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Individual performance in knowledge intensive work through social networks

Published: 19 April 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Studies in Information Systems (IS) research have widely documented task-oriented and communication structure effects as a result of information and communication technology (ICT) use. These effects have been evidenced at inter- and intra-organisational and occupational community levels. Research on the direct interplay between social network structure, ICT use and individual performance is however lacking to date. This research proposes a theoretical model along with operational constructs for understanding how performance of individuals in knowledge-intensive work can be affected by social network structure and ICT use. The context of the study is the occupational community of general practitioners (GP) in rural New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Numerous problems such as decreasing performance with age, obsolescence of technological knowledge, isolation from urban communities and various problems specific to rural practice makes this study significant. The study is motivated by the research question -- "How can the interplay between social network structure and ICT use enhance individual performance?" It argues that individuals with high levels of ICT use, dense social network structures and those rich in connections to social clusters or groups who are themselves not well connected perform better.

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  • (2018)The Importance of External Contacts in Job Performance: A Study in Healthcare Organizations Using Social Network AnalysisInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health10.3390/ijerph1507134515:7(1345)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2018
  • (2017)Social Networking and Communication ResearchSolutions for High-Touch Communications in a High-Tech World10.4018/978-1-5225-1897-6.ch003(44-70)Online publication date: 2017
  • (2014)Social Networks of Professionals in Health Care OrganizationsMedical Care Research and Review10.1177/107755871455707971:6(619-660)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2014
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Alvin Chin

Social networking is the hot technology on the Web, where it is primarily used to find friends, colleagues, and experts. However, businesses are now realizing the potential that social networks create for finding employees, potential customers, and competitors using sites like LinkedIn. It is clear that social networking is beneficial for connecting people and for supplementing physical relationships in virtual space, but how does social networking affect performance in an individual's work__?__ Using rural general practitioners (GPs) as their case study, the authors address this question by creating a conceptual model that determines how an individual's social network and use of information and communication technology (ICT) can enhance his or her performance. They hypothesize that rural GPs that have dense social network structures and a high frequency of ICT use will provide better care to their patients. The authors describe their research design, which involves using surveys and in-depth interviews, and explain the methodology involved in their research framework and plan. Preliminary findings from the interviews show that ICT will help facilitate social networking and that social networks are important in the delivery of quality care. However, the results are speculative because the authors have not administered the surveys to the GPs and no data has been collected. As a result, it is difficult to validate the conceptual model and the research framework. The design appears weak. It would be advantageous to provide diagrams explaining each of the concepts within the conceptual model and the relationships between each of the concepts. An entity-relationship diagram would prove useful in this case, since the authors are storing data from their surveys in a mySQL database, and it would strengthen the design. That way, the general reader would have a better understanding about how process of care depends on social networks and how ICT use in the social network affects the process of care. The authors mention ICT use, but they neglect to explain what tools are considered part of ICT in the body of the paper. It is not until the appendix that these tools are listed as part of the questions in the survey and the reader is able to understand what ICT really means in this context. For future work, the authors may want to investigate whether certain types of ICT tools are more effective than others and how that affects individual performance. In short, the research design needs to be expanded, and the explanation of the design techniques and the research framework needs to be strengthened. Online Computing Reviews Service

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGMIS CPR '07: Proceedings of the 2007 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on Computer personnel research: The global information technology workforce
April 2007
246 pages
ISBN:9781595936417
DOI:10.1145/1235000
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 19 April 2007

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Author Tags

  1. ICT use
  2. individual performance
  3. performance attitudes
  4. quality of care
  5. social networks
  6. structure
  7. ties

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Cited By

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  • (2018)The Importance of External Contacts in Job Performance: A Study in Healthcare Organizations Using Social Network AnalysisInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health10.3390/ijerph1507134515:7(1345)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2018
  • (2017)Social Networking and Communication ResearchSolutions for High-Touch Communications in a High-Tech World10.4018/978-1-5225-1897-6.ch003(44-70)Online publication date: 2017
  • (2014)Social Networks of Professionals in Health Care OrganizationsMedical Care Research and Review10.1177/107755871455707971:6(619-660)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2014
  • (2012)Predictors of Social Networking and Individual PerformanceCitizen 2.0: Public and Governmental Interaction through Web 2.0 Technologies10.4018/978-1-4666-0318-9.ch008(129-145)Online publication date: 2012
  • (2009)Internet medical consultant — A knowledge-sharing systemProceedings of the ITI 2009 31st International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces10.1109/ITI.2009.5196058(79-86)Online publication date: Jun-2009
  • (2009)Data in Social Network AnalysisComputer-Mediated Social Networking10.1007/978-3-642-02276-0_14(134-149)Online publication date: 2009

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