Dissertation on "Change Management for Enterprise 2.0 Implementations"

Dissertation 40 pages (14654 words) Sources: 80 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Enterprise 2.0 technologies employ social media tools to help individuals within organizations identify and connect with each other in ways that promote information sharing and collaboration (Hagel & Brown 2012). In the past, Enterprise 2.0 tools were used primarily for private applications rather than the achievement of corporate goals, but today a growing number of companies are projecting their brand online using Facebook, YouTube videos and use virtual communities of mutual interest to exchange and share information with internal and external customers (Consoli 2012). Implementing and administering an effective Enterprise 2.0 model, though, can be complex and challenging unless a number of critical success factors are taken into account, and these issues form the basis of the study which is discussed further below.

As enterprises continue to experience changes to their organizational structures in response to an increasingly globalized and competitive marketplace, there has been a corresponding increase in the need for the ability of organizations to share accurate information in an efficient and timely fashion across all organizational boundaries (McAfee 2006). Although all organizations can be unwieldy affairs, this need is especially acute for medium and larger organizations with operating divisions that are separated geographically with different e-mail, accounting, and reporting systems (McAfee 2006). Consequently, developing effective knowledge-sharing practices across all organizational boundaries and silos can be an especially challenging enterprise. In this regard, Dunn and Krob (2014, p. 41) emphasize that, "Organizational silos make matters worse. Often, knowledge management teams are entrenched in operational units such as IT or customer support and rarely meet across silos."

Moreover, there is an inextricable interrelationship between the scope and depth of organizational silos with respect to their unique communications, marketing, support and strategic planning systems and employee resistance to change and innovations in communications (McAfee 2006). For example, McAfee (2006, p. 22) reports that, "Over decades, communication procedures often crowd out innovative workflows that can and do drive an organization more quickly to its goals and objectives. When procedures overtake the ability of a company to stay agile, responsive and quick to respond to its own communications needs, a myopic mindset follows." This undesirable outcome can cause a downward spiral that results in a lack of organizational goal achievement or the outright failure of the enterprise (McAfee 2006). In addition, companies that fail to fully embrace social media will be at a competitive disadvantage to their competitors that do. In this regard, McNamee (2011, p. 65) emphasizes that, "Many executives still hear only the 'social' in 'social media'- and think 'recreational time waster.' But social media has a place in the business world, and that place is much bigger than LinkedIn and extends far beyond the marketing department. From CEOs on Twitter to corporate Facebook pages, social media has decidedly grown up and gone to work."

Not surprisingly, Enterprise 2.0 has become increasingly popular among Fortune 1000 companies because of its ability to facilitate communications with internal and external customers (Greenburg 2011). Likewise, engaging in social media has been shown to strengthen the brand experience which supports brand building (Edosomwan et al. 2011). In those cases where there is a solid brand name, businesses are far more likely to attract customers as well as become more attractive to current and potential employees in the future and the research to date confirms that social media can help build such a solid reputation (Edosomwan et al. 2011). In sum, Enterprise 2.0 and social media represent the current state-of-the-art tools for collaborative innovation in nimble organizations, and companies that apply these tools effectively stand to gain a competitive advantage over those that do not. An overview of these technologies follows below.

Overview of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies

An Enterprise 2.0 business is defined by Consoli (2013, p. 37) as "a new advanced company that interacts with all stakeholders of the supply chain and in particular with customers using web 2.0 tools (blog, forum, chat, wiki) and social networks." Irrespective of the industry or sector that is involved, it is vitally important for companies considering the implementation of an Enterprise 2.0 system to recognize the organizational value of information exchanges besides those that are recipient-initiated or "pull interactions" (McNamee & Shoch 2010). In this context, pull interactions are primarily restricted to the resolution of a single problem area wherein practitioners identify a gap in their knowledge base and conduct research to develop relevant solutions (McNamee & Schoch 2010). Conversely, so-called "push (or source-initiated) interactions" are those in which unsolicited knowledge is provided in an attempt to resolve issues that remain unknown at present (McNamee & Schoch 2010). According to McNamee and Schoch (2010, p. 65), "Push interactions and unsolicited knowledge exchanges are critical for nurturing organizational agility, the ability to change, and innovation." These processes are contributing to improved business activities as depicted in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Enterprise 2.0 Processes

