THE IMPACT OF SOCIALMEDIA ON ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS

Copyright University of Waikato

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Candidate's name: Debashish Mandal.

Email: [email protected]

Chief supervisor: Prof. Bob McQueen

Panel: Prof. Kay Weaver, Dr. Stuart Dillion, Dr. Karyn Rastrick

Working title of the research:

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS

Presented on: 29th March 2011

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Table of Contents

List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... iv

List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... iv

1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 1

2 Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 3

3 Justification for this research ......................................................................................... 4

3.1 Importance and appropriateness of this research ..................................................... 4

3.2 Easy accessibility to prospective data sources ......................................................... 5

3.3 Publishing of the research ....................................................................................... 5

3.4 Benefits of this research .......................................................................................... 5

4 Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 7

4.1 Key articles used in the literature review ................................................................. 7

4.2 Definitions and key terms in social media ............................................................. 10

4.2.1 Web 2.0 ......................................................................................................... 10

4.2.2 Social media .................................................................................................. 11

4.2.3 Social Commerce ........................................................................................... 11

4.2.4 Facebook Commerce ..................................................................................... 12

4.3 Adoption of social media by businesses ................................................................ 14

4.4 Adoption and motivation of micro blogging by businesses .................................... 15

4.5 Adoption of application similar to facebook in organisational settings .................. 17

4.6 Conceptual framework based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) .................................................................................................... 20

4.7 Entrepreneurs – Role of links actors and ties in social networks ............................ 25

4.8 Contrary position on weak versus strong ties......................................................... 27

4.9 Literature gap ....................................................................................................... 31

5 Research Design .......................................................................................................... 33

5.1 Identification and Justification of Research Methodology ..................................... 33

5.1.1 Qualitative strategy ........................................................................................ 33

5.1.2 Action Research............................................................................................. 35

5.1.3 Paradigm position of the research .................................................................. 37

5.2 Data Collection methods ....................................................................................... 40

5.2.1 Sample interview questions............................................................................ 41



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5.2.2 Variables for the investigation ....................................................................... 42

5.3 Identification of subjects and resources ................................................................. 43

5.4 Data analysis methods and tools to be used ........................................................... 46

6 Time table ................................................................................................................... 48

7 Failure Factors ............................................................................................................ 49

8 Expected chapter outlines ............................................................................................ 50

9 Ethical consideration and approval .............................................................................. 51

10 References .................................................................................................................. 52

Appendix A Modified and Extended Version of UTAUT .................................................... 58

Appendix B Transcript of a sample discussion on Facebook business Page ......................... 59

Appendix C Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In ............................. 60

Appendix D Sample Interview questions ............................................................................. 66

Appendix E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants .......................... 69



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List of Figures

Figure 1 Entrepreneur and network ties (Jack, 2005 P.1252) ............................................... 28 Figure 2 Conceptualizing network development Slotte-Kock & Coviello, (2010) ................ 30

List of Tables

Table 1: Articles related to Social Media (Arranged in level of importance to the investigation) ........................................................................................................................ 9 Table 2: Articles related to entrepreneur networks (Arranged in level of importance to our research) ............................................................................................................................... 9 Table 3: Conceptual comparative framework modelled from three similar studies and one facebook like application .................................................................................................... 23 Table 4: Justification of selection of research approach and methodology (Adapted from Yin 2007) .................................................................................................................................. 36 Table 5: Paradigm Position of the research (Adapted from Perry & Rao in Hine & Carson 2007) .................................................................................................................................. 39 Table 6 Milestone and time frame ....................................................................................... 48



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1 Introduction

The primary purpose of this research is to examine the process of adoption of social media in

small businesses and investigate the impact it has on the business network of the

owner/entrepreneur. The intended output of the investigation is to construct a robust social

media adoption model specifically designed for small business. The model will be designed

in a manner which will be helpful for practitioners and academics alike. The literature is

fragmented and skewed on acceptance and adoption of social media application such as

facebook in an organisational setting especially for small businesses and entrepreneurs. The

adoption process of social media has been examined by Günther et al., (2009) and others

using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework. They

identified several new constructs such as reputation and primarily privacy as a major concern

for adoption of social media by businesses. DiMicco et al., (2008) and others have studied

motivations and purpose for use of facebook like application by technology companies. They

have identified the constructs of caring, climbing and campaigning while maintaining

connection with weak ties being the primary reason to use the application. Granovetter,

(1973) and Burt, (2004) have identified the importance of weak ties and the requirement of

diverse and varied ties in the network of small business owners to gather resources and

information for their businesses. The second interest of this research is to identify how social

media can help small businesses to spread out and gather a diverse and large range of weak

ties to be activated when required. Based on this intention in the next section I have framed

my research question to be investigated by adopting the action research strategy by

constructing facebook pages for select local businesses and then observing the adoption

process and changes occurring to the entrepreneurial network and to the overall business.

In section 3 the justification for this research is discussed to provide an instant preview of the

benefit, feasibility and appropriateness of this research. In later section literature review

details the adoption process of micro blogging and facebook like application before

proposing a conceptual framework identifying the major constructs from various studies to be

adapted refined and enriched by our research. Moreover based on the life cycle process of ties

I propose to insert elements of this framework to build a framework more robust and

specifically designed for small business owners. Section 5 deals with the research design

highlighting our qualitative research strategy justifying the action research approach along

with a dual paradigm position of critical theory and realism. This section also discusses the




data collection methods along with sample interview questions and collection of data from

various sources for triangulation of data. The strategy for data analysis is elaborated in

Section 5.4 which involves thematic analysis of primary data such as interviews and

secondary data being electronic transcripts which is typical of social media. The proposal also

indicates the timeframe for conducting the investigation with a time table. Finally, the

proposal is ended with a depiction of the expected outline of the thesis, a statement of ethical

consideration and the status of approval.




2 Research Questions

The basic aim of this research is to identify the main steps in the adoption process of social

media application like facebook and add to the body of literature on acceptance of

technology. Secondly, the goal of our research is to determine how practices of a social

media application like facebook by small business owners differs in terms of social

connections and also in terms of different user motivations. Finally, the purpose of this

research would be to examine the behavioural life cycle modification in the tie variation,

selection and retention processes with the adoption of social media tools like facebook. The

main research question I hope to answer is:

“How does adoption of social media impact the network of the small business

owner/entrepreneur?”

To answer this main research question we need to investigate several sub questions which

have been identified as follows:

RQ1 What are the motivations for entrepreneurs/small business owners to use social media

like facebook?

RQ2 What are the strategies employed by entrepreneurs/small business owners to adopt

social media such as facebook?

RQ3 How does the entrepreneur/small business owner differ in user behaviour than a

general private individual facebook user?

RQ4 How does the entrepreneur/small business owner initiate change in the ties to

accommodate exogenous factors of information systems such as social media?

RQ5 How does facebook add value to the existing social network of the entrepreneurs?

RQ6 How do small businesses incorporate relationship development strategies into their

facebook profile?




3 Justification for this research

There is limited knowledge in the existing body of literature on use of facebook by small and

micro business owners. The intention for this research is to fill this gap by identifying the

crucial elements in adoption and use of facebook by small businesses. I also propose to add to

the body of the rich existing network research by examining the influence of information

systems on entrepreneurial networks. The research subject is of extreme importance and

appropriate since the application of social media by businesses is maturing leading to the

shifting of electronic commerce to social commerce. Moreover, being in the area of

information systems based on small businesses addressing an important gap in the literature

substantial publishable outlets has been identified. Finally, creation of new jobs in businesses

like social media strategist will open up new opportunity for the researcher and as well for the

university to provide courses/papers related to social media.

3.1 Importance and appropriateness of this research

Small businesses and entrepreneurs are recognised by any economy in the world as the corner

stone of innovation, flexibility, productivity and efficiency generating employment and

wealth for the nation. The internet and social media technologies are giving rise to new breed

of entrepreneurs and also augmenting existing businesses to develop, interact and service

their customers as never imagined before. The importance of research linking social media

with entrepreneurs especially with the maturing of the social media cannot be denied and

timing of the same undermined. The evolvement of web 2.0 technologies in the early part of

the last decade led to the development of interactive web technologies where by stakeholders

of businesses could talk to each other, employees could talk to each other, top management of

businesses can communicate with various stakeholders, citizens can communicate and

express their view points with leaders and other citizens over various social issues in a

manner never imagined before. Stories about overnight successes by little unknown

musicians, common people having hundreds and thousands of followers and propensity of

individuals to give information about themselves, share information within their networks,

express their displeasures and gather information about product and services have made

businesses to look up towards this new channel of interactive communication and take

advantage of the same. The literature is abound with non-scholarly studies highlighting the

importance of these interactive channels for small business and entrepreneurs whose

businesses are dependent on their networks.




3.2 Easy accessibility to prospective data sources

Small business entrepreneurs can be reached very easily within the Hamilton region and will

enjoy the characteristics required for the study. Such businesses are dependent on the

characteristics of the entrepreneur, education and his/her network. Moreover there is a

general awareness of using facebook by business and they are quite eager to receive any help

and direction with respect to the same. With the intention to test this proposition emails have

been sent to various small businesses requesting an indication of their interest in participating

in my research project. I have received substantial interest from various businesses in the

Hamilton region interested to establish a facebook fan page for their businesses. Based on

this interest I have established contact with a number of small business entrepreneurs and

received their email confirmation indicating their interest to participate in my project. Section

5.3 provides greater detail about the prospective research participants.

3.3 Publishing of the research

The literature survey has led to various journals and I propose to publish articles arising out

of this research in major journals such as Decision Support Systems, Business Horizons,

Futures, International Journal of Information Management, Journal of Business Venturing,

Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Long Range Planning, Journal of

Interactive Marketing. Most of these journals have more than forty volumes and could be

considered well established in their area of publications. I expect to publish spin offs short

papers out of the data collected based on single research questions leading to publishing of 3-

4 articles during the course of this study.

3.4 Benefits of this research

Social media has attracted substantial interest by all groups of the societies such as, small and

large businesses, clubs, education, non-profit, religion, and all sections of the government. It

seems that everybody is experimenting with some form of social media either by using twitter

or uploading photos and videos using MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, or by participating in

online blogs, or contributing knowledge through Wikipedia. A study in this direction would

be personally highly beneficial since businesses have already started employing social media

strategist and consultant for exploring, experimenting and gaining short or long term

competitive advantages from these social media technologies. Secondly, being an action

research project the subjects of this study will benefit by installation of a transactional




interface, having capabilities of networking by the entrepreneur with a range of its

stakeholders in a manner which will provide him/her competitive advantages at least in the

short term. The concerned department/university will gain from the exposure to social media

by way of publications in this field. As the area matures the department may be able to attract

students interested to partake and enrich knowledge in this upcoming field of social media.

Importance for the university has also been discussed in section.5.3. Finally this research will

have implications for the country as a whole, since small businesses are important in New

Zealand and if the small businesses are able to interact effectively with existing customers

through social commerce, gain customers through word of mouth and engage the customer

that will enhance exports, and build the brand of “New Zealand”.




4 Literature Review

Limited research on organisational use of social media has been performed in large

technology firms like Microsoft and IBM. The investigations have revealed that employees

are connecting with weak ties and use the social media application for discovery of ties

similar to their interest and objectives. This is in contrast to the general use of social media

which has been primarily used to connect with known off line connection. Secondly, the use

of micro blogging has been quite popular with businesses primarily since reciprocity of

relationship is not required. Micro blogging can be used for directed purposeful connections

as opposed to social media like facebook. Finally, the difference between the application and

its use by businesses along with paucity of research in small business and entrepreneurial

setting indicates a huge shortcoming in the literature. Due to this reason it was necessary to

work with two different set of literature one on social media and second the well-researched

rich and mature subject of entrepreneur network.

The review is divided in to nine sections beginning with the identification of the few key

articles from which the literature review draws maximum of its information. In preceding

section the key founding terms in social media are defined to suggest a wide range of terms

being used to mean similar concepts and technology. The next three section deals with

adoption of social media in general by businesses, popularity of micro blogging with

businesses and adoption of facebook like application in an organisation settings. In section

4.6 the hybrid UTAUT conceptual framework developed specifically for micro blogging is

discussed before proposing in Table 3 comparative constructs developed from four studies

which shall be useful for driving our data collection strategy. Finally in the last two sections

the discussion turns towards the arguments on the importance of weak and strong ties in the

network of the entrepreneur and identify the life cycle of ties which constitutes an important

component of this research.

4.1 Key articles used in the literature review

This section was prompted due to lack of credible study linking entrepreneurial personal

network and social media. I have tried to justify the reason for working with two set of

distinct literature sets one on social media and second on the extensive research on

entrepreneurial networks and importance of ties in the networks. Besides the presence of

extensive literature of social media and its use by business in marketing this literature is




predominantly non-scholarly and hardly links with other functions of the business.

Kärkkäinen et al. (2010 p.230) points this out lamenting on the paucity of academic literature

linking various business functions. The scarcity of literature is obvious from their comment

that “a total of 1357 articles were discovered of which 60 were chosen for further

examination based on the title. The selection criteria were that the article must address social

media or web 2.0, and relate to innovation in general, or to some or to all innovation process

phases”. Kärkkäinen et al. (2010 ) claim is supported from a recent conference Oct 2010 “due

to the relative infancy of social networking technology, there are very few formal studies

published in the traditional academic media - most existing articles have been published as

reports from consulting firm, trade publications, and online reports. Research in this area can

be traced back to communications research which model how social influence processes

affect individuals' attitudes toward communication networking and networking use

behavior.” (Venkatraman, S. S. 2010 p.1) The author also adds that “there is clearly a need

for scholarly research on the impact of social networking technology on the way

organizations communicate with their customers, formulate new strategies for building

brands, and develop new products and services that the customer needs”.

