SOCIO-TECHNICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING

SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION IN BUSINESS

A Semiotic Perspective

Sanaa Askool, Aimee Jacobs and Keiichi Nakata

Informatics Research Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, U.K.

Keywords: Social media, Web 2.0, Technology adoption, Organisational Semiotics.

Abstract: Web 2.0 technologies, commonly referred to as social media (SM), have become important tools within the

growth of information and communication technology (ICT) in the last few years. SM tools such as blogs,

wiki and other services which are widely used by individuals also have an effect on business activities. SM

tools can change the mode and intensity, at which a business connects, collaborates, cooperates and

communicates. However, SM tools have not yet to be fully utilised as value-adding tools in improving

business relationships. Different scholars have proposed various socio-technical approaches to study

organisations and information systems (IS) analysis, modelling and implementation. This paper identifies

the social and technical factors that influence SM adoption in a business environment. The Organisational

Semiotics (OS) approach, specifically the ‘organisational onion’ model and the semiotic framework, has

been used to understand and analyse SM at different abstraction levels and through a scoping study.

1 INTRODUCTION

Social media (SM) tools are a paradigm shift in the

way the Internet is used to provide bi-directional

communication. They involve a more open approach

to the Internet and to user-generated content in

particular. They also offer numerous links to other

websites and sources of information enabling people

to gather information, collaborate with each other

and build relationships. However, despite the

transformation these online tools could provide,

there is a slow rate of adoption of Web 2.0

technologies by businesses (Newman and Thomas,

2009). This slow rate of adoption is due to several

reasons: policies and procedures that inhibit change,

privacy and security issues, and organisational

culture being directly opposed to the open source

and collaborative methods utilised in Web 2.0

(Newman and Thomas, 2009). In addition,

organisations still fail to realise their potential

benefits in developing a sustainable competitive

advantage (Newman and Thomas, 2009).

On the other hand, large organisations such as

Wells Fargo and General Motors have used SM not

only to build strong relationships with customers and

prospects, but also to increase employee productivity

and collaboration (Young et al., 2008). As a result of

SM popularity, organisations noted the power of

these technologies and the considerable customer

involvement and attention (Chui et al., 2009).

Consequently, practicing and installing these tools

internally for a test period becomes a part of firms’

activities (Chui et al., 2009) to offer more user-

centric and effective services (Ala-Mutka et al.,

2009).

Generally, SM tools are found to play a

substantial role in building relationships and

collaboration not only among individuals but also

businesses. The investment in SM tools is estimated

to account for $4.6 billion in 2013 (Young et al.,

2008). In addition, Web 2.0 adoption was considered

as a priority in 2008 for 56 percent of North

American and European companies (Young et al.,

2008). The question is what approaches or methods

one should use to implement these new technologies

effectively. As SM tools focus on people rather than

products, it is essential to find a tool that bridges the

gap between technology and the social factors that

influence the adoption. One way is to investigate SM

by using the organisational semiotics (OS) approach.

This approach focuses on sign systems that are

useful for examining and understanding issues faced

by organisations.

141

Nakata K., Askool S. and Jacobs A.

SOCIO-TECHNICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION IN BUSINESS - A Semiotic Perspective.

DOI: 10.5220/0003269801410148

In Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations (ICISO 2010), page

ISBN: 978-989-8425-26-3

This paper aims to identify socio-technical

factors that affect the adoption of SM tools in

business. Despite the impressive popularity of the

SM among individuals, its use in business still

appears immature. Because of limited concrete

scientific studies and the absence of the business

models for SM adoption, this paper takes an

analytical approach to characterise the socio-

technical factors.

