Enterprise Social Media

The perspective on ESM in this research takes its point of departure from my initial interest in investigating social media. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media 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.” (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010:61)

This definition highlights the importance of user-generated content and the technological possibilities of Web 2.0, including increased connectivity and access to people and content. In an organizational context, the functionalities and use of a technology are often reexamined (O’Mahony and Barley 1999; Wellman et al.

1996). While ESM rely on the same underlying principles found in the definition of social media, the particular context and the implications of the technology on work invoke a definition of ESM as presented in the introduction,

“Web-based platforms that allow workers to (1) communicate messages with specific coworkers or broadcast messages to everyone in the organization; (2) explicitly indicate or implicitly reveal particular coworkers as communication partners; (3) post, edit, and sort text and files linked to themselves or others; and (4) view the messages, connections, text, and files communicated, posted, edited and sorted by anyone else in the organization at any time of their choosing.” (Leonardi et al. 2013:2)

The definition of ESM highlights workers as the users as well as the way in which the technology allows them to achieve certain activities of communication and information sharing in the context of their interactions within the organization. In

my research, I have studied social media in the context of political campaigning (paper 1) as well as at the everyday use of ESM in organizational contexts (papers 2, 3 and 4). While the research efforts have addressed different user groups and areas of use, the results show how the ESM technology provides certain opportunities and implications for the social dynamics on the platform.

Perceived and actualized affordances of ESM: The concept of affordances has played a central role in informing my perspective on social media and ESM (Gibson 1977; Hutchby 2001; Treem and Leonardi 2012). The underlying assumptions of this research position the concept of affordances in a relational ontology. An affordance is, therefore, not a single attribute of an object, an actor or the environment but instead emerges from a relational structure in which the relationships between the object, actor and environment are continuously enacted (Faraj and Azad 2012; Hutchby 2001; Stoffregen 2003). The research in paper 1 framed the perpective on affordances of ESM and investigated the perceived affordances of the social media platform Facebook, in the context of the Danish general election campaigns. While the findings provided insight into a number of perceived affordances of what the political parties wanted to facilitate, project and enhance, they also raised questions about how these were reflected in the actual actions that the political parties carried out on Facebook. The study revealed differences in the political parties’ actual use of Facebook in comparison to the perceived affordances, giving an indication that the intentions for use are not enough to ensure a certain action. This demonstrated how the many potential opportunities of social media also required an enactment of these through the actions of individuals. Based on these insights, the study of ESM affordances in organizations took form.

In paper 2, the literature review on ESM affordances (boyd 2012; Ellison et al.

2007; Fulk and Yuan 2013; Gibbs et al. 2013; Leonardi et al. 2013; Majchrzak et al. 2013; Pike et al. 2013; Treem and Leonardi 2012) revealed five groups of perceived affordances that emerge in terms of distribution, association, amplification, contextualization and preservation of information and people.

Describing how these perceived affordances manifest themselves in the context of ESM use for organizational work revealed how the perceived affordances of ESM

must be actively actualized (Strong et al. 2014) through social interactions on the ESM platform in order to influence organizational work. This research highlighted the relational character of the ESM affordances and underlined the way in which social interactions on the ESM platform are central in the enactment of the perceived affordances into actual actions. The two studies show that affordances of ESM can be understood on two levels: the passively actualized (perceived) affordances, and the actively actualized affordances manifested through actual actions (Strong et al. 2014). The passively actualized affordances refer to the perceived opportunities that the organizational members attribute to the ESM technology, and the actively actualized affordances refer to the actual actions taken based on the opportunities afforded (Strong et al. 2014; Turvey 1992). In particular, the study in paper 2 introduces social interactions on the ESM platform as a central part of the translation of perceived affordances into actual action. The findings in paper 2 highlight active actualization of the ESM affordances as being important in determining which activities of organizational work are carried out on the ESM platform. Understanding the affordances of ESM in organizational work thus involves a consideration of both perceived and actively actualized affordances.

ESM as a part of organizational relationships: In the context of sociology, affordances imply that technology has some inherent properties; however, the technology does not completely determine individual action but provides different opportunities and interpretations (Hutchby 2001). Referring to the possibilities that an object offers for action, the concept of affordances provided an understanding of relationships that depend on the materiality of the object and its use by the individual (Leonardi and Barley 2008). In my initial investigation of social media, in paper 1, I came to understand the importance of the media’s role in the investigation of the affordances attached to the medium when users engaged with it for a specific purpose (paper 1). However, the research in paper 1 revealed that the actions of the users appeared to differ from the perceived affordances when actually acted out on the platform. These changes could be attributed to the actions of both the individual and the technology, offering integration possibilities that were not envisioned by the users before the actual engagement with the social

media (Treem and Leonardi 2012). As an example of this, the findings in paper 1 demonstrate how the integration and sharing of information in different formats such as video, links etc. emerged as an unintended activity encouraged by the social media through associating video and article links with the posts and comments made on the platform (paper 1, p. 35). The social media then became an actor in these relationships by prompting certain activities and playing a part in the interactions that comprise the relationships on the social media platform. This research relies on a relational view which implies that attention must be given to the relationships that ESM are a part of in order to understand how the media is involved in organizational work (Gergen 2009). In this sense, the introduction of ESM into the organization and the role that the technology actively plays in prompting and promoting activities implies a consideration of ESM as an actor and part of relationships in the organization.

ESM as a way of investigating social life: ESM enables the investigation of social life through the opportunity of observing and capturing the online social interactions among individuals that digital media offers (Venturini and Latour 2010). The studies of ESM in this research prove how data extracted from the platform itself presents a way of looking at interactions that have taken place, or are taking place within the organizational settings (paper 4). The preservation of information on the ESM platform creates a way to trace interactions and to study the flow of information in the online network (Leonardi et al. 2013). The literature study revealed how ESM has been used to identify experts in organizations as a result of this increased visibility (Damianos et al. 2007). Within the scope of this research, this idea is extended to not only include the identification of specific individuals in the organization but also as a way of identifying interactions and relationships while they are ‘in the making’ (Latour 2005). In this sense, the observation of the practices on the ESM platform informs our knowledge about the relationships that are being both formed and reformed by use of the ESM platform.

The perspective on ESM in this research reveals how ESM is considered in terms of both perceived and actively actualized affordances, emphasizing the translation of perceived affordances into actual actions taken. ESM plays an important role, both in this translation and in the relationships that form on the platform through prompting certain activities and playing a part in the interactions that make up the relationships on the ESM platform. Finally, ESM provides a way of investigating the interactions and relationships on the platform through the preservation of conversations and the traceability of the interactions on the digital platform.