Continuing the argument on the paucity of research in this area Kärkkäinen et al. (2010

p.230) say that “very few recent academic studies were found that studied the adoption of

social media in organizations in general, or the adoption in different business functions” and

also “most of the found empirical studies are not academically implemented and reported”.

In short it can be concluded from the above evidence and my own experience that being an

upcoming field non-academic data and student research is prominent. Due to this reason it is

necessary to work with two different set of literature one on social media and second the

well-researched rich and mature subject of entrepreneur network. Based on this discussion it

becomes essential to provide a list of the key articles especially in the social media arena

before I delve further in the critical review and identify the gaps in the literature. Table 1and

Table 2 list the key articles which has been reviewed and constantly referred in our research.

The arrangement of the articles is based on importance of the articles to our research. I have

reviewed two set of distinctly different literature one on adoption and related issues of social

media and second on entrepreneur network and ties. I found just two articles of DiMicco et

al., (2008) and Skeels & Grudin, (2009) offering us a connection between the two table by

quoting the work of Granovetter, (1973) in relation to IBM and Microsoft employees using




social media to maintain weak ties. In association with this link work of Günther et al.,

(2009) in extending the UTAUT is extremely important and justifies the theoretical

framework of this research. Slotte-Kock & Coviello (2010) development of model for

studying life cycle of ties in entrepreneur network along with Jack, (2005) work and strong

and weak ties forms the basis of theory to be examined in light of the constructs in the

UTAUT

Table 1: Articles related to Social Media (Arranged in level of importance to the investigation)

S.No. Author Subject Matter 1. Günther et al., (2009) Modelling of adoption of twitter in enterprise –

extension to the UTAUT model 2. DiMicco et al., (2008) Investigates adoption of social media (facebook type

application) at work – motivations for employees – Action research – nature and purpose of connection

3. Blake et al., (2010) Studies twitter adoption – diffusion process 4. Kärkkäinen et al., (2010) Adoption of social media in b2b for innovations 5. Ellison, et al., (2007) &

Ellison, et al., (2011) Two similar investigation – College students motivation to use facebook – evidence for building of social capital

6. Boyd & Ellison, (2008) Descriptive – latent ties – general – off line connections 7. Brzozowski et al., (2009)

Forward citation from DiMicco et al. (2008) – examines effect of feedback and peer pressure

8. Hopkins & Ress, (2007) Adoption strategies - bundle of social media tools – University settings

9. Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010)

Descriptive – Challenges and advantages of social media

10. Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010)

Descriptive – about the advantages of Twitter

11. Fischer & Reuber, (2010) Effect of twitter on entrepreneur thinking and behaviour

Table 2: Articles related to entrepreneur networks (Arranged in level of importance to our research)

S.No. Author Subject Matter 1. Slotte-Kock & Coviello

(2010) Build on work of Schutjens & Stam (2003) theoretical development of a model

2. Jack (2005) Examines the relations of ties 3. Granovetter, (1973 &

1985) Seminal and higly cited work – form the basis of all network research – strength of weak ties

4. Hoang & Antoncic (2003) Summary of the research in entrepreneurial networks 5. Brüderl & Preisendörfer

(1998) Empirically examines the role of networks in newly founded small businesses

6. Johannisson & Mønsted (1997)

contextual study of entrepreneurial networking




7. Johannission, (1988) contextual study of entrepreneurial networking 8. Schutjens & Stam (2003) Examines new firm networks 9. Jack (2010) Examines methodological issues in researching networks

of small businesses

In brief, the literature survey revealed that the knowledge about social media use in

entrepreneurial activity is currently fragmented and skewed. The few studies concentrate on

individual tools and technologies mainly based on individual cases for theory building

drawing from other theories and models such as the UTAUT. Studies combining social

media/Internet and entrepreneurs have been mainly studied from a marketing perspective, and

little attention is placed on entrepreneurial networks. Moreover, research is virtually non-

existent in the area where social media, entrepreneurs and their ties in the network dissect.

4.2 Definitions and key terms in social media

Web 2.0 is the set of tools to alter web pages to become an interactive media so that users can

interact socially giving rise to social commerce and eventually facebook commerce. The

terms and tools related to the same are described in brief detail for web 2.0, social media,

social commerce and facebook commerce.

4.2.1 Web 2.0

Kärkkäinen et al., (2010 p.2) quote from Lehtimäki et al. 2009 that “web 2.0 means

technologies that enable users to communicate, create content and share it with each other via

communities, social networks and virtual worlds, making it easier than before, as well as to

have real life experiences in virtual worlds and to organize content on the internet with

content aggregators”. On the technical side Kaplan & Haenlein (2010a) describe web 2.0 as a

set of tools and techniques for the world wide web which provide the basic functionalities for

its operation and functioning. Among the tools are adobe flash which provide a method to

upload and display animation, interactivity, and audio/video streams to web pages. Really

Simple Syndication (RSS) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated

content, such as blog entries or news head-lines, in a standardized format. Finally, AJAX

(Asynchronous Java Script and XML) is a method to retrieve data from web servers

asynchronously, in the background without interfering with the display and behaviour of the

whole page. Kaplan & Haenlein (2010a p.60-61) opine that “web 2.0 is a term that was first

used in 2004 to describe a new way in which software developers and end-users started to

utilize the World Wide Web; that is, as a platform whereby content and applications are no




longer created and published by individuals, but instead are continuously modified by all

users in a participatory and collaborative fashion”.

4.2.2 Social media

Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010a p.61) defined Social Media as “a group of Internet-based

applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of web 2.0 that allow

the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (UGC)”. Kim et al., (2010 p.217)

define “social websites as those websites that make it possible for people to form online

communities, and share user-created contents (UCCs)”. Tredinnick (2006 p.231) defined

“social networking sites as those sites driven by user-participation and user-generated

content.” The common theme running behind these definitions is user generated content

which has been enabled by web 2.0 technologies. A business oriented definition has been

provided by Mangold &Faulds, (2009 p.1) which states that, “social media is a hybrid

element of the promotion mix because in a traditional sense it enables companies to talk to

their customers, while in a non-traditional sense it enables customers to talk directly to one

another. The content, timing, and frequency of the social media-based conversations

occurring between consumers are outside managers' direct control.” “Social media, also

referred to as consumer-generated media describes a variety of new sources of online

information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating

each other about products, brands, services, personalities, and issues (Blackshaw & Nazzaro,

2004, p. 2)”.

The underlying difference between the generic definitions and business definition of social

media is that the users have been replaced with the customers/consumers, thereby unleashing

a host of opportunities for businesses and shifting of power to the consumers. The term social

media has been disintegrated in to various terminologies such as social media site, social

networking sites so on. For our purpose we use the broadest sense of the term which shall

encompass all other terms and definitions.

4.2.3 Social Commerce

At this junction, it becomes simple to introduce social commerce which simply explained is

the monetising efforts of social media by businesses. Social commerce being applied and its

application by businesses is relatively a new phenomenon and academic literature is quite

limited and skewed. Stephen and Toubia (2009 p.3) describe social commerce as “a key




effect of creating a social commerce network is making shops more accessible to customers

browsing the marketplace. These links allow customers to move more easily throughout the

online marketplace, like in a virtual shopping mall and shops whose accessibility is enhanced

by the network to earn higher revenues.” This definition by Stephen and Toubia (2009) is at

the other extreme and it is necessary to rely on non-academic definitions from wikipedia and

http://socialcommercetoday.com/ for a working definition of social commerce. It is the fusion

of social media with e-commerce, or in the words of IBM, social commerce is basically the

concept of word of mouth applied to e-commerce. More fully, social commerce is a subset of

electronic commerce that uses social media, online media that supports social interaction and

user contributions, to enhance the online purchase experience. It is also an increasingly

popular solution for monetising social media marketing - the online promotion of goods and

services using social media.

It was possible to define facebook commerce by simply saying that it is a subset of social

commerce selling of goods and services on the facebook interface. However, that would be

highly inappropriate since facebook is not about shopping carts, transactions, payments and

also definitely not about just “liking” products and writing reviews. For a better

understanding of facebook commerce it is required to dwell briefly on the evolution of social

media and the features of facebook.

4.2.4 Facebook Commerce

Social media has evolved from the late 1990s as simple text blogs to present technologies

providing rich multimedia based content along with a plethora of add-on features. The

evolution of social media are documented by Boyd & Ellison, (2008); Ellison et al., (2007);

Ellison, (2011); Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010a); (2010b); Kim et al., (2010); Pouwelse, et al.,

(2008) and finally Trednnick (2006). Due to continuous evolution of the technology

obviously the studies need to be updated in the dynamic ecosystems of social media. It has

evolved from isolated technology such as integration of email and chat by Google and now

video and voice chat, organizing photos by Flickr’s, uploading videos by YouTube, and

music channels. In this respect facebook can be called a hybrid social media platform which

offers its users capability to share photos and videos, link with his/her friends, maintain

groups, maintain and share links, browse through various products and services, plan

holidays, seek opinions and now a most simplified messaging service linking up to your hand

device the mobile facebook. In certain ways it is a world in its own capacity linking friends


http://socialcommercetoday.com/



long lost, a breakfast activity in the US for teenagers and a source of inspiration for many of

the old folks (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010a&b).

The user base of facebook has prompted several investigations on why people join social

media and specially facebook from the social sciences group and as well as business study

groups. Such studies have identified that people have a basic desire for self-expression and

surprisingly a large amount of pent-up need to communicate, share and be social, while social

identity theory maintains that similar people are naturally attracted towards each other. Boyd

& Ellison, (2008); Ellison et al., (2007); Ellison et al., (2011); Joinson, (2008); Kaplan &

Haenlein, (2010b); Cheung & Lee, (2010); Smith & Kidder, (2010). These studies conclude

that in any type of social interaction individual has the desire to govern the impressions other

people form of them influencing others to gain rewards - create image - self disclosure is a

critical step in the development of close relationships. Cheung & Lee (2010 p.28) states that,

“the decision to use online social networking technologies represents a social phenomenon

that largely depends on the interactions” and concludes observing that “the driving forces

behind online social networks are connections and community, and the usage is largely

depended on subjective norm and social identity”. The membership base and user

information is attracting businesses to explore this information laden potential customer base.

Facebook provides businesses with an established active netizens who are indulging in the

various rich features using its simple, practical, efficient, fast template and interface.

Businesses can for no charge freely set up a business page, up load photos, information, and

variety of basic and useful details in matter of minutes. Businesses can then invite various

existing users mostly from its network of employees, their friends and other stakeholders

such as suppliers, customers, government officials, accountants and so on. An important

aspect to note here is that though a business page is created the members who like the page

are individuals - the focus is on individuals who may be a part of your close or extended

existing network. Very recently facebook has provided the option for business to like other

businesses and comment and communicate as a business with businesses. This indicates the

movement, trend and strategic attitude of facebook to increase its member business

interaction. It would be appropriate to describe facebook commerce as a subset of social

commerce which tries to make the shopping experience more social and besides shopping it

provides a rich interface for interacting and engaging the various networks of businesses. To

put this in perspective an appropriate quote from Fischer & Reuber, (2010), “Facebook is a




cocktail party and so when you are engaged in facebook you are surrounded, sometimes very

peripherally but surrounded, by people that you know and you like and that are part of your

social graph”.

This section briefly touched the subject of web 2.0, social media, social commerce and

facebook commerce discussing in brief why people join facebook. However, social

commerce is an up-coming subject in vogue with the development of facebook business

pages and other similar social media sites like linked-in. The next section will discuss the

rationale behind why businesses have a lukewarm approach to adopting social media.

4.3 Adoption of social media by businesses

Lack of knowledge and capabilities, privacy concerns, and what to post is making businesses

shy towards social media which is being primarily used for branding and marketing of

products. Moreover, micro blogging seems to be preferred by businesses more than facebook

like applications. This might be primarily due to the starting point of each of the social media

applications. The bulk of social media research has concentrated on impression management

and friendship performance, networks and network structure, online/offline connections, and

privacy issues. DiMicco et al. (2008) researching on technology organisation finds significant

body of existing research on method of application of social software in general in a

corporate environment. They refer to the studies of (Jackson et al. 2007, Kim et al. 2008) on

the utility of blogging software, (Millen et al. 2006) on social bookmarking tools and wikis

[Hasan & Pfaff 2006]. However, these studies cannot be described as academic studies and

have been done within the boundaries of an intranet largely sponsored by the organisations in

study. Secondly, the examination of the study has been limited to highly skilled employees of

technology organisations and cannot be considered as general businesses. A practical

approach has been followed by Kärkkäinen et al. (2010) investigating general companies to

actually see how much of the social media application has actually penetrated the non-

technology and traditional organisations. Kärkkäinen et al. (2010) investigation of various

white papers and statistics lead to revelations that 15% of general working population used

social media at work though they did use them outside the work context. They point out that

the general understanding and use of social media for business purpose is quite low and

uncommon. Kärkkäinen et al. (2010) examines survey performed by Coleman, (2009) and

Gordon, (2009) and highlights the following challenges for businesses to adopt social media:




1. Lack of knowledge of the possibilities of social media innovation

2. Difficulties in calculating return on investment of time

3. Problems in adopting new mental models and practices required for adoption

4. Lack of proof of application by businesses.

In absence of research examining the adoption of social media in the regular business it is

useful to examine the purpose of adoption by employees of technology companies. DiMicco

et al. (2008) summarises the application of social media by technology companies primarily

as a self-presentation tools to broadcast self as an evangelists and thought leaders. Tools like

blogs, bookmarks and wikis are more information-centric tools rather than connecting with

fellow employees and hence cannot be described as social software. Brzozowski et al. (2009

p.2) opines that “unlike email, which must be targeted to specific recipients or distribution

lists, social media provide as free broadcast platform, allowing authors to circumvent

traditional organisational hierarchies and connect with geographically or organisationally

distant readers”. Kärkkäinen et al. (2010) based on survey results finds application of social

media by businesses is inclined more towards communication to the customer in the

traditional sense like branding, public relations and lead generation rather than

communication with the customer, understanding the customer and internal communications.