2 BACKGROUND

2.1 Social Media (SM) and Web

Technologies

SM and Web 2.0 are two terms (often used

interchangeably) which refer to highly interactive

technologies that emphasise human interaction,

collaboration and connectivity (Burns, 2008). Blogs,

microblogging, wikis, podcasts, social networking

websites, video and RSS feeds are the most common

types of SM. The term Web 2.0 was introduced in

2005 by O’Reilly who defined it as “a network as

platform, spanning all connected devices” (O'Reilly,

2007, p. 17), which quickly evolved to “a set of

economic, social and technology trend that

collectively form the basis for next generation of the

Internet – a more mature, distinctive medium

characterised by user participation, openness and

network effects.”(Musser et al., 2006, p. 4) This

change in definition shows the complexity and

fluidity of Web 2.0, and explains why there is no

clear definition of Web2.0.

Recently, the use of Web 2.0 technologies has

grown rapidly (Newman and Thomas, 2009). Over

the past few years, these SM technologies have

spread widely among people (Chui et al., 2009) and

have drawn more attention by practitioners and

researchers. The main reason for this widespread

attention could be that Web 2.0 has attracted

millions of people who use it as their preferred

communication channel. Figure 1 shows the global

rise of social networking sites (SNS) from December

2007 to December 2008 (Nielsen_Online, 2009,

P.2). According to this the SNS have attracted close

to 67 percent of the total online global population,

up from 61 percent the previous year.

SM tools also could have more far-reaching

effects on firms than technologies that were

implemented in the 1990s, such as enterprise

resource planning (ERP), customer relationship

management (CRM) and supply chain management

(SCM) (Chui et al., 2009). The reasons for this can

be due to the bottom-up involvement from frontline

employees to senior executives, the contribution of a

wide range of people, the requirement of different

mind-set and the high degree of participation (Chui

et al., 2009). Where most users of ERP or CRM

systems are simply processing information or

executing transactions, SM are bi-directional tools

that give users or participants the ability to create

new information and content or edit the work

published by others (Chui et al., 2009).

SM are useful tools that have the potential to

bring benefits to organisations. The main advantage

of Web 2.0 is the linkage among people, ideas,

processes, systems, contents and other organisational

activities. In addition, as Web 2.0 offers services and

not a product, people can contribute, and collaborate

with others, share information and reuse Web

content. These tools can be used internally amongst

employees or externally with customers and

suppliers, which could increase knowledge sharing,

collaboration efforts and new innovations.

Figure 1: Percentage of rise in population for Social

Networking sites of Total Online population (Adopted

from (Nielsen_Online, 2009, P.2) ).

A wide range of technologies are coming under

the list of SM tools. The following are tools which

are most common and potentially useful for

business:

Blogs/Microblogging: Blogs are online journals

(Mayfield, 2006) offering many different messages

such as long essays, personal diaries or links to other

websites. The various types of blogs include

(Mayfield, 2006): 1) Personal Blogs 2) Political

Blogs 3) Business Blogs and 4) Mainstream Media

Blogs. Microblogging is a new type of real-time

communication publishing that combines social

networking with bite-sized blogging where messages

are limited to less than 200 characters. Short

contents are distributed online, by email, Instant

ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations

142

Messenger (IM) or over the mobile network (Java et

al., 2007).

Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking are

services that allow users to classify online resources

by using ‘folksonomies’ or keyword categorisations,

to tag and share frequently used or interesting online

resources. del.icio.us is a popular bookmarking site

(Yanbe et al., 2007).

Social Networking Services (SNS): SNS are

personal web pages that focus on building online

communities and interacting with others in order to

share information, interests and activities (Josef and

Hermann, 2006). It is a new way to communicate

and share information that is used regularly by

millions of people. Popular social networking

websites are MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Wikis: Wikis enable a group of people to co-

author and interact by adding or editing articles

online (Josef and Hermann, 2006). Wikipedia, a

widely known online encyclopaedia, is perhaps the

most famous example, edited by users globally

(Ebersbach, 2008). It is a simple virtual

collaboration platform (Ebersbach, 2008) and can

be a source for information and knowledge.

