Activating the Tools of Social Media for Innovative Collaboration in the Enterprise

The use of social media tools in the enterprise is expanding rapidly and yet, firms are still unclear about the overall value of this activity and how best to facilitate useful outcomes. The focus of this book is, from a managerial standpoint, the control of information, the extent to which such tools can enhance employee satisfaction and how best to use social media tools to attain specific outcomes including innovative collaboration. As companies turn to IT solutions as substitutes for face-to-face engagements, an understanding of the social dynamics - how employees can best communicate, find and use information and generate motivation through computer-mediated activities is fundamental. Lingering questions relate to the strategic use of these tools; many large companies are using Facebook-like applications due to employee demand, but are not studying outcomes comprehensively or managing processes to create desired outcomes. This book fills this knowledge gap through examining the process and results of a controlled study in two companies, one in the US and the other in China. In each company "wiki challenges" were introduced to employees who were provided guidelines to produce goal-oriented outcomes. The book examine the results in each case and suggest guidelines for firms to achieve "wiki-readiness" to support innovation and co-creation.

Introduction.
Field Research Methods.
Findings.
Tools for Use of Social Media for Collaborative Innovation.
Contributions.
References.

Ann Majchrzak is Professor of Information and Operations Management at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Ann studies how information systems can support worker agility and ingenuity in collaborative settings. She has investigated information systems support for distributed teams, knowledge-sharing and creation, and corporate wiki use. Elizabeth Fife is Associate Director of Industry Studies at the Institute for Communications Technology Management at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Dr. Fife studies user behaviour and adoption of IT and mobile technologies and devices, development and ICTs, and telecommunications industry trends. Qingfei Min is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Management and Economics at Dalian University of Technology in China. Qingfei studies IT/IS implementation and adoption in organizations, e-commerce/m-commerce adoption and strategies, global virtual team management, and IT/IS outsourcing. Francis Pereira is currently Adjunct Professor in the Information & Operations Department, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. His research has focused on key business issues in the information-communication industry, particularly telehealth, business models in the new multimedia environment and the effects of emerging technologies on these business models.