At the backdrop of this discussion research has significantly increased towards micro-

blogging as an application used by businesses. Several authors have investigated adoption of

micro blogging by businesses such as Günther et al. (2009), Blake et al. (2010), Meyer &

Dibbern (2010), Fischer & Reuber (2010) Riemer & Richter (2010a & b). The next section

will examine the popularity of micro blogging and the adoption challenges for businesses.

4.4 Adoption and motivation of micro blogging by businesses

Businesses are adopting micro blogging to make directed connection with people who have

same or common business interest and hence enjoy a substantial user base with small and

medium enterprises owners. Günther et al. (2009) says that in comparison to the adoption of

traditional word processing software or spreadsheets and even email the application of micro

blogging in to offices and workspaces confronts businesses with specific challenges which

arise particularly due to its collaborative nature. In contrast to email communications, or

closed virtual groups conversation carried out on micro blogging is available to a definable

population. This will lead to knowledge storage and exchange and provides excellent




opportunity for data mining. Blake et al. (2010) categorically differentiates micro blogging

from facebook based on the requirement of acknowledgement of a relationship in facebook.

In facebook A has to acknowledge B as a friend and only then the relationship can proceed

but in case of micro blogging that is not the case so. In micro blogging A can follow B but

the vice versa is not necessary and mandatory. As one of the participants of Fischer & Reuber

(2010 p.3) a user of twitter appropriately observes that “twitter is more like somebody

standing on the street corner with a megaphone saying, “Hey, if you're interested in the

Toronto Maple Leafs, check out this article!” And I may be interested and I might check it

out or I may just walk right by.”

Another participant of Fischer & Reuber (2010 p.1) appropriately summarises the application

of micro blogging as “twitter has been my number one resource for building my community

and building my business. Twitter enabled me to reach out to people that I otherwise wouldn't

or couldn't. You can find people who are relevant to your business readily and steadily and as

the usage numbers peak on Twitter so does that ability to really connect with people in a

relevant manner. What Twitter allowed us to do was cultivate a following of people for

various things. … A lot of these people I have engaged in an online fashion have become part

of our offline social functions and I formed real relationships with many. Hundreds of people:

my network exploded … it grew exponentially and it's through Twitter. It's through

connecting with people. They find me. They reach out to me or I find them. I reach out to

them. And we engage in ongoing conversations online, meeting up sometimes offline. These

are real relationships.” This summary brings out the precise meaning of what Günther et al.

(2009 p.1) was trying to point out while quoting (Cross, Parker and Sasson, 2003) “this is of

particular value given one of the most consistent findings in the social science literature

saying that whom you know is highly correlated with what you come to know”

The motivation for adopting micro blogging has been to make connections more

appropriately directed connection with people who have same or common business interest

and hence the businesses especially small and medium enterprises are trying to adopt micro

blogging as evident from the studies of Günther et al., (2009), Blake et al. (2010), Meyer &

Dibbern (2010), Fischer & Reuber, (2010) Riemer & Richter (2010a & b). The research

questions of these investigations are quite similar with variations in setting such as teams,

entrepreneurs, only twitter users or organisational settings with dedicated twitter like

applications. The questions can be described as: what is the utility of Twitter? How can




Micro blogs be used at work? How is Twitter currently being used? Why is Micro blogging

accepted and used at work? What uniqueness does Twitter Possess? The studies use a range

of theories to evaluate the questions posed by micro blogging which is discussed later in

section 4.6. The next section elaborates a sole study of adoption of facebook like application

in an organisational setting expectedly a technology company.

4.5 Adoption of application similar to facebook in organisational settings

Contrary to individual use on facebook for connecting with families and existing friends,

businesses users tend to use facebook like application for connecting with weak ties and for

career advancements. This section is largely reliant on the study “Motivations for social

networking at work” by DiMicco et al., (2008) who have studied by the process of action

research the adoption process and motivation of employees of IBM using a facebook like site

within their intranet. DiMicco summarises the main points of the study as (p.711) “our

analysis of user behaviour and interviews presents the case that professionals use internal

social networking to build stronger bonds with their weak ties and to reach out to employees

they do not know. Their motivations in doing this include connecting on a personal level with

coworkers, advancing their career with the company, and campaigning for their projects.”

These results are contradictory to investigation of Lampe et al., (2006), Joinson, (2008) and

Ellison et al., (2007) & Ellison et al., (2011) who have investigated the motivation of

facebook users in college settings.

Joinson, (2008) in its study of motivations for people to use facebook identify seven unique

uses and gratifications which motivated people to use social media in their life which are

social connection, shared identities, content, social investigation, social network surfing and

status updating. Joinson, (2008 p.1028) opines that “social networks serve a number of

functions in offline life – for instance, providing social and emotional support, information

resources and ties to other people”. According to Joinson, (2008) facebook provides similar

kind of social networks in online communities with users turning online for both emotional

support and as an information resource. DiMicco et al. (2008) suggests that prior research

indicates that users are using the sites to stay in touch with friends (Boyd 2006, Ellison et al.

2007, Joinson 2008, & Lampe et al. 2006). According to DiMicco et al., (2008p.1) “the

research thus far on social network sites (SNSs) has been focused on four main aspects:

privacy issues (Acquisti & Gross, 2006;, Dwyer et al., 2007; Govani & Pashley, 2005; Gross

& Acquisti, 2005; and Jones & Soltren, 2005;), self-presentation (DiMicco & Millen, 2007;




Donath & Boyd, 2004; Gosling, 2007; Lampe et al., 2007;), network analysis (Boyd, 2004;

Heer & Boyd, 2005;), and social capital benefits (Ellison et al., 2007, Joinson, 2008)”

Lampe et al., (2006) found that facebook users spend more time connecting with friends they

know rather than trying to make new friends or browsing through profiles of those they do

not know. Literature review by Boyd and Ellison, (2008 p.213) also support this result stating

that “although exceptions exist, the available research suggests that most SNSs primarily

support pre-existing social relations”. Further recent studies by Ellison, et al. (2011) found

positive relation between greater “bridging” and “bonding” social capital with greater usage

of facebook. This means that that the ties to one’s immediate and extended friends are

stronger with greater use of Facebook. Ellison et al., (2007) suggests that facebook is used to

uphold existing offline connections or enrich offline relationships, as against meeting new

people. These connections are ideally weak ties, which have a common element such as

school friend or neighbour or from the same town. Ellison et al., (2011) says that this is one

of the chief dimensions that differentiate social media from earlier forms of public

networking such as virtual communities and newsgroups. Hopkins & Ress, (2007) opine that

the rise of specialized social media sites positioned towards specific user groups, such as

professionals, indicates that social media can be of use to many types of users, in many varied

ways. LinkedIn.com is the most popular public site for companies and professional

networking having more than 80 million users. Applications of LinkedIn are not limited to

networking and include generating sales leads, finding potential hires, and in general,

leveraging the contact lists of fellow colleagues (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In contrast to the

application of facebook as suggested by Ellison, et al., (2011) the focus of professional users

is on information providing and gathering, not on socializing. (DiMicco et al., (2008); Skeels

& Grudin, (2009); Papacharissi, (2009).

An important conclusion reached by DiMicco et al., (2008 p.718) has been that employees of

IBM used the “site to connect with the “weak ties” (Granovetter, 1973) in their network:

either colleagues they did not know well or ones they had worked with previously but did not

communicate with on a regular basis now.” The employees at IBM used the social internal

networking site to primarily acquaint with their weak ties and attempt to know these weak

ties on a personal level. This conclusion is supported by Skeels & Grudin, (2009) who

investigated technologically savvy individuals at Microsoft to conclude that social media is

predominantly used to maintain weak ties. DiMicco et al., (2008) argue that in contrary to the




research on facebook and other internet social media sites IBM employees were not using the

site for maintaining contact with close colleagues. Instead of the usual expected behaviour

pattern of application on facebook the users attempted to discover and connect with

colleagues they were not acquainted or sparsely know to them. Members used the

application in a manner quite similar to connection choices of micro blogging to connect

beyond the boundaries of their offices. They connected with colleagues with similar interest

across geographically diverse locations groups and offices. In the own words of one of the

participants of DiMicco et al., (2008 p.715) “beehive helped me maintain loose social ties

with people I don't have a close, frequent connection with (which is based on a work or

friendly relationship), but would like to do some maintenance to my connection with them,

for the future's sake.” According to the findings of DiMicco et al., (2008) connecting beyond

one’s own network has been the key activity and motivation for using the system.

On a detailed level DiMicco et al., (2008) classify the motivations and applications of the

social media site as caring, climbing and campaigning. According to them a recurring theme

from the analysis of the interviews was about the personal satisfaction gained by the

employees while connecting with their colleagues. This was brought out in the words of one

the interviewees (p.716) “We no longer have the face-to-face contact we had 5+ years ago, so

we don't get to ‘catch up’ on the life side of work/life, family, what we did on the weekend,

pictures from our holidays, etc. However, we do get to do that here [on Beehive] so we've

added that interpersonal relationship back in... I'm enjoying being here and seeing a different

side of people I work with.” DiMicco et al., (2008 p.717) mentions that “this desire to

connect personally, both to those you may work with and those you don’t know, was a

tangible and most frequently mentioned benefit to the site”. Secondly, in connection to the

discussion above about connecting to new colleagues members are also trying to connect

with upper management. This is akin to traditional social networking done at physical events.

Members are also commenting and interacting with upper management through their profiles

in an attempt to be known to the upper management. Finally, a small section of member

similar to our earlier discussion about being evangelist and thought leaders in their fields

were trying to garner support for their projects. As DiMicco et al. (2008 p.719) observes that

“these users see Beehive as a unique platform for promoting and campaigning for their

projects”.




Based on the discussion in this section and the earlier section about adoption of micro

blogging the business pages in facebook as discussed in section 4.2.4 are similar to micro

blogging at least on relationship front. Business pages on facebook are set up in a manner

depending on the privacy setting wherein a user can “like” the business page and then interact

with the business while the businesses don’t need to respond back to confirm relationship. As

suggested by Boyd & Ellison, (2008 p.218) the “term ‘‘Friends’’ can be misleading, because

the connection does not necessarily mean friendship in the everyday vernacular sense, and the

reasons people connect are varied (boyd, 2006a)”. Users can like and follow number of

businesses and they choose to receive information about updates and deals which the

business may post in their newsfeed. For example one can choose to like specific set of

businesses which may be of interest to the individual and then continue to interact with these

businesses on various problem and issues. It is quite possible that competitors may like the

page of a particular business just to receive news and information about their regular

postings. Moreover micro blogging stream can be integrated within facebook and vice versa

in new techniques of “mashable” option within the social media site interfaces. Researchers

have applied several methods to understand the adoption process of social media in to

businesses. The framework for adoption of micro blogging by businesses has been examined

through the lens of UTAUT which is discussed in the preceding section.

4.6 Conceptual framework based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)

A modified version of the UTAUT has been developed by studying social media adoption

with new constructs in the umbrella of performance expectancy such as reputation,

communication benefits and in particular privacy concerns that have influence on the

behaviour patterns of acceptance of micro blogging and social software in general. Due to the

popularity of micro blogging substantial academic research has been generated and the

following authors Günther et al., (2009); Blake et al., (2010); Meyer & Dibbern, (2010) and

Riemer & Ritcher, (2010a & b), have examined the adoption of twitter in organisational

setting. Günther et al., (2009 p.3) say that “to our best knowledge there are no studies on

micro blogging adoption within an organizational setting. So, there is a need to close this gap

as individuals may be expected to follow another rationale in a workspace environment than

they do when forming their adoption decision for private purposes.” Based on Günther et al.,

(2009) Blake et al., (2010), and Meyer & Dibbern, (2010) have examined micro blogging in

different settings the former using the Rogers diffusion theory and later applying the




UTAUT. In addition Riemer & Ritcher (2010a & b) use the genre analysis method to analyse

a case study of micro blogging adopted by a software organisation. On analysis of the

literature it is found that Günther et al., (2009) has adapted UTAUT from the highly cited

seminal work of Venkatesh et al., (2003) specifically for social software adoption. According

to Günther et al., (2009 p.9) “even though our model is tailored to the specific needs of micro

blogging, we expect it to perform well in explaining social software adoption in general as

similar issues arising from self-disclosure and social interaction are involved”. In this section

the constructs of the model are inspected in light of the further studies undertaken in the

similar direction by Blake et al., (2010) and Meyer & Dibbern, (2010) and how they can be

adopted for examination of this research.

Blake et al., (2010) focuses on how micro blogging associates itself to concepts from

Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers. Blake et al., (2010 p.1257) says that

“according to Rogers, diffusion occurs when information regarding an innovation is

communicated over time through certain channels among members of a social system”. They

say that during the process of decision of adoption of innovations individuals have to make

the crucial decision whether to accept or reject the new innovations. The decision process

usually involves a series of steps beginning with gathering of knowledge about the

innovation, persuasion attempts, decision making, implementation of innovations, and

confirmation seeking. Günther et al., (2009) on the other hand investigated and reviewed a

number of models with regards to their applicability to technology adoption stating the reason

as lack of empirical studies on micro blogging. Günther et al., (2009 p.1) reviewed

technology adoption and behaviour theories of authors such as Rogers’ Innovation Diffusion

Theory (2003), Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (Taylor & Todd, 1995), and

Technology Acceptance Model including its extensions (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis,

2000). Venkatesh, et al., (2003) summarized these and five other models to identify

similarities among elements between these models which were then empirically validated.