All of these tools can be used within an

organisation to support or replace their current

communication, cooperation, collaboration and

connections efforts. Each of the various types of SM

tools should be matched to the medium that best

suits a specific business purposes; however, there

will be some overlapping (Cook, 2008). For

instance, blogs can be used as a communication tool

to spread information organisational wide and

keeping track of projects; Social Bookmarking can

encourage cooperation by allowing tagging and

categorisation, which can be used to capture implicit

knowledge and identify knowledge experts (Cook,

2008). For collaboration, wikis are the most

commonly used for information collection and

document creation by multiple authors. SNS can be

used to connect geographically dispersed and cross-

functional employees for purposes of team-based

projects and knowledge transfer/sharing (Cook,

2008).

3 FACTORS INFLUENCING

SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION

This section will discuss the factors that influence

SM adoption in a business environment. First,

approaches in organisational semiotics will be

described, in particular the ‘organisational onion’

model and the semiotic framework. This is followed

by the exploration of factors based on the

‘organisational onion’ model. Finally, these factors

are analysed using the semiotic framework.

3.1 Organisational Semiotics Approach

There are numerous approaches to business analysis

and modelling. While some researchers classify

business analysis and modelling based on process,

behaviour and data, others apply four views:

functional, behavioural, data and system architecture

(Wieringa, 1996). However, semiotics perspective

concentrates on the relations among the IT system,

business process and organisation (Liu, 2000). It is

an approach that focuses on signs and sign systems.

Organisational semiotics (OS) applies semiotic

concepts to the analysis and design of organisations

and information systems (IS). It also offers a range

of methods and frameworks to analyse and design

firms (Liu, 2000). Here we introduce two concepts

in OS, the ‘organisational onion’ model and the

semiotic framework, which we apply later in our

analyses.

The ‘Organisational Onion’ model: According

to Liu (2000), an organisation can be recognised as

an IS and can be modelled as a structure of three

aspects: informal system, formal system and

technical system. Culture, beliefs, values, habits and

individual behaviour are determinants in the

informal layer. The middle layer is the formal IS,

which contains bureaucratic forms and rules guiding

the individual action—“how work should be

done”—which can replace meaning and intention in

the informal system with codified systems. The

technical layer is where information and

communication technology (ICT) are used to

automate some parts of the formal system, which in

turn support the informal systems. This model forms

what is often called an “organisational onion”

(Stamper, 1992).

The Semiotic Framework: Also known as the

Semiotic Ladder (SL), the Semiotic Framework

provides a way to analyse IS based on six layers of

semiotic analyses (Liu, 2000). The traditional

semiotic layers of syntactic, semantics and

pragmatic were extended by Ronald Stamper to

include other three layers of social world, physical

world and empirics (Liu, 2000). The semiotic

framework characterises IS from two views: Human

Information Functions (the top three layers of social

world, pragmatics and semantics) and IT platform

(the bottom three layers of syntactics, empirics and

physical world).

SOCIO-TECHNICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION IN BUSINESS - A Semiotic

Perspective

143

Because OS offers a method to analyse IS in

different levels, we believe that it is a useful method

for investigating SM in a business environment. As

SM contains some factors that can be found in the

semiotic ladder, we use it to clarify some important

issues related to SM adoption in different levels.

3.2 Analysis based on the

‘Organisational Onion’ Model

Here we attempt to identify the factors that influence

the adoption of SM in a business environment from

the three layers in modelling organisation as

information systems: informal, formal and technical.

Informal Layer: Through SM, people’s activities

shifted from a static environment of writing

documents via computer applications to a more

dynamic environment: living life online, searching

and sharing information, watching video on

YouTube, buying and selling products through

eBay, and building relationships using Facebook or

LinkedIn.

Regardless of whether it is the evolution of SM

that has changed user behaviour or the evolution of

user behaviour that has caused the evolution of SM,

customers and employees have come to embrace the

culture of SM tools. Employees, as part of this

society, have seen the benefits of using SM in their

personal lives to communicate, cooperate,

collaborate and connect with others. These same

employees have begun to adopt these familiar SM

into their work life (Cook, 2008). As the younger

generation moves into the workforce they will

increasingly expect to use the same participatory

tools.

