Creating and Sharing Knowledge through a Corporate Social Networking Site: The Impact of Employees' Perceptions on Effectiveness

<p>This research investigates the perceptions of employees at South Winds (the pseudonym), a software engineering company, about using a corporate social networking site for sharing and generating knowledge. It focuses on understanding and explaining how the perceptions of employees from different organisational levels impacted on the usage of the social networking site. Methods of data collection included interviews and focus groups with C-level managers, middle managers and software engineers. Qualitative methods were used for analysing the collected data. Analysis drew on an extended Orlikowski and Gash's technological frames theory (1994) to identify five categories of perceptions relating to technology implementation and use. Applying the concept of framing in this study helped to surface specific areas within which divergence of perceptions occurred. Results showed significant divergences in perceptions about the corporate social networking site in 4 out of the 5 categories across the different levels of the organization. These divergences were found to have arisen largely as a result of information deficiencies. Furthermore, little understanding about the nature of the technology led top management to decide to use an adoption approach that discouraged knowledge sharing and creation through this tool. As a consequence, this study found that there appeared to be little likelihood of creating or sharing knowledge through the corporate social networking site under the observed implementation, although the corporate social networking site was widely perceived as a useful technology for sharing and creating knowledge. Recommendations for realizing potential benefits from using a corporate social networking site include developing plans for aligning organizational perceptions about the corporate social networking site and developing a suitable reward plan based on group performance in order to encourage the employees to create/share knowledge. The findings of this research suggest an extension of the Orlikowski and Gash's (1994) technological frames theory for knowledge management systems. This research also suggests that perceptions about different aspects of a technology may be arranged in a hierarchical chain. This would bring significant implications in designing and implementing technologies.</p>

Creating and Sharing Knowledge through a Corporate Social Networking Site: The Impact of Employees' Perceptions on Effectiveness

<p>This research investigates the perceptions of employees at South Winds (the pseudonym), a software engineering company, about using a corporate social networking site for sharing and generating knowledge. It focuses on understanding and explaining how the perceptions of employees from different organisational levels impacted on the usage of the social networking site. Methods of data collection included interviews and focus groups with C-level managers, middle managers and software engineers. Qualitative methods were used for analysing the collected data. Analysis drew on an extended Orlikowski and Gash's technological frames theory (1994) to identify five categories of perceptions relating to technology implementation and use. Applying the concept of framing in this study helped to surface specific areas within which divergence of perceptions occurred. Results showed significant divergences in perceptions about the corporate social networking site in 4 out of the 5 categories across the different levels of the organization. These divergences were found to have arisen largely as a result of information deficiencies. Furthermore, little understanding about the nature of the technology led top management to decide to use an adoption approach that discouraged knowledge sharing and creation through this tool. As a consequence, this study found that there appeared to be little likelihood of creating or sharing knowledge through the corporate social networking site under the observed implementation, although the corporate social networking site was widely perceived as a useful technology for sharing and creating knowledge. Recommendations for realizing potential benefits from using a corporate social networking site include developing plans for aligning organizational perceptions about the corporate social networking site and developing a suitable reward plan based on group performance in order to encourage the employees to create/share knowledge. The findings of this research suggest an extension of the Orlikowski and Gash's (1994) technological frames theory for knowledge management systems. This research also suggests that perceptions about different aspects of a technology may be arranged in a hierarchical chain. This would bring significant implications in designing and implementing technologies.</p>

Technological and informational frames: explaining age-related variation in the use of patient accessible electronic health records as technology and information

PurposeData from a national patient survey (N = 1,155) of the Swedish PAEHR “Journalen” users were analysed, and an extended version of the theory of technological frames was developed to explain the variation in the technological and informational framing of information technologies found in the data.Design/methodology/approachPatient Accessible Electronic Health Records (PAEHRs) are implemented globally to address challenges with an ageing population. However, firstly, little is known about age-related variation in PAEHR use, and secondly, user perceptions of the PAEHR technology and the health record information and how the technology and information–related perceptions are linked to each other. The purpose of this study is to investigate these two under-studied aspects of PAEHRs and propose a framework based on the theory of technological frames to support studying the second aspect, i.e. the interplay of information and technology–related perceptions.FindingsThe results suggest that younger respondents were more likely to be interested in PAEHR contents for general interest. However, they did not value online access to the information as high as older ones. Older respondents were instead inclined to use medical records information to understand their health condition, prepare for visits, become involved in their own healthcare and think that technology has a much potential. Moreover, the oldest respondents were more likely to consider the information in PAEHRs useful and aimed for them but to experience the technology as inherently difficult to use.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample excludes non-users and is not a representative sample of the population of Sweden. However, although the data contain an unknown bias, there are no specific reasons to believe that it would differently affect the survey's age groups.Practical implicationsAge should be taken into account as a key factor that influences perceptions of the usefulness of PAEHRs. It is also crucial to consider separately patients' views of PAEHRs as a technology and of the information contained in the EHR when developing and evaluating existing and future systems and information provision for patients.Social implicationsThis study contributes to bridging the gap between information behaviour and systems design research by showing how the theory of technological frames complemented with parallel informational frames to provide a potentially powerful framework for elucidating distinct conceptualisations of (information) technologies and the information they mediate. The empirical findings show how information and information technology needs relating to PAEHRs vary according to age. In contrast to the assumptions in much of the earlier work, they need to be addressed separately.Originality/valueFew earlier studies focus on (1) age-related variation in PAEHR use and (2) user perceptions of the PAEHR technology and the health record information and how the technology and information–related perceptions are linked to each other.

NOT NATURAL, NOR NEUTRAL: THE CULTURAL CONFIGURATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AFFORDANCES WITHIN CHILEAN INFLUENCER INDUSTRY

This paper explores the configurations of social media’s affordances within the Chilean influencer industry. Chile has a growing number of professional social media influencers who blur global norms and local markets, working with both local brands and international campaigns. We argue for situating affordances within a wider context in which the features of platforms acquire particular meanings. Our analysis focuses on two dynamics. On the one hand, we examine how the Chilean influencer industry is shaped by a technological frame (Bijker, 1995) that structures the valence of affordances. We show that affordances are not “naturally” or “neutrally” imagined by actors but rather culturally located within technological frames that shape the discourses, values, and practices from which they obtain cultural meaning. On the other hand, we analyze how affordances provide a material support for the temporal and spatial expansion of technological frames. Thus, cultural contexts and platforms’ features mutually constitute each other in ways that have not always been recognized in the scholarly literature about affordances. We situate negotiations about what it means to be an influencer in Chile, the role of intermediaries (e.g. branding agencies), communication with followers, and the global influencer industry as part of this mutually constitutive relationship.

Apathy, convenience or irrelevance? Identifying conceptual barriers to safeguarding children’s data privacy

This article explores conceptual barriers to protecting children’s personal information in relation to online commercial data practices. It does this by using Vedder’s conceptual categories of privacy to identify and position parents’ and teenagers’ concepts of privacy within interpersonal, institutional and commercial data terrains. Drawing from qualitative interviews, the analysis shows that parents’ and teenagers’ conceptualise privacy in terms of the private/public dimension and that their conceptualisations of the consumer–corporate relationship, and corporations themselves, prohibited any concern for their decisional and informational privacy. As their conceptualisations of privacy harms were embedded within social rather than technological frames, this precluded motivation to protect children’s data privacy. This research argues that without a conceptual shift in the way we think about privacy and privacy harms, we need to question whether the logics of neoliberalism can effectively address children’s data privacy.