Günther et al., (2009 p.2) opines that “as a result, they conceptualized the Unified Theory of

Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) thus integrating performance expectancy,

effort expectancy, and social influence as predictors of behavioural intention as well as

behavioural intention and facilitating conditions as predictors of the actual behaviour in terms

of adopting the technology”. In addition to behaviour intention the rate of adoption is suitably

explained by Rogers theory of diffusion as suggested by Blake et al., (2010 p.2) opine from

Rogers, (1995) that “the rate of adoption of an innovation is the relative speed with which an




innovation is adopted by members of a social system”. There are five key characteristics of

innovations that affect the rate of adoption. These include:

1. relative advantage of the innovation, 2. compatibility of the innovation with current ideas and norms,

3. complexity of the innovation, 4. trialability of the innovation, and

5. observability of the innovation. (Rogers 2003)

Besides the rate of adoption a typical characteristic of social software has been of knowledge

sharing. This point of view about knowledge sharing has been explained by Kärkkäinen et al.,

(2010 p.4) by stating that “various types of collaborative web tools and approaches, such as

social media, can enable and significantly increase the use of the distributed knowledge both

within and outside the company borders [McAfee 2006, Levy 2007], as well as support the

transition to more open innovation processes”. The application of social software for

knowledge sharing is also opined by Günther et al., (2009 p.2) evident from “indeed, micro

blogging implies knowledge sharing as information is sent and received. Thus, insights from

the knowledge sharing literature might prove useful in explaining the formation of individual

performance expectation as well as behavioral intention.” Günther et al., (2009) quote from

Wasko and Faraj (2005) to argue that individual contributors to knowledge expect reputation

gains by contributing knowledge to a group of users or community important to the

individual. Blake et al., (2010) & Günther et al., (2009) from Bock, et al., (2005) point out

that reciprocal relationship and organisation climate is an important determinant of individual

attitude towards knowledge sharing in an enterprise context. Günther et al., (2009 p.3) is of

the opinion that “extending UTAUT by integrating relevant constructs from the knowledge

sharing literature as well as other relevant determinants may reveal important dynamics

behind the individual adoption decision as well as make the model more useful for

practitioners who are looking for operable means to ensure technology adoption.”

Similar to the line of investigation of Fischer & Reuber, (2010) using interviews and focus

groups Günther et al., (2009) examined the challenges of adoption of micro blogging by

selecting participants from different cultural and technical backgrounds. In the UTAUT

model besides its general nature and moderating variables of gender, age and experience

behavioural intention are directly dependent on the main constructs of performance

expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence. According to Venkatesh et al., 2003, p.




447) “the performance expectancy construct within each individual model is the strongest

predictor of intention and remains significant at all points of measurement in both voluntary

and mandatory settings” Based on this construct Günther et al., (2009 p.3) opines that

“decomposition of this important construct may shed light on the underlying forces

constituting individual value and allow for insightful managerial implications. This approach

seems especially suitable taking into account a collaborative nature of microblogging

applications as opposed to traditionally tested IT applications in the context of technology

acceptance (e.g. word processing software (Davis, 1989).” The diagrammatic modified

representation of the model adapted to micro blogging has been proposed by Günther et al.,

(2009) which is attached as Appendix A Modified and Extended Version of UTAUT.

Günther et al., (2009) based on the Venkatesh et al., 2003, model find several new constructs

such as reputation, expected relationship, codification effort, signal-to-noise ratio and privacy

concerns which are unique to the social software arena. These new constructs as indicated in

the figure in Appendix A Modified and Extended Version of UTAUT have direct influence

on behaviour intention. Günther et al., (2009 p.9) based on the new constructs argue for

“several modifications and extensions to the UTAUT model in order to account for the

specific nature of microblogging adoption in an enterprise context.” According to them the

introduction of privacy concerns as a relevant construct is seen as an important step.

Building on this premise Meyer and Dibbern (2010), also propose a model for twitter

acceptance based on UTAUT more focussed and extending the performance expectancy

element. They define performance expectancy (p. 6) “the degree to which an individual

believes that using the system will help him or her to attain gain in job performance”. Their

study is based on performance expectancy arising out of enhanced awareness and develops

the following elements: task interdependence, task similarity, reputation and expected

relationships. Based on the constructs of DiMicco et al., (2008), and other authors on micro

blogging I have a prepared a comparative conceptual framework in Table 3.

Table 3: Conceptual comparative framework modelled from three similar studies and one facebook like application

Günther et al., (2009) Blake et al., (2010)

Meyer &Dibbern, (2010)

DiMicco et al., (2008)

Perceived Usefulness Trialability task interdependence Social Caring

Relative Advantage Advantage Climbing

Reputation Observability Reputation Campaigning




Expected Relationships

expected relationships Campaigning

Incentives

Fun Social Caring

Improving Communication

expected relationships Campaigning

Supporting Distributed Work

task interdependence

Speeding Up Communication

expected relationships Weak ties

User Control

Ease of Use Complexity

Compatibility Compatibility task similarity

Privacy Concerns Low

Critical Mass

Self-Efficacy Climbing & Campaigning

Social Pressure Social Caring

The discussion so far has concentrated on various models which have been proposed using

the UTAUT as the base model for the application of the micro blogging. DiMicco et al.,

(2008), Skeels & Grudin, (2009) and Brzozowski et al., (2009) are few studies which have

examined facebook like application in organisational settings. However, these investigations

have been conducted in a technology organisation such as IBM, Microsoft and HP wherein

the users are highly skilled and developed with respect to computers and software. The

overriding difference between the micro blogging model and DiMicco et al., (2008) model

has been that the facebook like application is about caring, climbing and campaigning which

another viewpoint and the possible over laps are indicated in Table 3. DiMicco et al., (2008)

and Skeels & Grudin, (2009) refers to highly cited and seminal work of Granovetter, (1973)

connecting with weak ties. Kaplan & Haenlein, (2010b p.65) “social media is not only

relevant for large multinationals but also for small and medium sized companies” and Fischer

& Reuber, (2010 p.3) suggest in its study of entrepreneurs who have used twitter that

“entrepreneur learned that he could connect to his customers even more effectively than he

had been doing”.




The seminal work of Granovetter, (1973) has been the basic interest of network researchers

for the last few decades especially for small and medium enterprises. General simple small

and medium businesses do not processes the level of knowledge and inclination like the

research participants of DiMicco et al., (2008). Moreover, as discussed earlier facebook

business pages are free and have been capitalised by many small business by making a fan

page and “campaigning” their products and services to the select audience. Fischer & Reuber,

(2010 p.2) say that “in the relatively few scholarly studies that consider how such social

media may benefit firms, the majority has focused on social media as marketing tools. Little

is known about how the use of social media may affect the entrepreneurs themselves”. It is

expected to see similar constructs of caring, climbing and campaigning attitude along with

elements of performance expectancy, ease of use, and privacy concerns by social media

adopting small businesses owners/entrepreneurs whose ties and personal networks have been

the subject of immense interest by researchers. I expect to add personal characteristics as an

important construct to the existing body of literature on adoption of social media. The next

section examines the extensive literature on entrepreneurial personal networks and the

importance of weak ties is reviewed for insights and building of our conceptual framework.

4.7 Entrepreneurs – Role of links actors and ties in social networks

The importance of links and ties which are embedded in the network is of extreme

importance and secondly wider the network more varied resources can be gathered by the

entrepreneur. By definition, an entrepreneurial venture requires the introduction of

innovations and the simultaneous handling of many tasks (Schumpeter, 1934) (Minniti,

2005). Jack et al., (2010 121p.) define entrepreneurship as “a social undertaking and as a

consequence is carried out and must be understood within the context of social systems

(Sarason et al., 2006)”. Typically such owner/managers have relatively small and non-

extensive networks (Curran et al., 1993, p. 23; Taylor et al., 2004) that tend to be formed

around suppliers, customers, competitors and funders. (Jack, 2010) Apart from personal

social networks the intensity of the day-to-day requirements of running a small SME limits

exposure to wider networks (Gordon & Jack, 2010). Jack (2010 p.121) points out that

“entrepreneurs are intimately tied through social relationships to a broader network of actors

(Hoang & Antoncic, 2003)”. The Social networks and embeddedness of ties and links in the

network are the basic factors in the decision making processes of the entrepreneurs (Gulati,

1998; Uzzi, 1997) (Jack, 2010). Jack, (2010 p.122) & Minniti, (2005) argue that “by




combining the work of Larson and Starr (1993) with that of Uzzi, (1997); Uzzi & Gillespie,

(2002); Uzzi & Lancaster, (2003); and Hite, (2003, 2005); a better understanding has been

gained about relationally embedded ties, processes through which these ties might evolve,

relationships between social ties and organizational networks”.

Business networks have been defined by Hoang and Antoncic, (2003 p. 169) as “consisting of

a set of actors and some set of relationships that link them” Nelson (1988) defines networks

as “sets of ties linking several actors”. (Minniti, 2005) (Jack, 2010 p.121) These definitions

emphasize the notion of actors and links between actors (Jack, 2010). And this is not really

surprising since social relations are a fundamental element of everyone's life (Jack, 2010);

(Gordon & Jack 2010); (Jack et al., 2010). The links and ties in small organisations are not

just relationships and channels of communication; but they facilitate the mechanism allowing

flow of information and resources are drawn from, which are then exchanged within the

social context (Aldrich et al.1987) (Jack, 2010). Granovetter, (1985) argued that both the

economic and non – economic goals are part of the social network and economic action is

embedded in ongoing networks of personal relationships. Jack, (2005 p. 1235) point out that

“the relevance of informal social systems for co-ordination and collaboration is also

emphasized within the network governance literature (Piore and Sabel, 1984; Powell, 1990;

Ring and Van de Ven, 1992; Snow et al., 1992), where contracts are perceived to be socially

rather than legally binding (Jones et al., 1997)”. Jack, (2005 p.1234-1235) says that

“basically, a social network can be thought of as the actual set of links of all kinds amongst a

set of individuals (Mitchell, 1973). Links such as friends of friends (Boissevain, 1974), group

obligations (Bourdieu, 1986) and strong and weak ties (Granovetter, 1973) can provide

privileged information, access to opportunities and enable individuals to obtain resources”.

According to Hoang & Antoncic, (2003) examination of entrepreneurial networks with

respect to its role in influencing the entrepreneurial process and outcomes has been an

emerging area of inquiry. Jack, (2005) opine that the ability to network effectively is a crucial

element in encouraging entrepreneurial activity and sustaining business development.

Numerous studies have echoed this finding such as (Birley, 1985; Chell & Baines, 2000;

Gulati, 1998; Johannisson & Mønsted, 1997) that the survival of the firm is dependent on the

entrepreneur capabilities to network (Brüderl & Preisendörfer, 1998; Tom & Willem, 2003;

Zhao & Aram, 1995); and that networks are a source of base crucial to starting and

developing a business. This viewpoint is notably important as it has been established that by




augmenting the entrepreneur’s own business resources, the network improves the likelihood

of success (Anderson & Jack, 2002; Brüderl & Preisendörfer, 1998; Jack, 2002; Johannisson,

1988; Johannisson & Mønsted, 1997;). Opportunity seeking and social relations therefore,

play an important role in establishing a firm (Ardichvili, et al.2003, Hite & Hesterly, 2001

Hite, 2003; Ellis, 2010) and its consequent development (Hoang & Antoncic, 2003; Jack et

al., 2008; Schutjens & Stam, 2003;). Additionally, entrepreneurs are provided with ideas,

opportunities and valuable resources through their social and professional networks. (Birely,

1985; Johannisson, 1988;). From the examination of the literature it can be concluded that the

links and ties of the entrepreneur within a network is crucial for success of any small business

and adoption of social media and subsequent impact on entrepreneurs would be the most

relevant and ideal setting to examine the issue of networks especially with reference to strong

and weak ties.

4.8 Contrary position on weak versus strong ties

The supposition has been proposed by Jack, (2005) that strong bonds are more important and

that through the strong bonds the entrepreneur activates it network to reach a particular

resource or information. This position is controversial and against position of existing

literature and studies performed by numerous authors. Jack, (2005 p.1235) finds that “most

network studies are characterized by the use and application of Granovetter’s strong and

weak tie hypothesis (for examples, see Aldrich et al., 1987; Hills et al., 1997; Marsden and

Campbell, 1984)”. According to Granovetter (1973, p. 1361) quality of relationship between

the actors in a network denote the strength of ties within a network. Strength of ties are

typified as strong and weak the diversity, homogeneity and heterogeneity of the ties have

impact on the action of individuals. Weakness or strength is measured in terms of the

frequency of interaction and Granovetter, (1973) proposed that a strong tie would be

contacted at least twice a week. Jack, (2010 p. 1236) observes that “this ‘closeness’ of

relationship does seem to be the most commonly used indication for measurement of tie

strength (see Erickson et al., 1978; Lin and Dumin, 1982; Marsden and Campbell, 1984;

Murray et al., 1981).”

A network should comprise of a mixture of strong and weak ties, since their basic nature has

impact on the structure and functioning of the network. (Granovetter, 1973; & Burt, 2004;).

The weak ties are diverse in nature in the sense that they are embedded within the

entrepreneur’s extended social network and act as agents or brokers of information transfer in




a wider range of networks such as a member of trade association or a friend of the supplier

etc. (Burt, 2004). Jack, (2005 p. 1235) opines that “hence, the value and strength of weak ties

is not related to the weakness of the relationship, but in the possibility of connections to other

social systems (Ibarra, 1993).” The argument between the importance of weak and strong ties

takes place on the basis of that strong ties offer number of benefits such as it is not expensive,

being on impersonal level from a known source it is more vivid, relatable, detailed and hence

can be trusted. (Granovetter 1992, p. 490 in Jack, 2005 p.1235) Negating this claim of

Granovetter, Burt, (2004) argues that the strong ties are expected to be placed in immediate

circle of the entrepreneur knowledge sharing will be quite limited to the small circle.