However, managers have some concerns because

they believe by introducing SM into the workplace,

productivity and profits will be lessened, as it will

take the place of the “water cooler” and only

encourage gossip and waste valuable employee time

(Cook, 2008). Consequently, organisational culture

can influence the adoption of SM (Newman and

Thomas, 2009) because technology itself cannot

change organisations’ culture. In Web 2.0,

information and knowledge are built and shared

through social interaction. Therefore

, for SM to be

adopted, communication, cooperation, collaboration

and connections

with SM must be a norm, not

expectations, as they are a key factor in Web 2.0

technologies usage.

If the use of SM is adopted as a norm in the

informal layer, it provides the basis for it to be

introduced into the formal layer as more employees

adopt the technologies and demand to use them in

the workplace. Subsequently, organisations may see

the benefits of interactions supported by SM in the

business process.

Formal Layer: According to a McKinsey Global

Survey (McKinsey&Company, 2008), the rate of

organisation that were experimenting with SM

between 2007 and 2008 has increased;

approximately 60 percent of participants were

satisfied with Web 2.0 initiatives and 87 percent of

organisations were using them in customer

relationship. An impact of SM can be highlighted in

organisations across sectors. It can be used for

improving internal work process, recruitment,

product design and quality, and customer

relationship (Ala-Mutka et al., 2009).

Because of the success of SM use in an informal

environment, early adapters are using SM internally

and externally for business purposes. Dresdner

Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW), an investment

bank, is an example of a company applying SM to

internal business processes (Klobas and Beesley,

2006). At DrKW, the user-centred team started to

use wikis to help with interaction among their 6,000

geographically dispersed employees. DrKW

“adopted the wiki as a communication tool, a

collective discussion tool, as a repository for

documents and information and as a project

management tool” (Klobas and Beesley, 2006, p

105).

For external outreach, some organisations are

building online SNS websites for business

innovation, engaging customers (Newman and

Thomas, 2009) and outsourcing intelligence. This

approach was proposed by Procter and Gamble who

developed a program called “Connect-and-

Develop”. This program aims at connecting external

sources like universities, government labs, web-

based talent markets, and suppliers with the P&G

innovation team in an effort to create new products

which meet worldwide consumer performance and

costs needs (Huston and Sakkab, 2006). Through

this program, P&G produces over 35 percent of their

innovations which saves billions of dollars in

revenue (Huston and Sakkab, 2006).

However, there are some concerns regarding the

published information such as type of information,

information quality, information credibility, and

reliability. As the organisation needs authentic,

reliable information to make their decisions, a

framework for information evaluating process has

been developed to control this issue (Huston and

Sakkab, 2006). Another concern is that many

customers use SM to assess products and services

delivered by companies Therefore, organisations

ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations

144

should be careful in maintaining their brand image

through SM. In order to manage these concerns,

organisations can create guidelines for SM usage by

employees.

Although SM tools generate a medium for

reaching out to customers, organisational change

may occur or have to occur. According to Smith and

Fingar (2003), there are many reasons why change

in business process may occur, such as, business

requirements, government regulations, environment,

improved technology and resources. In particular,

front-end processes such as transactional and

operational processes of organisation may be

affected by SM.

Technical Layer: The growing of social

engagement results from the developing of Web 2.0

infrastructure and architectures and its ability of

participation systems. Web 2.0 platform is built

based on current protocols and computer languages

in a unique way that generate a user-friendly

application (Josef and Hermann, 2006) and

encourage people to communicate and add value to

their conversations (Newman and Thomas, 2009).

On the other hand, the demand for ICT

connectivity such as broadband and mobile

networks, software and hardware, by both

organisations and individuals has increased (Ala-

Mutka et al., 2009). This resulted from the rapid

growth of SM users. In the US and Europe, more

than 12 million customers accessed a social network

site using their mobile in June 2007 (Bearne, 2007).

The technical layer has not fully evolved, as SM

is currently only a set of tools to enable these

interactions. There is potential for SM automation.

Already there are integrations among technologies,

for example automatically updating multiple

platforms at the same time, e.g., TweetDeck.

