University of Twente Student Theses
Process socialization: A study into social media use in business processes and its benefits
Rikken, Marlies (2013) Process socialization: A study into social media use in business processes and its benefits.
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| Abstract: | Organizations are searching for strategies to optimally use social media in their business processes. Social media is increasingly put to use, however, it remains unclear for which processes the implementation of social media is beneficial. In literature some suggestions are made on this topic, as well as on how social media can be incorporated in BPM. This research attempts to clarify in which business processes social media is being implemented with the most benefit and contrast the outcomes with suggestions from literature. To accomplish this goal first the characteristics of business processes were identified. For each characteristic, there are certain expectations on the relationship with process socialization (the extent of social media use in a business process). Hypotheses were constructed based on the suggestions from literature. It was expected that process socialization is beneficial for both organizational performance and process performance. It was also expected that social media would more likely be used in processes knowledge intensity, customer interaction, collaboration, and complexity. The opposite was expected hold for repetitiveness and security. In order to test these hypotheses two methods were used. A survey was held among businesses in the Netherlands. In this survey the organizations were also asked to identify the benefits they experienced from their use of social media in business processes. Besides the survey, case descriptions were made from interviews at the Belastingdienst (The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration). The outcome of the survey suggested that when deliberating the implementation of social media in a process, it is key to identify whether there is interaction between employees within the process or with customers to determine if the use of social media is appropriate in a process. It is appropriate to implement social media, when interactivity is high. Correlations also indicated that there is no relationship between security requirements in a process and process socialization. Meaning that social media is used in any process, regardless of security requirements. The most significant finding was that respondents indicated positive effects on process benefits as well as organizational benefits. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 85 business administration, organizational science |
| Programme: | Business Administration MSc (60644) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/64260 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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