated by use of both tools via communication

based on content found in the information product

› Relations change via use of both tools

› Common knowledge is generated via use of both tools

2. How is the existence of the three dimensions of organizational social capital reflected in the information product of the two tools?

– Content analysis shows patterns of communicative activity between employees that indicate that new connections are formed, relationships are deepened and common knowledge is created

› directly addressing an individual, seeking a connection with another employee based on his/her comment or visible subject matter expertise, responding or acknowledging information being shared, forwarding a another user’s query to someone who might have the answer, answers to questions (crowdsourcing)

Results: research questions


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3. What are other indicators (beyond those defined in current scholarship) for measuring an increase in organizational social capital generated by the blog and micro-blog?

– The content analysis is a valuable tool for the measurement of organizational social capital and communicative instances can be used as indicators for the generation of organizational social capital.

– Patterns of instances of communicative activity allow for a very detailed assessment of specific usage models within the tools that cannot be extracted via survey or interview methods.

4. How does the formation of organizational social capital as well as information and knowledge sharing differ on the blog versus on the micro-blog?

– Blog: information dissemination with limited author/audience and audience/audience engagement – great for diffusion of a common paradigm to aide the organization in enabling employees to pursue common goals

– Micro-blog: making connections, deepening relationships with high employee engagement – very flexible tool with multiple usage models yielding different levels of organizational social capital formation

5. From a business perspective, what aspects of the blog and micro-blog are valued most by Dell’s leadership?

– Very limited responses mostly due to limited understanding of the exact value of the tools. Assessing the value the leadership places on these tools will take further research.

Results: research questions


RES

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Structural28%

Relational34%

Cognitive38%

Survey results: BlogStructural

33%

Relational35%

Cognitive32%

Survey results: Micro-blog

Survey and interview results – relative distribution of structural, relational and cognitive social capital

Structural34%

Relational32%

Cognitive34%

Interview results: Blog

Structural36%

Relational36%

Cognitive28%

Interview results: Micro-blog

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ULT

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Social Media

Employee Social Capital: Formation via Social Technologies