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IT Governance in Corporate Social Media - A Case Study
IT Governance in Corporate Social Media - A Case Study
– A Case Study
1 Introduction
Initially a tool for communication among private users, social media has increasingly
been taken into use among corporations for business purposes, such as internal and
external communication, marketing, and crowdsourcing ideas for product and service
development, e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]. The adoption of social media in organizations is
not necessarily a straightforward process, and its novelty means that guidelines for its
successful adoption and strategic alignment have yet to be established. As a result,
many organizations using social media for the first time have relied on experimental,
ad hoc processes for its adoption, and while they recognize the importance of
integrating social media into their business, they are finding it difficult to move from
experimenting with social media services to integrating it with business goals.
One of the reasons behind why social media adoption is difficult for organizations
is the fact that Web 2.0 technologies bring about a cultural shift related to the
openness and empowerment of customers and employees [5]. Traditional businesses
that do not have a history of open internal and external dialogue are having
difficulties accepting the fact that social media empowers direct and very public
communication with unprecedented numbers of people, which forces a change in the
established patterns of communication. In similar cases (electronic integrated
channels such as e-commerce) it has been suggested that established business
processes need to be re-engineered, as they are no longer appropriate in the new
environments [6].
Our earlier research [7] established challenges related to organizational social
media adoption and use in a case organization. The biggest challenges encountered in
the study were internal: a lack of social media ownership and authorization. The study
found that confusion related to who within the organization is authorized to engage
customers in discussion is a potential challenge for organizations, and that
organizational users are struggling with aligning their personal social media identities
with their corporate ones. [7]
IT governance, on the other hand, is an established organizational function aiming
to control the formation and implementation of IT strategy and provide direction to
achieve competitive advantages for the corporation [8]. IT and business alignment
plays an important role in IT governance, as it aims to integrate IT within the
organization [9]. This alignment is highly relevant in the context of social media as
well, as it often deals directly with end customers, and therefore has an even greater
impact on business than administrative IT such as payroll or accounting systems.
The aim of this study is to focus on the use of social media from an IT governance
perspective, and to answer the research question “How should social media be
governed in an organization?” This is done by first reviewing literature on the use of
social media from an IT governance perspective [10], [11], [12], [8], and business and
IT alignment [9], [13]. Later on, these will be compared to issues reported in our case
organization. Based on these findings, the study will conclude with a categorization of
governance issues that need to be considered when debating the adoption of a social
media service. As this is a research-in-progress paper, the case study, discussion and
conclusions of this paper will be extended upon their completion.
2 Related Literature
In the following sections we review two major areas that are central to our analysis of
the case company and the associated framework: definitions of the central terms used
throughout this study, and the applicability of IT governance and strategic alignment
to corporate social media use.
2.1 Web 2.0, Social Media and Enterprise 2.0
Several definitions exist for the concept of Web 2.0. For example, Web 2.0 can be
defined as a revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as
a platform [14], a paradigm shift in which users create content [15], and more
practically as a personalized, communicative form of the Internet that emphasizes
active participation, connectivity, collaboration and sharing of knowledge and ideas
among users [16]. The ambiguity of these definitions reflects the relative newness of
the concept, as definitions evolve with its continuing development.
Social media, on the other hand, is often defined as a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,
and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content [4]. Web 2.0 is
often described as a platform while social media typically refers more directly to the
content created by users. The prefix “social” or the suffix “2.0” is often tacked onto
more traditional business terms to imply that companies use Web 2.0 technologies or
social media in their business, as is the case with “social business” or “Enterprise
2.0”.
Finally, Enterprise 2.0 can be defined as Web 2.0 technologies being used in an
organizational context [17]. Enterprise 2.0 applications explicitly exclude many of the
platforms typically associated with Web 2.0 and social media (Facebook, Wikipedia
and YouTube for example), as they are aimed primarily at individuals rather than
organizations. In organizational use, some companies prefer to use the term “social
business” in order to show that they use social media not only for dialogue with
customers but also inside the organization, in business partner co-operation,
stakeholder communication and recruiting.
2.2 IT Governance
Due to the relative newness of the topic, very little academic research exists on the
exact topic of IT governance and strategic alignment in social media. For this reason,
we have chosen to review IT governance and strategic alignment in practitioner
literature, as well as academic research on IT governance and strategic alignment in
other electronic channels, such as e-commerce and discussion forums.
Successful investment in social media requires the alignment of social media
strategy to the business strategy of the organization [20], and as the importance of
social media in organizations grows, social media governance should be included in
their IT governance plans. Extrapolating on this, it has been argued that IT strategy
should not be considered separately from business strategy, reducing the need for
alignment [21]. This sentiment is echoed by thoughts that elements of social media
strategy should be embedded in business strategies directly [22].
There is also a strong push for writing separate social media strategies. The current
trend in social media practitioner literature is to recommend that companies beginning
to use social media write social media strategies first, and only then follow this up by
selecting the platform to be used [3], [23].
It has been argued that organizations must consider how they wish to leverage
social media by identifying areas in which social media can help achieve existing
goals, as well as emphasizing the importance of defining clear rules and
responsibilities for the people involved [24].
