Public Relation Practitioners, Independency, and Teamwork in the UAE Organizations

This study includes topics related to social networking and teamwork in the United Arab Emirates organizations. The paper focuses on different concepts including the meaning of teamwork, formal and informal teamwork, and social teamwork challenges. Several key issues to be addressed are evaluating network communication in business, teamwork rewards, and scopes in the UAE business organizations. The research method utilized is a structural interview and focus group that includes 14 Public Relations practitioners in different public and private organizations. The researcher developed specific questions, such as: What are the challenges that face Public Relations practitioners when developing teamwork for social networking? Do leaders respect social network teams? Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of social network teams? One of the research goals is to investigate PR employees and their adaptation of teamwork in local organizations, collaborations, and virtual and social networking. The study concludes with many behavioral and PR employees’ thoughts, such as a preference of informal teamwork as it relates to the organizational environment. Consequently, if the managers offer motivation and job satisfaction, the teamwork will accrue.

Exploiting Technological Potentialities for Collaborative New Product Development

By contrast, empirical studies show that there are many large and small companies which do not grasp the opportunities provided by the customers’ contribution. This is due to a number of inhibiting factors that represent barriers for the collaborative innovation. This chapter aims firstly to delineate and validate some of these constraints by using the insights coming out from a case study and secondly to suggest a possible solution in order to overpass some of the barriers identified and to exploit the customers’ knowledge acquired on the web.

Analysis of Social Media in Administration

This chapter analyzes some case studies about social media in organizations’ administration. To do this, social media’s epistemological base will be introduced, considering contributions from the subject of organizational behavior. The importance of this discipline is that it brings together social sciences points of view (social psychology, sociology and anthropology). After this, views will be presented regarding the mathematical nature of social media. In this part, the internet’s influence on social media will also be discussed, for it has contributed to a new common sense, and it is responsible for social media popularity. Finally, how social media interferes in organizations will be attested to, as well as how it can be managed. In order to help the understanding of such knowledge, a survey will be introduced, with articles related to organizational practices in social media.

Social Networks in the Higher Education Framework- Understanding the University as an Organization

Recent studies are focusing on how social networks impact the learning process and how students organize themselves to face collaborative tasks via these networks, as well as their impact on the learning outcomes of the students. In a number of these studies, learning social aspects are analyzed, showing, among other issues of interest, that participating in social networks positively affects students’ self-esteem. In this article it is shown how this applies to the university model being adopted in Europe. Nowadays, the student is limited by the class and by the restricted group of people enrolled in that same university degree. In which way can the university facilitate that students get to each other so that they can find aspects in common and therefore the set of relationships grows? This chapter shows how our university—Universidad de Almería, UAL—globalizes its campus providing access to every student, as well as how this social network is succeeding.

Understanding “Knowledge Management (KM) Paradigms” from Social Media Perspective

This paper aims at studying a discussion group/forum at one Professional Networking site (LinkedIn) for understanding and exemplifying “KM paradigms” such as humanist paradigm, inter/intra organizational paradigm, technological paradigm, and socio-technical paradigms from the perspective of social media. Discourse and content analysis techniques based on qualitative research methodology are used in this study in order to understand the perception of the current status and future direction of knowledge management discipline through these expert comments that include storytelling, and which are based on the experience of actors. The focus is on determining new offered term/label instead of knowledge management of these discourses for defining the knowledge management discipline or science accurately. As a result, the differences of perceptions among members that represent different (such as academics/educators and practitioners’) backgrounds are also aimed to be identified. At the end, we hope to exemplify how existing information is shared and new knowledge is developed with respect to a specifically selected, related topic, Knowledge management, among the members of a Professional Networking site. The results can also be useful for other related studies on social networks and their social and professional impacts.

Online Social and Business Networks’ Implications for Corporate Strategy

In this chapter we will raise the main challenges deriving from the increased use of online social and business networks and their impact on the way businesses are being done today. We believe that social and business networks are at the basis of a future revolution on management fundamentals, and we will emphasize in particular those concerned with strategy’s conception, implementation, and control.

The Influence of Social Networks on Communication Satisfaction within the Organizations

Today, technological achievements that significantly influence communication management are Social Networks in virtual environment. The latest research clearly indicates that this trend is going to last in the future. It is considered as a fact that there are many changes and innovations in the field of information and communication technologies during the past few decades. Development of communication technologies has provided a new framework for organizing corporate communication processes, both internally and externally. Channels for the transfer of relevant information had been faced with huge technological improvement, but fact analysis and former research do not provide insight into specific motivation patterns for usage of Social Networks among employees, nor into their influence on Communication Satisfaction within the organizations.

Valuating Business Social Networking Services as Intangible Corporate Assets

Services both as a science and as a practice in today’s corporate environments are seriously suffering from many different suboptimalities. Some of these suboptimalities are structural (lack of a coherent framework to apply the service), other metaphysical (lack of a supporting culture that would increase the demand and strengthen the market for the service) or of transcendal and ephemeral nature (lack of an appropriate technology to support the service idiosyncracies – can you imagine amazon.com without any Internet?). For some others, a framework that would comprise both organisational and technology aspects could be an answer to certain pitfalls and shortcomings currently faced. Whatever the context of a service, this does not exist in a vacuum; it is provided by people who are working in an organisation to customers that are part of a more or less structured part of the society.

From Social to Business Networks

Internet technology has undoubtedly revolutionised our personal and business lives, however “the ‘killer application’ of the internet turns out to be other human beings” (Kang, 2000, p. 1150). The fusion of the computer and mobile technologies has created a World Wide Web of computer networks, which have brought about limitless opportunities for communication (Rheingold, 2002) and collaboration among social entities (Weaver and Morrison, 2008). Social networks, apart from facilitating user-to-user social interaction, can be seen as a very effective business approach for entrepreneurs, business professionals, and companies (Dimicco et al., 2009). In this chapter we present distinct aspects of networks. Initially, we describe and define social networks, emphasizing upon their key characteristics. Subsequently, we review the different network types and we proposed a holistic network taxonomy based on four distinct dimensions: network focus, network openness, network orientation, and social space. Finally, we examine the strategic perspectives of social networks for business actors, while focusing on organisational benefits and associated risks.

Virtual Communities of Practice as a Support for Knowledge Sharing in Social Networks

Knowledge as a result of people’s interaction is an essential factor for organizations facing actual business complexity. Social networks, whose creation and usage have been facilitated from the development of information and communication technologies, improved the conditions for interactive and collaborative answers at a very fast pace. In this sense, virtual communities of practice appear as an important way to share knowledge among groups of people joined by common interests, such as the search for solutions for problems, development of competences, professional relationship upgrades, growth of productivity, and general working quality. However, some barriers have emerged to the social network members, such as lack of trust, real incentives, and time to dedicate in order to contribute in these communities. In this chapter, aiming to evaluate such scenarios, a multiple case study methodology was conducted, starting from a literature review of main concepts, giving support for a final assessment of cases to provide better understanding and identification of the main benefits and barriers for the participation and collaboration in these new platforms. As a result of the present study, these reflections could lead to a better comprehension of the application of the social networks structured over virtual communities of practice in the business environment.