Another example is chatbox technology being used

to integrate chat embedded into a website. However,

there are some issues related to information security

and privacy control (Dinev et al., 2009) due to the

risk of misuse, viruses, hacking and stalking

personal information.

3.3 The Semiotic Framework

In a business environment, a SM tool can be

recognised as a sign that signifies the act of online

interaction within organisation or with clients. Based

on specific factors within business culture, this sign

can be interpreted in different ways by different

people. For instance, a customer may consider a

presence of SM (a sign) on an organisation website

as a communication tool; a salesperson may view it

as a tool for building strong relationship with

customers; a marketing person may think it is a way

to understand customers’ preferences; and a

manager may consider it as wasting resources.

Because of the different interpretations of the SM

and its purpose, different views and behaviours are

likely to exist.

The major concept behind the semiotics

approach is the link among the multi-layers that

represent the organisations or IS. It represents the

mapping and rules of associations between the

various layers. Here we attempt to analyse the

adoption of SM in a business environment using the

semiotic framework.

The physical world would comprise the data

that are stored or generated in the SM (and the

machines and servers that host SM—but this is

outside our interest). The empirics layer is

concerned with the network connections and

communication protocols that enable the

transmission of data linking interface devices of

users. The syntactic layer focuses on the features of

SM. For instance, microblogging enables users to

interact in different forms such as text, IM, and RSS

(Power and Forte, 2008). Wikis offer easy adding,

editing, versioning capabilities (Ebersbach, 2008),

and content discussions. However, SM may or may

not be appropriate in terms of business functions and

in some cases could be considered an ineffective

tool in such a function.

The semantics layer focuses on the meanings,

validity and truth. The semantics layer shows how

the various areas within a business interpret the use

of SM. For example, the sales department can use

SNS as a customer relationship tool, Marketing can

use sites such as Twitter and Facebook and chat to

connect with customers and gain insight to customer

preferences. Internally, employees can use SM, such

as SNS to transfer knowledge amongst other

employees. Additionally, a blog can be created for

knowledge management and FAQ.

The pragmatic layer concentrates on what

specific SM has been adopted for what specific

purpose or objective. The purpose of adopting SM

within an organisation can be innovation of new

products, technologies and processes. A second

purpose may be to provide familiarity, care, and

sharing information with customers. This familiarity,

caring behaviour and sharing information can are

due to the increase of use in personal lives of

customers and employees. In addition, being open

with customers about products and innovations

could help build trust with customers.

SOCIO-TECHNICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION IN BUSINESS - A Semiotic

Perspective

145

Figure 2: The Semiotic framework and its links to the socio-technical factors that influence SM adoption.

In the social world layer, stakeholders including

clients are influenced by the SM usage, such as

creation and discussion of ideas, and gaining the

sense of familiarity. This in turn contributes to

building meaningful relationships, maintaining

customer loyalty and commitment, and acceptance

according to their social norms. If a company

chooses a wrong medium to release their message it

may be misinterpreted and change the users’

perspective. For example, choosing blogs instead of

email could influence the effect of the message

contained, such as its seriousness. Figure 2

summarises how the factors that influence SM

adoption relate to the semiotic framework.

3.4 Scoping Study

To obtain general information about the current

situation of SM implementation in business, a small

survey was conducted. Screening data was gathered

from a group within a large international IT

consulting firm. The responses came from people in

the following roles: Technical Architecture,

Solutions Architecture, Service development lead,

Senior Executive (VP), Innovation Portfolio &

Strategy manager and Enterprise Architect. The

purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain a general

picture about how knowledge-intensive firms are

currently communicating with external and internal

clients with a particular focus on the use of SM. A

scoping study was carried out to collect preliminary

data as to how firms are using SM. The

questionnaire included general questions on what

type of communication channels are being used for

internal and external communication followed by

other questions such as the benefits of using SM,

and their concerns about using SM.

According to the respondents, the

communication tool/method used the most

frequently with external clients was email, followed

by face-to-face and telephone, then by Twitter. The

tools/methods used internally on a continuous basis

were face-to-face, email and telephone, followed

closely by Chat, IM and Twitter. Blogs, wikis, and

SNS were also used by some participants. It was

also commonly stated that when used, SM met their

communication expectations.