Whereas, weak ties with whom the entrepreneur is not in daily contact may be a specialist in

his field such as a tax consultant and may be activated on demand and information will be

sourced addressing the specific problem. Jack, (2005 p. 1235) in agreement with Burt says

that “the homogeneity of strong ties is thought to be less effective, breeding local cohesion

but also leading to overall fragmentation (Granovetter, 1973; Ibarra, 1993; Maguire, 1983)”.

Jack, (2005) qualitative investigation of 14 entrepreneurs revealed that strong ties were

actually the path to connect to the weak ties. This is explained in a diagrammatic form which

is reproduced in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Entrepreneur and network ties (Jack, 2005 P.1252)




According to Jack, 2005 entrepreneurs draw extensively from strong ties such as family,

personal links and employee links. Strong ties were responsible for providing links to a larger

social network which provided essential information about local markets, and localised social

information about employees, trends, and matter related to taxation, banking and accounting.

Moreover, Jack, (2005) doesn’t find any evidence on Granovetter’s (1973) strong tie based

on the number of times the entrepreneur discussed or made contact with a particular tie. It

was observed that entrepreneur had latent ties which could be initialised when necessary for

specific requirements. Instead of ties being weak Jack, (2005) found that “friends of friends”

(a term quite common in social media) acted as a secondary link developed and initialised

from the primary strong tie. The premise of the investigation was that the entrepreneur uses

his/her strong ties to initialise the network to draw information and resources in to the

business. As evident from the figure the strong ties in turn initialise the network and connect

the entrepreneur to a wider set of friends of friends to draw benefits from a wider social

network in to the business. However, Jack, (2005) refuses to acknowledge that it is not

possible for an entrepreneur to have strong ties who will always necessarily connect on to the

necessary contact or resource required for that moment.

Moreover, the diagram is an over simplification of the entrepreneur network even for a

representative version. Broader the network of an entrepreneur large the capabilities and

resources the business can gather! This seems to find agreement from Brüderl and

Preisendörfer, (1998) who argue that a broad and diverse network of an entrepreneur will

potentially lead gathering of resources which will be definitely superior then an entrepreneur

in a confined network. A number of authors like Granovetter (1973) and Burt (2004),

Johannisson (1988) argue that the ideal entrepreneurial network should contain both weak

and strong ties. Another view point on weak and strong ties has been brought in a recent

study by Slotte-Kock & Coviello (2010) which has been supported in earlier studies by

Larson & Starr, (1993) and Hite & Hesterly, (2001). These studies point out that the network

evolve with the entrepreneur and his/her firm following a life cycle approach. Slotte-Kock &

Coviello (2010) say that the life cycle of network development hovers between new and old

ties being selected based on a particular requirement and eventually these ties gain the status

of strong tie as long the utility exists and then eventually relegate themselves to being weak

tie. This argument is consistent with Larson & Starr, (1993) conceptual framework and the

organisational stages proposed by Hite & Hesterly, (2001). This conceptual framework is

depicted diagrammatically in Figure 2.




Figure 2 Conceptualizing network development Slotte-Kock & Coviello, (2010)

In the second and third stage which is best described in the words of the author Slotte-Kock

& Coviello, (2010 p.51) “moving to the question of “how and why does the network

develop?” (Parts B and C), all of the activities in Part A are influenced by the focal firm or

entrepreneur purposefully respecifying goals where s/he initiates change in ties (and therefore

the network) to either accommodate or enact the external environment (Hite, 2005; Larson,

1991; Schutjens & Stam, 2003; Steier & Greenwood, 2000).” External environment may

constitute of exogenous factors such as information technology or information systems such

as social media for that instance. The purpose of this research would be to examine the

behavioural life cycle modification in the tie variation, selection and retention processes with

the adoption of social media tools like facebook. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to suggest that the

prospective participants of our study will have enact a change looking at the environment by

selecting a new tie (the researcher) in their network to draw on the expertise and knowledge

which they are themselves lacking and unable to implement. Extensive literature survey

studies of Hoang & Antoncic, 2003 and Slotte-Kock & Coviello (2010) do not find studies on

impact of information systems on networks of entrepreneur. A few studies like (Hamill &

Gregory, (1997); Loane, (2005); MacGregor, (2004); Moen et al., (2004); Nicolaou & Birley,

(2003); Poon, (2000); Poon & Jevons (1997) examine the impact of internet on marketing

network by small businesses. These studies take in to account the development of networks

but are discussing networks between organisations unlike our interest of ties and development

of the personal networks of the entrepreneur and the impact of social media.




4.9 Literature gap

Günther et al., (2009) and subsequent investigation of Blake et al., (2010); Meyer & Dibbern,

(2010); Fischer & Reuber, (2010); Riemer & Richter, (2010a&b); examine the issue of micro

blogging with the help of UTAUT, genre analysis and technology diffusion theory. The

studies are able to identify a set of new constructs in the umbrella of performance expectancy

such as reputation, communication benefits and in particular privacy concerns that have

influence on the behaviour patterns of acceptance of micro blogging and social software in

general. DiMicco et al., (2008); Skeels & Grudin, (2009); and Brzozowski et al., (2009); have

investigated facebook like application on employee behaviour and identified a set of

constructs such as caring, climbing and campaigning along with importance of peer pressure

and feedback as primary reason for use of social media by business users. The issue that is of

concern to this research and shortcoming in the literature has been identified as follows:

1. Investigations have been conducted in high technology companies such as software

manufacturers or large organisations like Microsoft, HP and IBM.

2. There is substantial difference between social software operating behind a company

firewall against open to all access like the facebook.

3. Application of conceptual framework like the UTAUT has not been carried out for

adoption of facebook.

4. It is recognised that facebook is different from micro blogging.

5. The impact of information system on entrepreneur network is highly under-

researched

Based on the issues identified I justify my research being unique as since I am trying to study

simple and non-techno savvy participants who have limited computer skills and inclination to

apply the same. Second, though there has been limited study on application of micro blogging

using a conceptual framework like the UTAUT I couldn’t find any study applying UTAUT to

study adoption issues related to facebook. Third, DiMicco et al., (2008); Skeels & Grudin,

(2009) identified that employees were mostly connecting with weak ties which is contrary to

the studies on usage of facebook by individuals and by Jack, (2005) who found that

entrepreneurs are using more of their strong ties. The literature is under surveyed on how the

entrepreneur will use the facebook to connect to its weak ties or try to increase contact with

existing strong ties. Fourth, there has been no investigation on the constructs identified by

Günther et al., (2009) and their role in performance expectation of behaviours during the




adoption of facebook. Finally, the examination of the behavioural life cycle modification in

the tie variation, selection and retention with the adoption of facebook by small business

owners has not been investigated until now.




5 Research Design

Facebook business pages will be the main tool and the main research approach will be action

research. The focus will be on small and micro businesses and level of analysis the individual

entrepreneur or business owner. The framework of constructs for data collection has been

proposed in Table 3. It is planned to help small entrepreneurs by constructing facebook

pages, link to their webpages, and motivate them to use the page to develop a fan base for

their businesses. As the pages develop and have a fan base of more than 50-60 users I will

collect data primarily by conducting semi structured interviews. In the preceding section the

research methodology is identified and the rationale for selection of the same justified. After

the methodology of our research has been established the next section discusses the data

collection method primarily being semi-structured interviews. Following the discussion on

data collection I discuss how and from where I am going to collect the data and what

resources will be required and our strategy to tackle the same. The data analysis section

discusses how themes will be developed based on the research questions which will then lead

to theory building.

5.1 Identification and Justification of Research Methodology

Our research strategy is qualitative, action research oriented with a belief that reality is virtual

shaped by socio-economic factors. The researcher is transformative and using the action

research approach changes the social world of the participant. The next section discusses the

rationale of choosing a qualitative strategy and action research oriented approach.

Establishing the qualitative strategy and action research oriented approach the ontological

and epistemological positions of the research is discussed using the paradigm approach.

5.1.1 Qualitative strategy

The importance of a qualitative strategy based on action research and case study approach has

been highlighted by several authors in the literature for researching small enterprises and

their networks. Jack, (2010 p.128) criticises use of quantitative strategy for study of

entrepreneurial networks by observing that “these techniques have been useful in highlighting

structural features of networks; for instance, aspects such as extensiveness, density, activity

levels, centrality, size and reachability of networks”. Jack, (2010 p.128) continues that “many

substantive issues in entrepreneurship are rarely addressed and that many of the important

questions in entrepreneurship can only be asked through qualitative methods and approaches”




Jack, (2010); Jack et al., (2010); Gordon & Jack, (2010); (Anderson et al., 2010) agree that

quantitative methods have become associated with measuring the extent of networking

activity and provide limited detailed explanations of the content of relations and what

actually goes on in and between connections. On the contrary Lechner et al., (2006) found no

importance of social networks for the success or speed of firm development. This

contradictory result may have been due to the reliance on quantitative methods to study social

networks.

Criticising the use of quantitative strategy to study small enterprises I support our

justification of selecting a qualitative strategy from the argument of Andrew McAuley in

Hine & Carson, (2007 p. 23) who opines that “the best research gets pretty close to the lived

reality and how it is perceived and which as researchers we seek to explain!” In our study

reality is the “networking activity” which is extremely useful to small business

enterprise/owners/managers because it is integral to doing business it does not have to be

constructed and controlled, it is not a task to be completed it is simply a part of everyday

business action and therefore it happens (Gilmour & Carson in Hine & Carson, (2007).

Besides getting close to the lived reality it is essential to capture the essence of the

uniqueness of the network of the individual being studied. To capture this uniqueness Hine &

Carson (2007 p. 3) recommend “the necessity of inductive /interpretist/ humanist approaches

to the research of enterprises to match the individualism and uniqueness of the people and

businesses being researched”. Individualism and uniqueness cannot be captured by crunching

numbers such as increase in revenues or the return on investment of a decision to use a

particular information system. Hine & Carson, (2007) quote from (Perry & Coote, (1994) to

suggest that qualitative data considers words rather than numbers, deductive emphasis on

theory building by triangulation of sources while tending to use data within its context and

finally captures subjective information.

The above discussion highlights the suitability of a qualitative strategy for our study which is

in small enterprise especially in the area of network research. Andrew McAuley in Hine &

Carson, (2007 p. 24) comments on qualitative strategy as “one of the great attractions of the

interface in attempting to unlock this lived reality is the variety of methodologies which can

be applied ranging from for example case studies, actions research to grounded theory”. He

goes on to suggest that “the final outcome of the analysis is a construction of the

entrepreneur’s experiences and the meanings attached to them. This enables the researcher to




vicariously experience the challenges small firms meet in relation to their business

environments”. To capture the application of social media small business owners have to be

studied at close quarters to interpret the action of the entrepreneur and develop theories from

the action and themes. It is expected that the entrepreneur will experience learning process in

use of social media such as facebook which itself is quite a new phenomenon. This will lead

us to enable the research participants to play a more active role in shaping the research and

influencing the outcome of the process (Bryman & Bell, 2007). Researcher subject

relationship has been categorised by Bryman & Bell, (2007) as a prominent difference

between quantitative and qualitative strategy highlighting the power relation between the

researcher and the participants. According to them action research, feminism, and

collaborative and participative forms of enquiry are approached that have implications for

researcher-participant relationship. The rationale for selecting action research is discussed in

the following section.

5.1.2 Action Research

Action research in the area of small business networks have been performed by the following

authors Mitchell (1969); Aldrich and Zimmer (1986); Birley, (1985); and Johannisson, (1987,

1988); to demonstrate that networks are organic structures, responding to the needs of

network members thereby identifying that action research may be an appropriate approach for

investigation when the network is changing or evolving itself. (Jack et al., 2010) In this study

it is expected that the network of the entrepreneur will evolve with the application of social

media. Our participants are interested to experiment with social media primarily for

marketing their products and gain a fan base which will demonstrate the popularity of their

products and services. I am particularly influenced by Kock, (1997) Ph.D thesis and Kock,

(2007) which explore the use of action research to study information systems. By using

action research I intend to yield an in depth analysis of a specific real world situation by

allowing the researcher to be part of the subject under observation. The strength of action

research therefore lies in its capacity to gain deep insight from the researcher’s involvement

and provide a rich picture of a phenomenon (Wood-Harper 1992). Meyer & Dibbern, (2010)

Yin’s (2007) checklist adapted by Perry & Rao, (2007) in Hine & Carson, (2007) is

particularly helpful to select research approach especially case study and action research

approach. Yin 2007 proposes a checklist which is based on the nature of the phenomena in

study such as whether the research problem is already well researched or the phenomena is of




recent origins and requires theory building methodology. Table 4 summarises Yin’s

justification and against each requirement I have summarised how my research fits with

Yin’s requirement. Kock, (1997 p. 86) suggest that “one of the reasons for emergence of

action research and its consequent use in the information systems field is the recognition that

a social system can be more deeply understood if the researcher is part of the socio-technical

system being studied, which can be achieved through applying positive intervention on the

system. This involvement is also believed to foster cooperation between the researcher and

those who are being studied, information exchange, and commitment towards both research

quality and organisational development.”

Table 4: Justification of selection of research approach and methodology (Adapted from Yin 2007)

Yin’s Criteria Our Research

1. Little is known about the research problem – paradigmatic body of knowledge so an inductive, theory-building methodology is needed

Social media is relatively new phenomena and their application by business is in the nascent stage. Application of this new technology to entrepreneurial research is absolutely uncharted and hence an inductive theory building approach is justified.

2. Context and Phenomena are not clearly distinct – the research is about the in depth ‘how’ or ‘why’ of a complex social science phenomena – it is an investigation of the changing processes with which people work together

Social media are precisely changing the processes with which people interact and work together. Our research questions examine how social media will impact social networks and communication. Why do small businesses adopt social media?

3. The phenomenon is rarely accessible to academic researchers and the research provides a window on to a critical part of the phenomena.

The process of adoption of social media especially facebook is an on-going phenomenon and once adopted the process can rarely be mapped by an academic.