Social media governance is also discussed in practitioner literature. For example it
has been stated that social media governance starts from strategy issues such as
developing a social media strategy or identifying corporate social media objectives
[25]. The role of risk assessment in social media governance is emphasized, as is the
need to create policies, procedures and guidelines and technical controls. The
importance of implementing a monitoring and reviewing framework has also been
highlighted [25]. Similarly, it is believed that organizations need to create metrics for
measuring the impact of social media [24].
Concepts of strategic alignment have successfully been applied to e-business [13],
and it is our belief that these concepts can be extrapolated to cover the specific needs
of social media as well. Applying the IT governance framework [8], we have created
the following framework for social media governance as depicted in Figure 1. This
framework provides a continuum from our earlier research where challenges in the
corporate social media adoption were divided into internal and external issues.
In order to answer the research question “How social media should be governed in an
organization?” we use an exploratory case study. A case study examines a
phenomenon in its natural setting, employing multiple methods of data collection to
gather information from one or a few entities (people, groups or organizations), e.g.
[26], [27]. In the empirical setting, we study a case company dealing with issues
related to social media adoption and use. The following subsection introduces the case
company in more detail.
We will next analyze the qualitative data gathered from the case organization. The
structure of our analyses follows the Social Media Governance Framework. As
expected for a company new to the use and utilization of social media services, the
interviewees were mostly concerned with internal operational issues. Also external
operational issues have been given thought in the company. Strategic questions, so
far, has been considered mainly from internal perspective.
Internal/Operational issues. Even though the company had lifted the restrictions
related to the use of social media websites by the employees, the associated policies
still seem to be largely unclear. One of the biggest questions is related to the overall
control of the company’s presence in social media, particularly as to the
responsibilities connected to this presence.
“The employees in the organization want structure and a there is a need to get
organized.” – VP of External Communications
“Ownership has not been defined here. /…/ If ownership was to be defined and the
existing Facebook profiles and YouTubes and Twitters and so on were defined,
what is done with them and why, we could we could really benefit from them. As
they are, I don’t believe that they are useful at all.” – HR Officer
“We have to know what are the target groups we need to reach. And what can we
say there? - VP of External Communications
“What answers to give employees: who can answer customer inquiries?”– Internal
Communications Officer
“It has been argued that people don’t have the authority to do stuff: oh, we didn’t
know we could comment on some of these social media forums and places like
LinkedIn. We didn’t realize that we were allowed to do that.” – General Manager
of Cluster Marketing
“These people [experts in product development] don’t know that forums exist.
They don’t come in. If they do know that they exist, “we’re not authorized, it’s not
my job.” – General Manager of Cluster Marketing
A key internal operational issue is related to the view of social media use to be
more recreational rather than productive work, something that can by genuinely
useful for the company:
“Working time needs to be concretely reserved [for social media use], so far it has
perhaps been seen as having fun and has not been understood as work...." –HR
Officer
“Well, that’s not really work is it, it’s not really something we should be doing,
and if my boss looks over my shoulder and sees me reading such and such a forum
it’s not proper work” –– General Manager of Cluster Marketing
Roots of this kind of culture are deeply embedded in the tradition of old,
hierarchical organization:
“[We are dealing with] the remnants of a hierarchical organization, where control
is quite dominant. We have lots of managers and people who have lived with this
culture for decades, and for them it’s just incomprehensible that people could be
given the freedom to produce content for the organization’s own channels”
- SVP of Communications and Investor Relations
“The vision of the company is to be the undisputed number one in own industry
branch. How can social media help us make this happen?” – VP of External
Communications
"I wouldn’t know what success looks like as far as [the company] on Facebook is
concerned.... what would we define success as?/.../ You want to know what success
looks like? 570 (members in the company Facebook group)!” –– General Manager
of Cluster Marketing
”I don’t want to appear under my own name. If my boss asked me to administer the
company’s Facebook page using my own [privately established] profile, I would
say no. If it was for internal use only, I might consider it.”- HR Officer
Another common issue is the fear of possible damages to the reputation of the
company:
“One obvious threat is on the reputation management side. One threat could be
that, for example in this group on Facebook… a few disgruntled customers turn up
and start complaining about late deliveries or stuff like that” – General Manager
of Cluster Marketing
“There is a threat that the discussion topics are out of our control, not in own
hands. People are afraid of what will happen in social media if you go there. There
are reputational risks related to negative talks.” – Managers of Communications
Also matters related to the use of third party services in general are far from being
clear. A communications consultant facilitating the workshop suggested the company
to think what do the functionalities of third party services offer for company. Do they
want to have conversations with customer, for example, or share documents?
External/Strategic issues. The external strategic issues being considered are first
and foremost related to laws and regulations, that have an impact on what can and
cannot be publicly discussed:
“[We are] listed on the stock exchange, and as such are regulated by laws and
rules. There are things which we cannot discuss outside the company, and sensitive
information might get leaked because not everybody necessarily understands what
can be said [publicly in social media]”- HR Officer
4 Summary and Conclusions
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Appendix 1