We also analysed the respondents’ concern for

each of three layers of the “organisational onion”

model, Informal, Formal and Technical. In relation

to the Informal layer, respondents state that using

SM as internal communications tools have helped

them meet their business objectives by improving

communication and increasing productivity. Other

respondents agreed that SM offered a way to transfer

knowledge, increase innovation, and teambuilding.

These responses can be associated to the Formal

layer as they mention that although traditional

communication channels are the norm the use of SM

tools are increasing. However, accountability, lack

of control and SM usage policies are concerns that

were mentioned. In terms of the Technical layer, the

tools used are internet and mobile technologies. It

also revealed that security and privacy are the main

issues when using SM. The analysis of the

respondents’ view is presented in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Respondents’ concerns related to SM usage.

Human Social World: Influences on Organisational Culture,

Meaningful Relationship, Customer Loyalty and Commitment,

Acceptance behaviour

Information Pragmatics: Intention of SM use in business, e.g., Business

Objectives, Sharing information, Innovation, Familiarity, Caring

Behaviour, Trust

Functions Semantics: Meanings associated with the use of various SM Tools,

interpretation of the use of SM in Business, Familiar Interfaces,

Information Collection, Knowledge Management/Sharing and Transfer

The IT

Syntactic: Social Media Tool features, functionality, interfaces

Platform Empirics: ICT Infrastructure, Internet, Mobile networks

Physical World: Data, Web 2.0 Platform (Hardware) and Software

ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations

146

Table 1 presents the analysis of responses that

address social, pragmatic, and semantic levels of the

semiotic framework.

4 DISCUSSIONS

The socio-technical factors that contribute to

adoption of SM by a firm are analysed. These

factors can be considered as enablers or inhibiters to

adopt SM. We found that while SM adoption within

a business environment can produce the benefits of

enhanced communication, collaboration, cooperation

and connections that increase productivity and

profit, factors such as business objectives, sharing

information, innovation, familiarity, caring

behaviour, and trust can influence its use. Some of

these views are supported by the scoping study

mentioned earlier (see Figure 3).

The Semiotics framework demonstrates that

there should be a focus on the social interactions

level when analysing SM tools. This is due to the

fact that SM is more about human rather than

technological aspects. In addition, the syntactic level

of IT platform also requires attention because it is

essential to choose an appropriate medium that suits

both business and user needs, in order to gain

organisational wide acceptance and usability.

The analysis of business users’ concerns based

on the scoping study provided an insight into how

SM is expected to affect organisational activities.

Although SM essentially a communication tool, a

further analysis based on organisational morphology

involving substantitive, communication, and control

activities in organizations (Stamper et al., 1994)

would enable us to understand the ways in which

SM is used in firms.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this paper was to identify the socio-

technical factors that influence the SM adoption in

business using a semiotic approach. The

“organisational onion” model and the semiotics

ladder provide a framework of analysis for these

factors. Based on the analysis, SM tools show

considerable opportunities as well as risk for

business. SM can benefit the internal and external

process, such as knowledge management, business

innovation, engaging customers, and outsourcing

intelligence. Thus, engaging with SM and

understanding how to cope with these tools can be

seen to open opportunities for a more effective

business strategy. The current analysis will aid

system designers in designing systems that integrate

SM with traditional systems in a way that meets

employee and customer preferences. This could lead

not only to better understanding of customer needs

and requirements but also to a successful adoption.

The scoping study provides insight about using SM

in a business environment. However, in order to

validate the findings of this paper, semi-structured

interviews with organisations and customers are

ongoing. The focus of these explorations is to

discover current and potential use of SM in terms of

communication and collaboration. Future work will

include a more research into the effects of SM

within a business environment, the use of SM with

various business areas, such as customer relationship

management (CRM) and business process

management (BPM).

REFERENCES

Ala-Mutka, K., Broster, D., Cachia, R., Centeno, C., et al.