http://www.pretzellogic.org/wp-content/upload/e20-diagram7.png

Given the dramatic increase in the popularity of social media in the consumer space, it is not surprising that a wide range of 2.0 technologies have emerged in recent years to take advantage of these new technologies (Pontefract 2011). Although this trend was originally limited to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook which were used in firewall-protected environments within organizations, the trend has since changed to include developing specific social media network tools that are designed for corresponding corporate applications (Pontefract 2011). For instance, Pontefract (2011, p. 55) points out that, "Unlike other technologies, practices, or processes, social media inside the organization, for many companies, doesn't belong in one single business unit; it lazily shifts among interested parties regardless of function or title."

This same tendency, though, has been regarded as a negative outcome by some corporate executives who consider any technological offering with the word "social" in its title as being a frivolity rather than a legitimate business tool. In this regard, Pontefract (2011, p. 56) emphasizes that, "Further exacerbating the issue is that the use of social media inside a company, to many, seems to come across as a negative time waster." In response to this misguided perception, Andrew McAfee of MIT counters that social media can be a valuable addition to an organization's IT repertoire, conceptualized as Enterprise 2.0, or more specifically "the use of emergent social software platforms within companies" (cited in Pontefract 2011, p. 55).

Enterprise 2.0, E2.0 and Enterprise Social Computing are terms that have been introduced in order to provide a description of the application of emergent social computing platforms within organizations or between organizations as well as their supply chain partners, strategic alliances and customers to provide real-time connections between individuals throughout the enterprise and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and collaboration in ways that are more natural (McNamee & Schoch 2010). Like other generations of technology, Enterprise 2.0 have also experienced several "waves" of evolution in its maturation as depicted in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. The Three Waves of Enterprise 2.0 Evolution

Source: http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/enterprise/images/3_wave_enterprise2.png

Although every organization is unique in some fashion, the empirical evidence to date confirms that these interconnected, open platforms provide a broad array of opportunities to leverage the collective intelligence of employees in ways that promote innovation, productivity and profitability (McNamee & Schoch 2010). It is also not surprising that an increasing number of businesses of all sizes and types have investigated the viability of Enterprise 2.0 applications for their own organizations. For instance, Altamimi (2013, p. 15) reports that, "There has been a very significant increase in the use of Web 2.0 applications within companies and the momentum of these emerging tools is also manifested in the recent term of Enterprise 2.0 coined by Professor Andrew McAfee to highlight the fact that smart companies are embracing Web 2.0 technologies, as well as the underlying approach to collaboration and creation of content."

Social media has also become one of the easiest ways to improve productivity and to generate a natural interest in the work carried out by the employees. Using these media, companies can track employee's creativity and enthusiasm (Edosomwan et al. 2011). There have also been efforts to quantify the impact of Enterprise 2.0 applications on business profitability and performance. For instance, the Collaboration Continuum Research-on-Research working group was initiated in 2009. The project seeks to understand the business value of Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) systems (also known as enterprise social computing and including such tools as social networking, forums, wikis, blogs, and microblogs, among others) in enabling collaboration and innovation (Schoch & Oelschlaeger 2011).

As a result, in order to help organizations achieve and sustain a competitive advantage, it is important to keep any organization alive, senior management must continually invest in new approaches to communicating, collaborating and ensuring the siloed walls that keep its many divisions from communicating be kept at a minimum or alleviated entirely. The change management necessary to accomplish this is not as simply accomplished by having a CEO order everyone to start being more collaborative and communicative. Instead there needs to the continual introduction of new collaborative… READ MORE

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