Uses of social software in personal and organizational settings

: an exploratory study into the use of instant messaging in the banking industry

Abstract

Social software, such as instant messaging or blog software, has increased dramatically in its popularity. Currently, social software applications have become part of the daily routines of trillions of Internet users. For leisure and personal uses, this type of applications contributes significantly to the fostering of close relationships among the users' social group. Many fast-moving companies have already utilized specific types of social software for business purposes, for example, HP adopts instant messaging for customer technical support; Nike has its marketing activities conducted in the Facebook, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides discussion forums in her eGovernment platform, and many others. Social software can provide benefits for organizations in various aspects, such as communication, cooperation, collaboration, and connection. Having experienced the advantages of social software in their leisure activities, some users tend to bring such advantages to their work-related activities. Therefore, in addition to the understanding of individual social uses of social software, it is equally important to understand the individual level use of social software in the working environment. Understanding this carry-over phenomenon is the purpose of this research. It aims at answering (1) why do individuals use specific types of social software for different types of purposes? (2) how does the spill-over of social software uses cross over between social and organizational domains? (3) what are the benefits individuals gain from the uses of social software for work-related purposes? and (4) how do organizational policies and immediate workgroup established norms impact on the social software organizational uses? This research employed a qualitative multiple-case study approach. Two groups of interviewees who worked in two of the major Hong Kong banking groups (Bank A and Bank B) were studied. These two banking groups carry different styles in adopting emergent technologies. Bank A is perceived as open in technology adoption, while Bank B is considered as more conservative. 20 bank employees were interviewed to understand their uses of social software. The interviewees were further categorized into three groups according to the level of their positions in the organizations, senior, middle and junior positions. The age of these three groups fall approximately into the groups of Late Baby Boomers/Early Generation X, Generation X, and Generation Y. Different types of social software and social media can be found in a bank's enterprise network, such as email, blogging, discussion boards, instant messaging, and other. The findings of this study reveal that there are variations of social software uses, with instant messaging uses in particular, among these three groups of employees. It is found that the higher the organizational level the interviewee was in, the more supportive the interviewee was to the organizational policies; the lower the organizational level the interviewee was in, the more enthusiastic in using social software for social purposes disregarding the organizational policies on social software uses. It is also found that immediate workgroup established norms had more impact on middle level interviewees than the senior and junior groups. Nevertheless, the junior group was influenced more by the social peer group norms than by the workgroup established norms. The spillover effect was observed in all groups. This study contributes to both theoretical and practical aspects. For theoretical contributions, the findings suggest that effects of spillover impact on both the emotion and actual behavior on IM uses between organizational and personal uses. Individuals' digital growth environment and their organizational position do have impact on their choices and use patterns of social software. Furthermore, to accommodate the need of the coming workforce, more emphasis should be placed on the alignment between organizational infrastructures and IS strategy when social software is planned for adoption. For practical contributions, this study suggests that provision of a comfortable working environment through the adoption of their favorite daily-use communication tools is essential to the increases of productivity of the young generation employees.

Date of Award	4 Oct 2010
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Christian WAGNER (Supervisor)