2009. "The Impact of Social Computing on the EU

Information Society and Economy." J R C Scientific

and Technical Reports EUR 24063 EN Retrieved 22

December, 2009, from http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/

JRC57947_TN.pdf.

Bearne, S. 2007. Over 12m consumers connect to social

networks via mobile phone. New Media Age, 11-11.

Burns, K. S. 2008. "A historical examination of the

development of social media and its application to the

public relations industry." Paper presented at the 2008

ICA Preconference

Chui, M., Miller, A. & Roberts, R. P. 2009. Six ways to

make Web 2.0 work. McKinsey Quarterly, 64-73.

Cook, N. 2008. Enterprise 2.0 : how social software will

change the future of work, Hants, Ashgate Pub.

Dinev, T., Xu, H. & Smith, H. J. 2009. Information

Privacy Values, Beliefs and Attitudes: An Empirical

Analysis of Web 2.0 Privacy. In The Proceedings of

42nd Hawaii International Conference on System

Sciences (HICSS 42). Big Island, Hawaii.

Ebersbach, A. 2008. Wiki Web collaboration. Berlin;

[New York], Springer.

Huston, L. & Sakkab, N. 2006. Connect and develop:

Inside Procter and Gamble’s new model for

innovation. Harvard Business Review, 84, 58–66.

Java, A., Song, X., Finin, T. & Tseng, B. 2007. Why we

twitter: understanding microblogging usage and

communities. In Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and

1st SNA-KDD 2007 workshop on Web mining and

social network analysis. San Jose, California.

SOCIO-TECHNICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION IN BUSINESS - A Semiotic

Perspective

147

Josef, K. & Hermann, M. 2006. The Transformation of the

Web: How Emerging Communities Shape the

Information We Consume. Journal of Universal

Computer Science, 12, 187-213.

Klobas, J. E. & Beesley, A. 2006. Wikis: tools for

information work and collaboration, Oxford,

Chandos.

Liu, K. 2000. Semiotics in information systems

engineering, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Mayfield, A. 2006. What is Social Media? , iCrossing.

Mckinsey&Company. 2008. "Building the Web 2.0

Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey." The McKinsey

Quarterly

Musser, J., O’reilly, T. & Team, T. O. R. R. 2006. Web

2.0: Principles and Best Practices. O’Reilly Radar, 1-

Newman, A. & Thomas, J. 2009. Enterprise 2.0

implementation, New York, McGraw-Hill.

Nielsen_Online. 2009. "Global Faces and Networked

Places." Retrieved 11 December, 2009, from

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-

content/uploads/2009/03/nielsen_globalfaces_mar09.p

df.

O'reilly, T. 2007. What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and

Business Models for the Next Generation of Software

Communications and Strategies: International Journal

of Digital Economics, 65, 17-37.

Power, R. & Forte, D. 2008. War & Peace in Cyberspace:

Don't twitter away your organisation's secrets.

Computer Fraud & Security, 2008, 18-20.

Smith, H. & Fingar, P. 2003. Business Process

Management: The Third Wave, Meghan-Kiffer Press.

Stamper, R., Liu, K., Hafkamp, M. & Ades, Y. 1994.

Organisational Morphology in Re-engineering. In the

Proceedings of the Second European Conference of

Information Systems. Nijenrode, Nijenrode University.

Stamper, R. K. 1992. Language and Computer in

Organised Behaviour. In Riet, R. P. & Meersman, R.

A. (Eds.) Linguistic Instruments in Knowledge

Engineering. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.

Wieringa, R. J. 1996. Requirements engineering :

Frameworks for understanding, Chichester, Wiley.

Yanbe, Y., Jatowt, A., Nakamura, S. & Tanaka, K. 2007.

Can social bookmarking enhance search in the web? In

the Proceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE-CS joint

conference on Digital libraries. Vancouver, BC,

Canada, ACM.

Young, O. G., Brown, E. G., Keitt, T. J., Owyang, J. K., et

al. 2008. Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast.

Forrester Research.

ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations

148