Small business owners have a unique way of doing business which is largely based on

experience, knowledge, communication and judgement called as “Experiential Learning”.

The experiential learning process will benefit the action research process which is normally

conducted in spirals of plan, act, observe and reflect. (Hine & Carson, 2007) By using the

Table 4 and arguments from Kock, 1997 and Hine & Carson, 2007 I have justified the use of

action research for our research. More over the implementation process of social media as

experienced by other authors may move towards participatory action research involving




continuous cycles of evolutionary learning. Together with the participants major issues,

concerns and problems, are identified action planned and implemented and re-evaluated in a

continuous cyclic manner. (Greenwood et al. 1993) Meyer & Dibbern, (2010). In the study of

Meyer & Dibbern (2010 p. 6) they faced a unique problem as evident form the comment “the

problem with Twitter was not to understand how to twitter, but rather what to twitter”. I

expect to face this problem since most participants feel that like a website once a facebook

site has been made their job is over and they can get on with their life. Participants may not

realise that for facebook to be made operative they have to continuously post information

which may interest their customers and other stakeholders. Finally, similar to Meyer &

Dibbern, (2010) who had to take several actions to increase the usage of twitter in the group I

may have to resort to training our prospective participants to increase their posting with a

hope to get a discussion going on with the customers. Tryst

In brief, social media is a new technology being applied by businesses which will transform

their processes and communication and hence a matter of genuine concern for businesses.

Action research will benefit the business since they can act as an empowered participant,

through a cyclical process, eventually leading to re-education, changing patterns of thinking

and action and finally contributing to both academic theory and practical action. The research

methodology has been identified as a qualitative strategy based on action research approach.

Next section identifies the research paradigm position and discusses the rational for

application of dual paradigm.

5.1.3 Paradigm position of the research

Our intention is to blend critical theory and realism a two paradigms position on a two-

project based approach. Such dual paradigm based approach in action research has been

suggested by Perry and Rao, (2007 pp.133) who opine that “the aim of the first project is the

‘thematic concern’ of the workgroup (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988, p.9) and the aim of the

second project is to fill a gap in the literature that interests readers of academic journals and

theses.” Johannisson & Mønsted (1997) raise an interesting point about reality in relation to

their research on personal networks of Scandinavian entrepreneurs. They (pp.117) suggest

that “if reality is perceived as socially constructed, individuals are expected to be genuinely

“acting,” that is, able and willing to assume a personal initiative and responsibility in

exchange relationships and organising processes. If, however, reality is assumed to exist

independently of individual conduct, individuals will then have to behave according to




expectations associated with roles defined by the existing structure (e.g., Burrel and Morgan,

1979)”. Continuing their argument for social constructivism based on the socio-culctural

setting of Scandinavian environment Johannisson & Mønsted (1997 p.117) state that “the

need for a social-constructivist approach to entrepreneurship research seem especially valid

in a context, such as the Scandinavian, where, on one hand, cultural and associated informal

and formal institutions have until recently been negative to entrepreneurship and, on the other

hand, public policy is actively used to change the situation. The material and social

conditions for entrepreneurship are constantly being reconstructed.”

Johannisson & Mønsted, (1997) have studied the personal networks of the entrepreneur from

the perspective of economic actions and as an act of creation of small businesses and also as

way of life. In their argument they state that in general entrepreneur has been looked upon

negatively by the society and the state is attempting to change that. In our current setting the

entrepreneur and small businesses are considered the backbone of the society and a major

employment and innovation source for the economy. My attempt is not to study the personal

networks and the resource gathering process of the entrepreneurs. I am transforming

entrepreneur’s personal networks by the implementation of technology such as social media

in a profound manner than simply shifting from telephone to a mobile phone. Though the

material and social conditions are constantly being reconstructed reality is also dependent on

factory such as ethnicity, political, cultural and gender values and most importantly the

personal characteristics of the entrepreneur.

The personal network of the entrepreneur is expanding and with technology he/she can now

maintain a multitude of loose ties which may be even decade old. It becomes difficult to

analyse the network just from understanding the ties since many of the ties may not have

been activated for years and as observed by Johannisson & Mønsted (1997 p.118) that

“personal connections represent a secret strength that should be protected, even from

inquiring researchers (Johannision, 1995)”. The paradigm position is justified in Table 5

which discusses our specific case with respect to the social media wherein the researcher is

involved with the participants. The researcher is attempting to implement social media

technologies to change the way the participating businesses and their entrepreneurs

communicate with their employees, customers and other stakeholders such as logistics

provider. To analyse the personal networks and understand this huge transformative change a




triangulated effort is required to counter act the bias of the researcher and gather view points

from various angles to provide a holistic view point.

Table 5: Paradigm Position of the research (Adapted from Perry & Rao in Hine & Carson 2007)

Element Critical Theory Our Case Realism Our Case

Ontology ‘Virtual’ reality shaped by social, economic, ethnic, political, cultural and gender values and crystallized over time

Networks of entrepreneurs as argued above are largely shaped by the points mentioned.

Reality is real but only imperfectly and probabilistically apprehensible and so triangulations from many sources is required to try to know it

Existence of Networks for the entrepreneur cannot be denied, however the varied and specific nature of it may require variety of methods to capture its real perspective

Epistemology Value mediated finding researcher is “transformative intellectual” who changes the social world within which participants live

Investigation is about impact of social media and alter the social world of our subjects by implementation of social media

Findings probably true – researcher is value-aware and needs to triangulate any perceptions she is collecting

I intent to triangulate our findings by substantiating with in-depth structured interviews along with content analysis of large amount of data and unique phenomena of SMN’s

Common methodology

Action Research and participant Observation

I intent to apply Action Research and where permitted participant observation. I also intent to apply Participative actions research where feasible

Case Studies and Convergent Interviews

I intent to prepare case studies based on extensive interviews and reports from the Actions research which will be subjected to content analysis for theory building.

The above section discusses the importance of a qualitative approach for small enterprise

research and highlighted the need for an inductive intrepretist approach to study the




uniqueness of the individual participants. Our defence for action research stems from the

need to implement information systems like social media to transform the communication

methods of our research participants. Finally, I justified the dual paradigm position based on

critical theory and realism. In the next section data collection tools and techniques are

discussed along with the justification for their selection.

5.2 Data Collection methods

Primary data will be collected by conducting semi-structured and as considered suitable open

interviews to collect information about the experiences of the entrepreneur while adopting

and using social media like facebook. Secondary data will be the transcripts of the recording

from the weekly interaction and training sessions with the research participants to understand

their experiences and requirements. Another form of secondary data will be interviews

conducted with participants who are administrators of business fan pages. Tertiary data will

collected using virtual ethnography; internet based interviewing such as skype, chat, google

talk, field notes in public – blogs, distributed video analysis (webinars) and collaborative

video analysis. (Fielding et al. 2008) By numerous methods of data collection I hope to

triangulate the data to remove the researcher biasedness and also gather viewpoint from

various angles and multitude of viewpoints. A framework for data collection and analysis has

been built in Table 3 and the constructs identified in the literature review will be used as a

starting point. This approach will provide in-depth detail about the adoption process and

networking activities of participants. As observed by Jack (2010) our data collection method

will allow us to discover new variables and relationships, reveal and understand complex

processes, illustrate the relevance of social context and help with the development of theory

that is captured in themes from the experiences of those living with and creating the

phenomena (Shah and Corley, 2006).

Data collection method will pay attention to characteristics and individuality of the

owners/managers along with the environment while use of language will be jargon free and

straight forward. In certain selected cases I may also carry out open ended interviews which

will follow a relatively unstructured path using the “tell me about” and “tell me a story”

approach. Andrew McAuley in Hine & Carson, (2007 p. 25) argues that “having the story of

the company related is the key way of achieving understanding. It is clear that an

understanding of the individual entrepreneur is crucial to the understanding of the firm”. In

addition to data collection from the subjects in study a typical unique characteristics of social




media are user generated content. Two samples of this type of content are presented as

Appendix B Transcript of a sample discussion on Facebook business Page and Appendix C

Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In attached to this proposal which

provide large amount of information from the suitable facebook business pages and Linked-in

page groups “Facebook and Twitter for business”. Information is displayed on these groups

and facebook pages which give us the clues on the type of utility social media is achieving

for businesses. However these data will form the peripheral and the main data will be derived

for the action research participants through interviews. The validity and credibility of the

research is centred on these interview questions which are discussed in the preceding section.

5.2.1 Sample interview questions

The interview questions will be prepared based on the studies of DiMicco et al., (2008),

Skeels & Grudin, (2009) and Brzozowski et al., (2009). A set of interview questions has been

obtained after communicating with the authors DiMicco et al., (2008) of the article

“Motivations for social networking at work”. I shall be suitably modifying these questions to

suit our study and for information these questions have been attached as Appendix D Sample

Interview questions to this proposal. Preliminarily a sample of the suitably modified

questions based on our research question and the literature review with reference to Table 3

has been attempted and presented here. These questions will be pilot tested with reference to

credibility and validity on our research participants, suitably modified where necessary to be

refined to the extent where they meet our purpose. The sample questions are as below:

1. Describe your adoption of facebook process. Illustrate major benefits or downfalls

you have experienced through the use of facebook?

2. Who are your most valued contacts? Are these contacts on your facebook “friend”

list? Do you have interaction with these contacts through facebook?

3. Describe the adoption process of the facebook for your business process. Do you

describe this communication tool as use full for your business?

4. Can you categorically say that facebook has helped you to interact with your

customers locally and also helped you to gain business?

5. Would you use facebook if you had to pay for maintaining a fan page?




6. On a broader view for the last six months who are the contacts with whom you have

had interactions in form of meetings, lunch, home visit and get together? Did you

arrange this over facebook or other means of communication?

7. Going back to our first question describe your relationship with these contacts in

terms of close distant or intermediate? (The reason for asking this question is to

identify the theory of structural holes (strong or weak ties) in personal networks)

In addition to the questions obtained from DiMicco et al., (2008), I intend to obtain the

questions from Skeels & Grudin, (2009) and Brzozowski et al., (2009) and hope to get the

same since these are also academic conference papers published by dual academic and

Microsoft and HP authors. To substantially add credibility and validity to our interview

questions I shall also attempt to obtain interview questions from authors Günther et al.,

(2009); Blake et al., (2010); Meyer & Dibbern, (2010) and Riemer & Ritcher, (2010a & b)

and that at least one or two of them will share their interview questions to make our study

more robust, credible and valid. I have discussed the data collection process and provided an

indication of the expected sample questions based on which the interviewing process may be

carried out. These questions are at moment propositions and as indicated earlier a framework

for data collection based on our research questions and constructs identified will be used as a

guide line for data collection. Another important aspect for the interview questions will be the

need to built in the variables of the study. The independent and the dependent variable in our

study will be different from the above authors. Variable like qualification of the entrepreneur

will not exist and hence related questions will not be considered by the above studies. The

variables are briefly discussed in the next section.

5.2.2 Variables for the investigation

The variable of the study will be developed from the data itself. Common usual variable such

as characteristics of the owners, qualifications of the owner are predominant in the literature

on small business and entrepreneurship and networks. In particular reference to variables in

network study has been discussed by Jack, (2010) who observes that work on social bonds of

trust and commitment between ties (Etzioni, 1988; Anderson et al., 2007) has shed

considerable light on network interaction. Jack, (2010) opine that the approaches taken by

these studies have been conceptually different and produce different understanding but also

have a different starting point with respect to the selection of dependent and independent

variables. As Jack, (2010 p. 130) explains that “for example, if studying the network, social




capital (social capital is often seen as a critical part of network research) can become the

explanatory variable (Borgatti and Foster, 2003), however, if studying alliances, ties become

the explanatory variable”. This might partly be attributed to the way researchers approach the

study of networks. This justifies our approach to develop the variable from the data collected

since we do not have a ready approach and as well we try and modify the method of

communication in the network. Gordon and Jack, (2010) point out that the focus in some

cases is on attributes of individuals (criticised for atomistic views), while others on causal

factors (criticised for deterministic views) and even others on relations that might exist

between actors (criticised for lack of coherence and underachievement) Jack, (2010) points

out that the trends; first, the popular impact of networks on entrepreneurial outcomes and new

venture performance and; second, the less attractive process-oriented studies where networks

are the dependent variable, continues and few studies that have adopted a process oriented

approach only partial empirical evidence exists for a theory of network development.

The dual paradigm approach will allow aspects such as social context, social dimensions,

dynamic dimensions, interactional aspects, structural elements and detailed appreciations of

how networks on facebook actually develop to be addressed (Birley, 1985; Huggins, 2000;

Jack & Anderson, 2002; Coviello, 2005; Anderson et al., 2007) (Gordon and Jack 2010).

Furthermore, our approach as argued by Gordon & Jack, (2010) will be an appropriate

mechanism to be applied to consider social networks and especially process aspects, which

needs in depth investigation (Anderson & Jack, 2002; Anderson et al., 2007). I expect the

variables in our study to be the individual characteristics of the entrepreneur such as level of

qualification, usage of internet application giving us the atomistic view of the personal

networks.

This section has considered the data collection process, provided a sample interview

questions and briefly considered the variables in the research. The variables will be

developed as I venture in to the study based on our experience and learning from the

participants. In the next section I identify the participants and put forward our rationale for

selection of the participants based on resource constraints and logistic limitations.

5.3 Identification of subjects and resources

Our research participants are small local businesses from the Hamilton region selected using

the replication logic regarding it as a multiple experiment and attempted to follow the




maximum variation sampling. I have selected small business entrepreneurs who have a

relatively small network of suppliers, customer, bankers, accountants and family and friends.

