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Internet Social Networking

Research State of the Art and Implications for Enterprise 2.0

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Abstract

An overview of the literature on Internet social networking (ISN) is presented. The authors identify four dominant streams of research and review the key contributions to the field. The review reveals that the research field is fragmented and does not yet facilitate a general understanding of the phenomenon. In particular research is very much skewed towards certain user groups (e.g., students) and platforms (in particular Facebook). Further, implications for a corporate context are discussed. In doing so, three contexts of application are differentiated: Social network sites (SNSs) for 1) recruiting and professional career development, 2) relationship facilitation in distributed work contexts, and 3) interactions with end customers. The authors discuss SNS potentials, implications of existing ISN research and future research opportunities. In summary, they seek to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon of ISN and to making available the current state of ISN research for the wider Enterprise 2.0 community.

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Notes

  1. http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=409753352130.

  2. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com.

  3. Examples for intranet social network platforms are Jive (http://www.jivesoftware.com/) and Lotus Connections (http://www-142.ibm.com/software/products/de/de/connections/).

  4. For a more detailed description of the history of SNSs until 2007 please see (Boyd and Ellison 2007).

  5. http://www.danah.org/researchBibs/sns.html.

  6. A detailed description of the search process following the guidelines by vom Brocke et al. (2009b) is presented in the Online Appendix.

  7. Only Journals are listed that contained relevant articles. In total 37 journals have been searched including the major IS journals (AIS senior scholars’ basket of eight). A complete list can be found in the Online Appendix.

  8. E.g., http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/01/facebook-seeks-to-exploit-user-information.

  9. J.D. Power: http://www.jdpowerwebintelligence.com/, http://www.aepweb.org/summit/09_Presentations/Mining_Social_Media.ppt. Outsell: http://www.outsellinc.com/store/products/541. Xtract: http://www.xtract.com/social-intelligence/. ADTelligence: http://www.adtelligence.de/de/consulting/new-market-intelligence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik und Interorganisationssysteme, Universität Münster, Leonardo-Campus 3, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Daniel Richter

  2. Discipline of Business Information Systems Business School, The University of Sydney, Building H69, 2006, NSW, Australia

    Kai Riemer

  3. Hilti Chair of Business Process Management Institute of Information Systems, University of Liechtenstein, Fürst-Franz-Josef-Strasse, 9490, Vaduz, Liechtenstein

    Jan vom Brocke

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Correspondence to Daniel Richter.

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Accepted after two revisions by Prof. Dr. Buxmann.

This article is also available in German in print and via http://www.wirtschaftsinformatik.de: Richter D, Riemer K, vom Brocke J (2011) Internet Social Networking. Stand der Forschung und Konsequenzen für Enterprise 2.0. WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK. doi: 10.1007/s11576-011-0265-3.

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Richter, D., Riemer, K. & vom Brocke, J. Internet Social Networking. Bus Inf Syst Eng 3, 89–101 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-011-0151-y

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