As explained in the literature review small businesses have a fairly less complex networks

having reasonably small amount of ties and actors in the network. I have purposefully

selected simple and non-complicated entrepreneurial businesses since the study of impact of

social media on social networks of entrepreneurs is a under researched and complex

organisations may have challenges which could be explored in later studies. My rationale

behind such an approach is guided by Cooke and Wills (1999) who argued that a greater

understanding of social networks might be generated by looking at smaller businesses

(Gordon & Jack, 2010). Also Gibb, (1993) suggested that many of the values and structures

of university education and university business schools are the antithesis of entrepreneurship

(Gordon & Jack, 2010). Hamilton is an small business oriented town and engaging with the

local businesses will lead to the development of social capital both for the local entrepreneur

and as well for the Waikato University (Gordon & Jack, 2010). After all, forging links

between universities and business are viewed an increasingly important means of stimulating

knowledge development and knowledge exchange, the role and importance of this

relationship is becoming greater (Yousuf, 2008) (Gordon & Jack, 2010).

I am intending to exploit and enjoy the instant recognition and social capital of the Waikato

Management School in the local Hamilton region. Second my study being on facebook which

is still largely conceived as a marketing tool I needed to contact companies who are looking

for new customers. Finally, companies need to be small and not computer savvy or

technically advanced. I decided to contact companies advertising in free newspaper Hamilton

Press and Hamilton News which is delivered to every household in the Hamilton region.

Companies who are advertising in local newspaper are looking for customers locally in

Hamilton and are aware of Waikato Management School while their nature of business will

be relatively small and non-complicated. I have tested my assumption by attempting to

contact relatively simple local businesses in Hamilton region by email and received positive

responses from several organisations. Our email contained basic upfront information about

our project and the email has been attached to this proposal for ready reference as Appendix

E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants. We had received mixed

response to this email request with some organisations asking for more information, others

requesting personal meetings and while others agreed to participate without any hesitation.

From the response we are positive that once we are granted approval we shall be able to




recruit participant for our study without any major problems. The common thread running

through these organisations is that they are managed by the owner themselves, who are not so

computer savvy, small in size and their target markets is in and around the Hamilton region.

The entrepreneurs have been in Hamilton for a reasonable period of time and enjoy a suitable

level of personal network which is being exploited for gathering resources such as employee

selection and word of the mouth marketing.

This group has been contacted following the maximum variation in sampling logic and also

with the hope of getting rich insights in to the adoption process of facebook. As our study

progresses I hope to gather minimum of 10-12 organisations to be part of our study. (Hine &

Carson 2007) As I am studying small businesses I shall be conducting a maximum of 30-50

interviews and the respondents will be repeat interviewed the next year to examine the status

of the facebook. On the other hand we have also contacted small businesses who are already

using facebook using the “notes” feature of the facebook which contained slightly modified

text than the Appendix E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants to suit

their existence on facebook. To counter act any shortage of respondents as discussed above

this contact was felt necessary and also for triangulation of data. These businesses are in

some cases bigger in size, active with facebook (almost posting messages and deals every day

on facebook) and also use other social media like twitter and blogs. Many organisations have

expressed their interest to participate in my investigation. These participants have agreed

either to be interviewed either by email, facebook, skype, chat and google talk or over phone

Finally, small businesses are sensitive and ask questions such as whether I am studying a

similar company or a company in the same business? Small businesses do not like if the study

plans to include their competitors! So I consciously avoid contacting competing businesses or

businesses in similar market segment. For our study a wide range of participants from various

businesses implementing facebook can help us to identify similarities and dissimilarities

across a wide spectrum of businesses.

On the resource side since the project has been located locally within the Hamilton region I

do not expect to travel and neither spend dramatic amount of money for the same. Computing

power along with software is available on site besides the content analysis software NVivo.

Suitable arrangements are being established for making this software available to us. Training

for the application of NVivo has been sought from Mr. David Williams the official trainer for

the software locally located here in Hamilton via personal discussions. However, an official




confirmation is expected from Mr. Williams. In this section our logic for selection of the

participant method of contacting the participant and resource requirements has been

identified. The following section discusses the methods and tools to be used to analyse the

data collected from interviews and other sources as discussed above.

5.4 Data analysis methods and tools to be used

Action research data analysis will be thematic and done in four main steps namely

categorising, tabulating, explaining and modelling. The central data source will be the

interviews and the peripheral data sources will comprise analysis of electronic transcripts.

Development of variables and criteria for analysis will come from the data. It is intended to

follow the strategy of Meyer & Dibbern, (2010 p.2) who state that “for reasons of simplicity

and better readability of the study, the results of this action research project will be

synthesized and presented in one “block”. Yet, we note that data was gathered in a series of

iterative cycles.” I shall then follow the case study approach and develop themes based on the

research questions which will be then used as criteria of analysis for coding the data. An

iterative process will be followed till theoretical saturation is achieved. Meyer & Dibbern,

(2010 p.2) say that “evidence about the communication between participants was gathered by

conducting a content analysis of the messages sent via twitter”. I also hope to perform a

content analysis of the communication on the facebook business pages of our participants to

subject the same to content analysis. For example of such content see Appendix B Transcript

of a sample discussion on Facebook business Page. Criteria for analysis will be used to create

and evolve meaningful categories which will be used to link the raw data with theories such

as how social media enhances and evolves the social network of the entrepreneur. The

developed variables and criteria for analysis will then lead to focus on important concepts and

issues for adoption of social media and also explain the interactions and activities of social

media on social networks of the owner/manager. Initially the data will be analysed with

strategy of finding out what fits with which called as converging the data and later on

classifying data – divergence involving building on items of information discussed in the

literature review along with deciphering connections among different items and finally

proposing new information which needs to fit until the data source has been exhausted.

Anderson et al., (2010) have performed studies where the network itself is the level of

analysis and they argue that by this approach they are able to observe the micro and macro

(internal and external side of the network). In my investigation I intend to limit the study




around the entrepreneur and his/her network so our unit of analysis will be the

entrepreneur/owner/manager and her individual characteristics and how these impact upon

decision making and behaviour will be the primary area of attention. As suggested by Jack,

(2010) I identify the influence and impact of social media on relationships at the individual

level and how resources are mobilised from an environment (Nohria and Eccles, 1992, Jack

and Anderson, 2002). Interpretative understanding of actions of the phenomena social media

will be considered within the specific context of social networks and analysis will be on

going through out the period of the study. I also plan to generate themes and topics form the

interview data to find common issues and practices among the participants in study (Lewins

& Silver, 2007). The large amount of information calls for intensive content analysis and I

plan to use NVivo software because without software it is not possible to analyse such large

amount of data and secondly a local expert is available for training and consultation.




6 Time table

It is expected to complete this PhD thesis within the time frame of three years. A timeline is indicated below in Table 6.

Table 6 Milestone and time frame

S.No Milestone Time Frame

1. Approval of Research Proposal Mar – 2011

2. Implementation of FB pages for all selected subjects Apr –Jun 2011

3. Framework development and prototype data collection July – 2011

4. Data collection for remaining 3 cases Sep - Dec 2011

5. Analysis of Data and follow up data collection 2012

6. Thesis chapter writing Jun 2011-June 2013

7. Creation and submission of Journal Papers 2011 – 2013

8. Completion of Thesis write up By end of 2013




7 Failure Factors

One of the most probable failure factors would be our reliance on the Facebook platform and

expectations that the business pages of this software would be free. For this purpose it is

advisable to prepare the facebook pages of the businesses at the earliest possible to avoid this

downturn. Secondly I anticipate failure in accessing data from the individuals and the quality

of the data to draw reasonable conclusions. I have assumed that the businesses will have

plenty of customers how are facebook savvy. The small business owners will have a network

of contacts that are all willing to connect through facebook. I seek to address these issues by

tapping a larger variety and number of companies and I seek to make the selection process

more stringent in criteria and purpose. The initial selection process has been quite random to

gauge the interest of local businesses. I am confident that as the research progresses it will be

possible to get diverse subjects based on the criteria for selection looking in to commonality

of the subjects already consented. I have also adopted the strategy of contacting successful

companies who are having established facebook pages and extremely active to provide a

comparative study and if possible also establish the type of industry which maybe more

suitable for social media type of applications.

Third being a research in the information systems such as facebook that has gathered

prominence in the last few years there is also a possibility of the wave dying down.

Companies are still experimenting with application of facebook as a business tool and the

application sounds extremely logical such as word of the mouth marketing and making the

shopping experience social, shopping with friend so on and so forth. However, it remains to

be seen how much of the facebook application and the enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs

prevail over time. Finally, facebook is a “walled garden” which defies the true spirit of

Internet. It is possible that facebook gets embroiled in legal and privacy issues along with

anti-trust leading to big fallout. In due course websites designers can start offering the

features and being designed in the line of facebook reducing the overall importance of

facebook business pages.




8 Expected chapter outlines

The first chapter will be introduction which will include motivation for this research, central

research question, a brief on the research method, main research phases, an overview of the

remaining chapters and finally notes for the readers. The second chapter will discuss the

entrepreneur, social networks, ties and conceptual framework for network development. The

third chapter shall deal with the social media and social commerce. It is expected to have two

different chapter of literature review as earlier done in the thesis by Kock (1997). Chapter 4

shall be a major chapter on research method discussing action research and the dual paradigm

study, research framework, research sites and methods, data collection, data analysis and

finally a section of justification and coping with sources of bias. The next four chapters shall

deal with the four main companies (research participants) and the process of spirals with each

chapter having a section of learning from the organisation. Finally chapter 9 shall conclude

the study with a summary of the research findings, implications of the findings for

practitioners and researchers, limitations of the research and opportunities for further

research.




9 Ethical consideration and approval

The research shall be undertaken within the guidelines of the Waikato Management School

ethics committee. Suitable application under the prescribed forms has been submitted to the

research manager on 22.03.2011 and approval is awaited. We have prepared a detailed

information sheet for the participants describing the requirements for participants and how to

refuse particular information, modify/alter information or withdraw from the study. We have

set a time of 60 days after data collection for any such modification or withdrawal. Signed

consent forms will be obtained from participants indicating their agreement with the terms

and conditions of the study. Our study does not involve any risk to the participants and

neither is it planned use deception of our investigation. Finally we are not related to any of

the participants in the Hamilton region in any manner which may affect the ethical

appropriateness of the research




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http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1531674.1531689

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/stable/30036540

http://www.alliedacademies.org/public/Proceedings/Proceedings27/AIMS



Appendix A

Figure Modified and Extended Version of UTAUT Günther et al. (2009 p. 6)




Appendix B

Transcript of a sample discussion on Facebook business Page K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Mark the raw enforcer, he takes his nutrition seriously January 5 at 11:49am · Like · Comment · Share 3 people like this. View all 4 comments Lauren Buckman o it's the pimp mobile. January 5 at 5:45pm · Like · Flag Paws Natural ok uhm wow really, and I thought I would go to any length to catch an eye for a sale.....you need council January 5 at 9:01pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Official K9 dog, the handsome Onyx! His favorite food is the K9 lamb, lamb bones and chicken necks. A bone a day keeps the dentist away :) January 5 at 10:41am · Like · Comment · Share 5 people like this. Christopher Brankin may not be able to play soccer but what an outstanding specimen!!! January 5 at 6:01pm · Like · Flag Rose Close He's gorgeous !! January 5 at 9:03pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... K9Natural. 100% natural RAW DOG FOOD. K9 Natural raw fed car alarm.....(a.k.a. Stella a recently rescued dog that ended up in the shelter after the Christchurch earthquake, now part of a K9 Natural pack) January 4 at 7:46am · Like · Comment · Share 10 people like this. View all 6 comments K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. yep 3 dogs now buddy. they all have such different personalities, it makes for a lot of laughs and a hectic house at times:-) January 5 at 1:46pm · Like · Flag Keith Glendon hahah!! yep.... and where ya sittin' to watch the TV now mate? I reckon the sofa would be overtaken! ;) January 5 at 1:47pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... Darren Johnston our 2 goldens who are K9 natural dogs,it was a pleasure to meet you also on the flight home from LA on xmas eve. January 1 at 7:56pm · Like · Comment K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. they look like they are having lots of fun. Great to meet you too and all the best for 2011! January 1 at 8:37pm · Like Write a comment... K9Natural. 100% natural RAW DOG FOOD. how about I swap you this tasty, semi damaged frisbee for some of those awesome 100% lamb treats... January 1 at 6:50pm · Like · Comment · Share 9 people like this. Muriel Perkins Friends,You can find this pet food @ Doghouse Pet Health Centers..Fresno January 1 at 7:51pm · Like · Flag Phyllis Mueller Houston? January 2 at 5:17am · Like · Flag K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Hi Phyllis, on the www.k9natural.com site there is a USA store locator up near the top of the page, this shows the current list of stores stocking the food with more to be added throughout the year. January 2 at 5:57am · Like · Flag Muriel Perkins I looked at your store locator and you need to know we carry you food in both location's of Doghouse Pet Health Centers- Fresno CA January 2 at 6:05am · Like · Flag K9 Natural Sleddog

K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. ok sure thing, we will get this updated Muriel, thanks! January 2 at 6:24am · Like · Flag K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Muriel what is the address of the other location? January 2 at 6:28am · Like · Flag Muriel Perkins @ K9 ~ 9447 N Fort Washington, Fresno Ca 93730 Ph.559-433-4647 Thank You and Happy New Year!! January 2 at 9:43am · Like · Flag Muriel Perkins @ k9 Doghouse Pet Health Centers are as follows:9447 N Fort Washington~93730 559.433.4647 ( Next store 6157 N Palm@Bullard~93704 559.225.3647 Thanks January 2 at 1:03pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... Treacy Landers hey guys. is it right that you arent doing the salmon anymore?? im wanting to swap from chicken to the salmon. if you are, do you still have some left at yr shop, as i could come in and get some while you got some left. thanks heaps :) January 1 at 5:43pm · Like · Comment K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Hi Treacy, it is right that we no longer do the salmon. We do still do 'Endurance' which is a mix of lamb and salmon which is another option. Were you after Salmon for a particular reason? January 1 at 10:11pm · Like · Flag Treacy Landers i like to swap between the chicken/salmon so my 3 dogs get the omega from the salmon, but i can always get some omega oil from a health shop. 2 of my dogs (bichons) get ear probs and the omega helps them. (i dont want them having to have drugs from the vet if i can help it). bichons can have very sensitive skin and ive found that if i give them red meat, they end up with the tear staining around the eyes and mouth, so i steer clear of red meat based prods and treats, hence why they get the chicken/salmon. January 1 at 10:17pm · Like · Flag K9Natural. 100%natural RAW DOG FOOD. Have you heard of or tried Green Tripe? Its a natural probiotic and could help with some of the problems you listed above. Next time you go into K9, ask about it and we can give you a bag to try. January 2 at 8:32am · Like · Flag Write a comment... K9Natural. 100% natural RAW DOG FOOD. wow, here comes 2011......look at it....such wonderful new products on the horizon January 1 at 5:40pm · Like · Comment · Share 9 people like this. View all 4 comments Phyllis Mueller Barks 5th Avenue, or Bones 2 Go they are the best around here!!!! January 2 at 7:29am · Like · Flag Julie Cosgrove my two will look foward to that, just been away and tried the dehydrated lamb and to my utter surprise they loved it!! looks like we may have to convert to that for a while! January 3 at 5:39pm · Like · Flag Write a comment... Dawn-Sophie Leder NEED INFO ASAP PLEASE i ordered this product from a place in new zealand and i just recieved an email from them saying i might have to fill out a form to have food from your country to come into the USA. is this true? i need to know asap to tell them dont ship thankyou sooo much. their company is called www.naturalpaws... See More Natural Paws Holistic Pet Care www.naturalpaws.com.au Concerned for the natural needs and instincts of our pets with the increasing stresses of modern day living Natural Paws was established to offer pet owners a choice of natural andChohlisattic


http://www.k9natural.com

http://www.naturalpaws.com.au


Appendix C

Transcript conversations on dedicated groups on Linked-In


Group - Facebook & Twitter For Business

• Start a discussion

JasonStop Following Follow Jason

What do you personally do to add fans and followers on your pages?

I'm looking for ways that you add fans and followers to your pages. Hopefully backed with results, but anecdotal works as well.

17 days ago

• Like • Comment • Follow • Flag

o Flag as Job o Flag as Inappropriate

• More o Reply Privately

Hennie Jackson, cherie B palumbos and 1 other like this

You, Hennie Jackson, cherie B palumbos and 1 other like this

9 comments

DavidStop Following Follow David

David Wolodarsky • Here are some different Facebook ideas. Some of them will work for Twitter and LinkedIn as well.



Appendix C



1) Use the “Tell your fans” option: You can upload your contact list and e-mail address list to encourage people outside of your Facebook friends to come see and like your page. 2) Use the “Suggest page to friends” link on your page. 3) Add a Connect with us Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn links to your web site if you have one. 4) Have employees add the URLs to their LinkedIn profiles 5) If you set up a twitter make sure to add a link to your FB and LinkedIn 6) Facebook Ads 7) Add your page URL to your business cards 8) Add a signature to the bottom of e-mails that ask people to connect with you on FB etc... 9) If you do do advertising outside of online – direct people to your FB page 10) Ensure your Facebook posts add value and create engagement. The more people who like your posts and comment on them the more impressions you can get. You can monitor results on Facebook by using the page insights. It can tell you how many people like and unlike your page each day, which posts are getting the most impressions etc... You can then use this information to tinker with what you are doing. David 14 days ago

• • Reply privately • • Flag as inappropriate • • Flag as promotion

MohammedStop Following Follow Mohammed

Mohammed Younus • David, How we can promote a Fan page for a specific group ages? For example, if my website services offers 'water damage services', how I can find the specific groups and fans who will be interested?

14 days ago




Appendix C



SusanStop Following Follow Susan

Susan Plunkett PhD • Mohammed... ever rented a house or apartment when you were fresh out of high school and you had problems with water leakage or a soaked carpet or whatever? Horror. Consider how your business services meet specific needs and once you consider the socio-cultural linkages to those needs you have your segments. So, once again it might be targeting under 25's re water damage and apartment living. Or, whatever best suits. I didn't look at your site. Once you have the age group and issue you then target renters and perhaps even real estate agents. @Jason I find competitions often draw new followers to 'like' a brand however, FB has updated its promotion rules and you should read those carefully because in some instances, pushing people to like a page just to be part of a competition is against those rules. Anyway, I'd look at the situation the other way round...why aren't people choosing to follow? I often see boring boring boring walls and posts. The same two or three post ideas constantly recycled or just a lack of understanding how to engage people well in FB well. Certainly often I see a lack of understanding of the client base. A classic example was a car firm that actually made NO attempt to engage its clients and small fan base about their interests in car racing and so on. When they began to shift that and show real understanding of their clients, their numbers began to increase. They then included a FB car racing game on their page and that added a newer richer dimension that led to fans bringing friends in. So often I see businesses just failing to understand the basics about marketing - know your client; know your product range - expand horizons.

13 days ago




Appendix C



RichardStop Following Follow Richard

Richard Jones • For some great information on how to add more fans and followers I would recommend visiting www.engagesciences.com

13 days ago


Kimberly D.Stop Following Follow Kimberly D.

Kimberly D. Hardy • I've seen professionals adding their company FB, Twitter, and Linkedin addresses to the back of their business cards. Thought that was unique.

12 days ago


AndyStop Following Follow Andy

Andy Phelps • To get get a good start on a Facebook fan page, order some fans to give it that initial boost, people join fan pages that have lots of people using it, here is a little tip, go over to Fiverr.com and pay $5 for 1000 fans to give your page a kick start, then start building it with quality, yes the initial 1000 are poor contacts, and will drop off, but it builds you some credibility to start building, who wants to be at the party first? 12 days ago

• • Reply privately • • Flag as inappropriate


http://www.engagesciences.com


Appendix C



• • Flag as promotion

MarkStop Following Follow Mark

Mark Gordon • One technique that seems to have worked for us is placing a small message at the top of our Welcome Page asking the user to "click LIKE to stay in touch" with an arrow pointing toward the Like Button. I've also seen this done with the main profile photo, where an arrow points to the right with the same call to action. 5 hours ago


StephanieStop Following Follow Stephanie

Stephanie Rosendahl • One technique is to create "drawings" or "prizes" of gifts, such as a Kindle and in order to qualify a person just needs to "like" a fan page. This seems to work but the most beneficial is those that "like" your fan page because they have been suggested by friends.

3 hours ago




Appendix C



winstonStop Following Follow winston

winston teo • Provide yr facebook address in Twitter, which is a very effective way to reach huge audience crowd, especially if u have alot of followers already.. In yr facebook account, having those friends who back you up and recommend others to yr link will help you more effectively...

1 hour ago


Add a comment...



Appendix D

Sample Interview questions (DiMicco et al., 2008)


Interview questions obtained from the authors of the article “Motivations for social networking at work” by DiMicco, J., Millen, D. R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., & Muller, M. (2008). Motivations for social networking at work. Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW ’08 (p. 711). New York, New York, USA: ACM

The questions will be suitably modified to suit our study and application.

Interview Questions: − Purpose: Warm-up o What is your job at IBM? Where do you work? What do you do? o Do you work in a traditional office? o How did you hear about Beehive? Did someone invite you to join? − Purpose: understand motivation for visiting − How often do you log into Beehive? o 1/day, 1/week, 1/month, only once o what usually prompts you to go to the site? − Let’s look at your connections page o How many of the people listed as your connections do you know? o Of the ones that you do not know, what prompted you to connect to them? o Of the ones you do know, how did you connect to them? Did you initiate contact? Did you search for them? Did they find you? o Do you have work colleagues and friends on Beehive that you have not connected to? − Your Relationship with your connections o How would you summarize who you connect to on Beehive? o Which of your connections do you keep an eye on the most? (through beehive) o Which of your connections do you communicate the most with on Beehive? o Which of your connections do you communicate the most with outside of Beehive? o − Memorable connections o Can you remember something you saw on one of your connections’ pages: either on their profile, a photo, a hive five, a status message? • Whose page was it? [go to the page with the user] • What was memorable about the page? • Did you learn something you didn’t know about the person? • Did you leave a comment? Have you ever left a comment on someone’s profile? − Thinking of all of your Beehive connections, have you ever mentioned a photo or a hive five to someone outside of Beehive (in person, over email, over ST)? What did you say? What prompted you to say it? − People you do not know o Can you think of a time you looked at a profile page of someone you didn’t know?



Appendix D



• Who was it? [let’s go to the page together] • How did you find this person’s profile page? • Why did you look at it? • What did you learn about this person from looking at their profile? • What kind of impression do you have of this person? • What have you learned that you could not learn on Blue Pages/Fringe/Small Blue? o Have you ever contacted someone that you didn’t know because of something that you saw or read in beehive? − Your activity on Beehive o What kinds of things do you share on Beehive? o Why did you choose to share this set of photos? o Why did you choose to create this set of hive fives? o Events? o Status message? o What prompts you to leave a comment on Beehive? o Do you share mostly personal or professional content on beehive? − About Me questions o Let’s look at your profile page together o When you created your About Me description, what was inspiration? o Did you have a purpose in sharing this information? o Who do you think is looking at your About Me’s? Who is your audience? o What other kinds of profiles have you had to fill out (facebook? bluepages? etc) - how did filling out the About Me section of Beehive compare (if necessary, prompt: easier or harder to come up with questions rather than just answer them?) o Why did you choose that many questions? When and why did you stop? (if necessary, prompt: did you add more later? was it a one time thing?) o Did you specifically create questions for other people to reuse? o IF REUSER: − -How did you choose a question to reuse? Where did you reuse from (person's profile or the list page? from a connection?) − -If no reuse, how would your profile be different? o IF NOT A REUSER: − Did you know the reuse feature existed? When viewing other people’s About Me’s, what impression do you get of them? Versus other profile sites, how useful are the self-crafted about me’s?



Appendix D



Beehive vs. other tools − Do you use any other (non-IBM) Social Networking sites? (LinkedIn, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc) o Do you use these other tools more or less than beehive? Why? o How do you see beehive as different from these other SN tools? o What is your primary motivation for using each of these sites? − What IBM tools do you use to find out information about someone? o Do you use Blue Pages? How often and why? o Do you use Connections? (blogs, dogear, activities)? o Do use Fringe? Small Blue? o Any other tools? How often and why? − How do you view Beehive as different from other tools at IBM? • What value or benefit does Beehive provide? • Do you see any business value in Beehive? − How does your team primarily keep up with each others activities? o Do you see them face-to-face regularly? o What technologies do you use?



Appendix E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants


Subject: Participation in a Facebook Commerce Project

We are communicating with you as a PhD student from the Waikato School of Manangement University of Waikato, New Zealand inquiring your interest in participating in a study of Facebook Commerce project.

The project is directed towards studying the impact of social media such as facebook on small businesses and their networks. We seek to answer questions:

• Do Social media play a role in creating social capital within SME networks? • How do social media add value to existing social network of the entrepreneurs? • How do social media influence and evolve business models of SME?

We are sure that you are aware of the far reaching potential of Facebook and its widespread use by businesses to interact and engage with its customers. Businesses are using facebook and its rich database to address a variety of issues such as customer service, complaints, helpdesk, product information, references from other customers, word-of-mouth marketing, facebook commerce so on and so forth We are writing to inquire about your interest in establishing a presence on Facebook. We would conduct research in a participatory manner wherein we help you to design, establish, engage with the customer, monitor and regulate your facebook site. Simultaneously we observe and learn from the process to establish guidelines, tools, enablers etc. Eventually as the process evolves if you wish we can help you move towards Facebook Commerce giving the opportunity for customers to buy directly from within facebook.

The study will start on April 2011. Participation and Data collection would mean simple interviews which will be recorded to explain the adoption process, views and specific comments etc. These interviews could be in the form of chats/skpe/google talk/blogs etc.

We are still developing the interview process and questions. These interviews could be of about 1-2 hours. We may require some follow up interviews next year for updates and review of progress.

We would like to inform you that Waikato School of management is the "Number One" Business School in New Zealand.Waikato School of Management is a "triple crown" accredited institution.

We are members of an elite group of business schools worldwide. Of the 3900 business schools, only 48 have triple crown accreditation. For more information you may refer to the links below. http://www.waikato.ac.nz/news/archive.shtml?article=502 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_accreditation


http://www.waikato.ac.nz/news/archive.shtml?article=502

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_accreditation


Appendix E Format of Introductory email sent to prospective participants


The research process will be performed under the active supervision of Prof. Bob McQueen an Harvard MBA who has more than 20 years of experience in business research and Electronic Commerce.

You may refer to the link below for details of Professor Bob McQueen.

http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/staff%20List/staffhome.asp?user=BMCQUEEN

We hope to receive your support for performing an effective research. We would love to hear from you and any clarifications you may need on the above. A confirmation indicating your interest would be extremely helpful. Thanks and Regards,

--

Regards,

D.Mandal - Mobile: 022 073 0802 email: [email protected] Phd Student - Waikato School of Management - University of Waikato - Hamilton New Zealand Tel: 00-64-7-838-4466 - ext. 8182 (try the home number first) Home: 291, Cambridge Road, Hamilton New Zealand 3216 Tel: ++64-7-856-9777 http://www.facebook.com/mandaldebashish http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/debashish-mandal/26/964/301 Twitter: @debashishmandal


http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/staff%20List/staffhome.asp?user=BMCQUEEN

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.facebook.com/mandaldebashish

http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/debashish-mandal/26/964/301


THE IMPACT OF SOCIALMEDIA ON ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS

Education

Transcript of THE IMPACT OF SOCIALMEDIA ON ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS