exploring uses of social media in a global corporation

Exploring uses of social mediain a global corporation

Mervi VuoriDepartment of Industrial Engineering and Management, BIT Research Centre,

Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims to enhance understanding of using Web 2.0 technologies and socialmedia in a global corporation.

Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative case study in a global corporation was conductedto illustrate the main uses of social media and to describe the related service portfolio.

Findings – The main uses of social media were identified and conceptualized based on the casecompany data. Internally, social media was used to for internal communication and knowledgetransfer, to reach personnel and to conduct internal idea crowdsourcing. Externally, social media wasused to enhance communications related to the company brand, to enable dialogue with customers, tobuild communities with various stakeholder groups and to engage external stakeholders in ideageneration via a crowdsourcing platform. A categorization of social media uses for communication,collaboration and connecting vis-a-vis external and internal uses was created. Idea creation practiceswere further conceptualized as the main enactment of Web 2.0 social media technology.

Research limitations/implications – This study is a single case study and thus the results cannotbe generalized.

Practical implications – As Web 2.0 technologies and social media have become a topic of interestfor many companies, it is essential to understand how social media can be used in a business context.The classification of social media uses is deployed to highlight the possible implications for companyoperations, and the human factor is emphasized in system adoption and use. Challenges related tosocial media implementation are described.

Originality/value – As of to date, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence on uses of social media. Thisresearch is based on a case study, allowing an in-depth insight into the phenomenon and related issues.

Keywords Web 2.0, Social media, Crowdsourcing, Case studies, International organizations

Paper type Case study

1. IntroductionThere are two on-going developments that are causing major transformations ineconomic and social activity. First, the ubiquity and reach of electronic networkscontinue to grow exponentially, and second, networks enabled by digital platforms andtechnologies are increasingly creating value for both individuals and organizations(Agarwal et al., 2008). Advances in technology such as item identification, mobile dataservices and Web 2.0, including wikis, blogs and collaborative platforms, provideopportunities for companies to improve their internal operations and collaborate withtheir supply chain partners (Agarwal et al., 2008; Culnan, 2010). Web 2.0 can be regardedas an umbrella term, encompassing new collaborative technologies (Morrison, 2009)whereas social media can be described as a result of applying Web 2.0 technologies inonline social environment (Bonson and Flores, 2011). For example, companies can makeuse of virtual idea laboratories and interactive open source communities in sourcingideas and innovations by engaging customers, suppliers and other trading partners

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Exploring usesof social media

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Journal of Systems and InformationTechnology

Vol. 14 No. 2, 2012pp. 155-170

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1328-7265

DOI 10.1108/13287261211232171

in social media enabled processes (Ahlqvist et al., 2010). It has been claimed thatknowledge exchange in networks crossing organizational boundaries is essential forcompany innovativeness (Nooteboom, 2000). Web 2.0 technologies enable contentgeneration, community building and decision support and are thus providing a newplatform for knowledge exchange and network development (Chui et al., 2009). Thus,companies are increasingly showing interest in incorporating Web 2.0 technologieswithin their internal as well as external operations. For a company, the uses of socialmedia can be either exploitative in the sense of making incremental improvements inexisting processes, drawing on existing knowledge, or explorative in the sense ofcreating new business models and drawing on new sources of knowledge (Subramani,2004; Jansen et al., 2006; Gupta et al., 2007).

Despite the fact that companies are increasingly recognizing the potential valuerelated to using Web 2.0 in a business context, research on using Web 2.0 inorganizations is still in its infancy (Saldanha and Krishnan, 2010). Moreover, as businessvalue is not derived from the platform itself but from the ways how the new technologiesare used (Culnan, 2010), it is essential to understand in general how companies can utilizeWeb 2.0 and social media as part of their business portfolio, and in particular, what arethe potential leverage points of competitive advantage related to using social media incompany functions (Bughin, 2008). Our research aims to enhance understanding of usesof social media within a company as well as with external stakeholders. In consideringthe impact of using social media, both internal and external implications for companyoperations will be explored. Our key research question is:

RQ. How is social media used to enable innovative practices in company internaloperations as well as with external stakeholders?

As social media is a recent and complex phenomenon, companies are striving tounderstand how to best capture and utilize social media as part of their businessportfolio and service offering. By focusing on the uses of the new technology we aim tocreate novel understanding of the issue. Our paper is organized as follows. First, we gothrough the theoretical underpinnings related to Web 2.0 technologies, social media andrelated applications in an organizational context. Second, we review the methodologyrelated to our study. Third, we present the results from our case study and go throughthe findings in detail. Finally, the findings are discussed and conclusions as well asopportunities for further research are presented.

2. Understanding Web 2.0, social media and crowdsourcingAccording to Vuori, 2011 the definition for Web 2.0 and social media are ambiguousand evolving. This study considers Web 2.0 to refer to collaborative technologieswhereas social media is understood to relate to using Web 2.0 technology in a socialsetting, drawing on the features of user-generated content, communities and networks,enabled by Web 2.0 technologies (Ahlqvist et al., 2010).

It has been claimed that the proliferation of ICT has greatly impacted the way thatknowledge and innovativeness are being pursued in today’s companies. In fact, someorganizations relate the introduction of information systems to knowledge managementper se. However, implementing an ERP system or an intranet does not automatically leadto improved knowledge creation, sharing and innovativeness (Newell et al., 2009;Swan et al., 1999). Indeed as noted by Swan et al. (2000), knowledge management

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systems concentrate on knowledge capture and transfer and ignore the fact thatinnovation processes are becoming increasingly interactive, involving heterogeneousgroups of people both within the company as well as across company boundaries. As aresult, these systems, instead of fostering innovativeness and new knowledge creationmay end up doing the opposite (Swan et al., 2000). However, new web-based technologiesallow more interactive and networked type of working. With the advent of Web 2.0,interactive platforms including features of social media such as online chatting, contentcreation, tagging, blogging, new opportunities for networking, knowledge sharing andcollaboration have emerged simultaneously (Mcafee, 2006).

Web 2.0 encompasses a set of technological platforms drawing on the advancedfeatures of the internet, including interactivity, syndication and asynchronous dataretrieval as well as user-generated content. Web 2.0 can be seen not solely as atechnological phenomenon but as a paradigm shift enabling a new culture of participationbased on users interacting and collectively sharing and creating knowledge over theinternet (Schneckenberg, 2009; Ahlqvist et al., 2010). Whilst a bundle of applications areavailable, peer-to-peer interaction, user-generated content, knowledge exchange andcollaboration can be described as common characteristics of Web 2.0 enabled social media(Chui et al., 2009; Ahlqvist et al., 2010). From a functional perspective, social media drawson the “interaction between people who create, share, exchange and comment [on] contentin virtual communities and networks” (Toivonen, 2007).

Essential Web 2.0 technologies include blogs, wikis and interactive platforms(Ahlqvist et al., 2010). Blogs allow relatively simple exchange of information, whereasvirtual platforms enable diverse replications of real world interactions (Kaplan andHaenlein, 2010). Wikis facilitate collaborative authoring, editing and informationexchange (Majchrzak et al., 2006) both internally as well as externally within businesspartners. From the perspective of inter-organizational systems (IOS), Web 2.0 socialmedia applications can be regarded as networked information systems, supportinginformal exchange of unstructured or semi-structured information and knowledgethrough human interfaces situated at organizational boundaries (Chi and Holsapple,2005). From the point of view of knowledge management, social media can be regardedas providing a shared virtual environment for collaboration and learning (Nonaka andKonno, 1998).

In a corporate context, Web 2.0 enabled social media tools can be utilized for contentgeneration, community building and harnessing information. Social media can be usedwith employees and contractors as well as customers, partners and suppliers (Chui et al.,2009). The uses of Web 2.0 have been especially prominent in building communities.Though communities are not a new idea, companies are increasingly interested inharnessing the power of online communities in idea generation (Wenger, 1998;Burger-Helmchen and Penin, 2010; Culnan, 2010). In 2006, Howe coined the term“crowdsourcing” to describe company efforts to outsource an activity to the crowds,representing an entirely new business model (Howe, 2006). The premise in crowdsourcingis using collective intelligence, i.e. the “wisdom of the crowds” (Surowiecki, 2004).Consequently, when previously companies operated with a pre-defined set of businesspartners, the crowdsourcing method enables companies to interact with a large number ofunknown participants, including suppliers, customers, trading partners or anyonewilling to participate in the crowdsourced activity. Crowdsourcing can be regarded as apractice of open innovation where a company regards its customers and end-users as


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sources of innovation, tapping into their innovative capabilities in a systematic way(Leimeister et al., 2009).

From a company perspective, social media has become a pervasive set of tools that canbe used in various ways. According to a global survey conducted by McKinsey Quarterly(2008), companies worldwide are implementing these tools for a wide range of purposes,the most common area of application being internal operations followed by interfacingwith customers and business partners in the supply chain. The same study showshowever, that after an initial trial period a number of companies have been abandoningthese technologies altogether. In a study of Finnish companies as adopters of social media,Vuori (2011) finds that the “fear of the unknown” may impact on company willingness toadopt social media for business use. Furthermore, the study revealed that where Web 2.0technologies and social media had been implemented, a lack of clarity and consistencycould be observed in the actual implementation and use. It has been claimed thatcompanies are yet to realize the actual business benefits related to social media uses(Culnan, 2010). It can also be questioned what new social media can bring in comparison togroupware technology, that has been used to support collaborative group work in adistributed environment for a long time (Turban et al., 2010). These issues point to the factthat using social media in a business context is not straight-forward and in order tounderstand the potential, it is necessary to recognize the specific purposes linked to usingdifferent social media applications (Vuori, 2011). Since Web 2.0 technologies enable arange of different uses, value does not come from the technology itself, but from the actualways these technologies are deployed (Culnan, 2010).

3. Theoretical backgroundAs a phenomenon, Web 2.0 technologies and social media can be related to severalresearch fields and theoretical considerations. In the following, theoreticalunderpinnings for the deployment of Web 2.0 technologies vis-a-vis knowledgemanagement and innovations are discussed.

Knowledge can be regarded as the main source of company innovative potential(Castells, 2000). Accordingly, knowledge is seen as a critical and strategic resourcethat, when used in unique ways, enables a company to develop sustainable competitiveadvantages, a claim made by scholars advocating the resource-based perspective(Barney, 1991). Building on the resource-based view, the knowledge-based viewidentifies knowledge as the main fuel for innovativeness, enabling companies torespond to changing customer needs by fostering the creation and development of newproducts and services (Newell et al., 2009). As social media are used for creating,sharing and exchanging various kinds of content and fostering communication andinteraction among users (Toivonen, 2007), the uses of social media may contribute tothe company’s knowledge creation capability, and thus to the innovation potential of acompany. Indeed, as it has been suggested, Web 2.0 technologies share much of thesame principles that underlie knowledge management (Levy, 2009). Active userparticipation in the creation of knowledge is emphasized, as is also technology’s role inproviding a platform for knowledge creation and transfer. Accordingly, the value isderived from the content and not from the technology or system per se (Levy, 2009).

Nevertheless, accumulating and capturing high stocks of knowledge does not equalimproved performance (Narasimha, 2000). This notion corresponds to the deterministicview of viewing knowledge as something that is “owned” (according to the

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epistemology of possession) instead of considering knowledge as something that isembedded in practice, constantly emerging and developing as a result of peopleinteracting with each other, interpreting and making sense of their environment in a socialcontext (according to the epistemology of practice) (Cook and Brown, 1999; Orlikowski,2002; Newell et al., 2004). This is an important distinction that bears implications for howcompanies can foster and develop their innovation capabilities based on knowledgecreation and learning. According to the knowledge-based view of the company, a companyshould be seen as a dynamic and evolving system for knowledge creation and application.Consequently, reality is socially constructed through the processes of interpretation andsense-making that individuals engage in; thus, a firm is a “dynamic and self-referringsystem” rather than a system of resources (Spender, 1996).

According to the structuralist perspective, innovation can be developed, packagedand transferred to an organization where it is taken into use without any majordifficulties. This perspective undermines the organizational and social contextwhich innovation is dependent upon. In contrast, the process perspective claims thatinnovations depend on the organizational context and are the result of dynamicinteractions between people, depending on the related social, cognitive and politicalprocesses (Swan et al., 1999, 2000). The latter view emphasizes networking andcommunication as well as interaction as the main elements of innovative activity andknowledge creation. According to Swan et al. (1999), new knowledge is created throughnegotiation, where different people bring together and share their “thought worlds”,which are exposed for new meanings and interpretations in the networking process.This can be seen as an act of bringing together various “knowledge bases”, building upcollective “knowledge and knowing capability” in the form of intellectual capital(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). When team members bring together their skills andknowledge, innovativeness and creation of new knowledge is stimulated. The essentialelement here is the sharing of knowledge among social communities, bringing together“collections of individuals”, who engage in communication and dialogue (Swan et al.,2000). A critical way to foster innovativeness within a company is thus to initiate waysfor people to interact both within the company as well as outside the company withexternal stakeholders. Here, Web 2.0 and social media can play a major role.

4. MethodologyBy nature, this study on the uses of social media is qualitative and explorative in naturewith the aim to create new and enhanced understanding of an emerging and complexphenomenon. The purpose of the study is not to offer generalisations but to offer a richdescription of social media in business, illustrating the phenomenon with a case study.Single case study approach was selected due to its strength in revealing unique and deepinsight into an emerging phenomenon within the respective context (Dyer and Wilkins,1991). Additionally, a case study is relevant in seeking answers for the “why” and “how”type of research questions (Yin, 2009). The case company was selected based on uniqueaccess and knowledge of the company being an active user of social media.

An interview questionnaire consisting of both open-ended and semi-structuredquestions was crafted to direct data collection with the main informant, companyDirector for Idea Crowdsourcing with whom an in-depth interview was conducted. Theinterview was recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were triangulated withcompany presentation materials and other written documents. To gain a holistic picture


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of the phenomenon under study, the researcher conducted two additional interviewswith the company community manager and participated in company presentation ontheir crowdsourcing practices. Validity was enhanced by employing basic case studytactics, including an informant’s review of the interview transcriptions and intermediatecase study reports (Yin, 2009).

5. Case company findings5.1 Company backgroundNokia is a multinational communications company. The company designs andmanufactures mobile devices globally with over 61,000 employees and has sales inmore than 160 countries. In 2008, “passion for innovation” was selected by employeesto be one of the company values. Operating in fast changing global markets, there is aconstant search underway for new ways of working and engaging both employees andcustomers in further development of Nokia’s products and services.

5.2 Social media in company internal contextNokia has been implementing multiple technologies and online services since the earlydays of Web 2.0. Internal discussion forums and wikis for sharing expertise wereamongst the first social media applications in the company. The company aims toleverage their slogan of “connecting people” by ensuring that this is possible on aglobal scale. Here, social media has an important role to play in enabling dialogue andinteraction between people across departmental and company boundaries.

The overarching driver for the company’s social media strategy is “to be presentwhere the customers (i.e. consumers) are”. Nokia has both globally managed socialmedia initiatives as well as local ones that are tailored according to local interests,cultures and languages. Amongst the various social media applications, the target for thecompany is to recognize, filter, collect and republish the most valuable online content.Enabling participation and efficient use of socialization features are considered centralissues within the social media strategy. At the same time, the company’s own mediacontent has to be flexible and fluid to ensure seamless sharing between differentapplications.

Internal social media applications support internal communications by enablingemployees to discuss, create and share content in the form of text and videos, comment,generate ideas and vote. All employees have the possibility to discuss their work andideas in their own blogs. At the beginning of 2011, there were more than 1,400 activeblogs with over 100,000 comments and posts. Blogging is done actively also by the topmanagement to communicate about current issues; content from blogs is activelyincluded in intranet news feeds for an internal audience. All internal company blogs arecollected into a blog platform. Another internal platform can be used as a channel toshare videos within the company. Internal wikis are used for communicating andinforming about internal projects. Company social networking service, building onfeatures familiar from Facebook and Twitter, helps to find, locate and contactco-employees and engage in discussions online, promoting transparency and open flowsof knowledge and information. In a global company, social media has an importantfunction in reaching people. According to the Nokia Director for Idea Crowdsourcing:

The best way to reach people [. . .] is to use these internal channels to get involved innetworks.

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An internal idea crowdsourcing service enables employees to generate, discuss andshare new ideas or suggest changes for products, services and the current practices.The application has replaced dozens of stand-alone in-house idea repositories, whichprevented efficient knowledge transfer and dissemination. The service is used as aplace to store ideas for retrieval at later points of time.

When employees test the company’s own products, social media is used to collect andgather their feedback and opinions. Employees have access to internal and externalsocial media applications via the corporate intranet, which is seen as the main portal forcombining information flows from company internal as well as external sources:

We are developing our Intranet to become [the main platform] for socially constructedinteractive flows of information and knowledge.

5.3 Social media in company external contextFor external communication, Nokia uses Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube toreach consumers and to strengthen the company brand. Nokia Blogs is an official sitefor publishing company blogs including videos, insights and commentaries on Nokiaproducts and services. Blogs can be branded according to different audiences andcontent can be mashed up to support different marketing and communicationpurposes. In case there is a need to gain maximum attention, the company uses severalsocial media channels simultaneously. Integrity and honesty have risen as importanttopics in disseminating information to external stakeholders via social media:

Whenever something major happens, we aim to use all of these channels. Today, certain targetgroups can only be reached through social media [. . .] so there is no need, for example, for pressreleases [in this sense]. Our social media professionals tweet, blog and contact influentialbloggers in order to collaborate [with them] like other major brand owners do [. . .] we do it in afair manner and in a transparent way so that people know that these bloggers are Nokia fans.

With online media tools, communication and marketing planning takes place in realtime, as time-to-market in information dissemination has shortened considerably.Social media strategy and related channels have to be explicitly considered inconnection with, e.g. new product launches.

For customers, there is a support web site where customers can get and share adviceand engage in live chat with support personnel. In Twitter, @NokiaHelps is used as asupport communication channel. Beta Labs is an open web-based community targetedat consumers and developers willing to try out existing applications, software andservices that are being developed. It also serves as a tool for giving feedback andinteracting with other community members in order to accelerate innovation. To engagewith existing and potential customers, Nokia participates in Second Life, which is avirtual world where Nokia owns an island and can sell its products to the virtualinhabitants. A recent initiative of Nokia is to take part in Empire Avenue, which is a sitefor assessing one’s “stock value” in terms of social media activities and the extent ofinvolvement in social networks. The company is also active in Foursquare, a socialmedia service where users identify their locations with their mobile phones and find outwhere their friends are at the same time. Here involvement in social media is driven by abusiness interest since location services are an integral part of Nokia’s product offering.

Internal idea generation has been taking place through social media since 2008, butexternal idea crowdsourcing has only recently been added into Nokia’s social media


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service portfolio. The idea crowdsourcing service called “Ideasproject.com” was launched atthe beginning of 2011. In nine months (March-November 2011) the site had gathered over7,500 ideas, engaged 14,000 community members with 6,000 comments and over 37 millionpage views. Simply defined, Ideasproject taps into company external knowledge and the“wisdom of the crowds” residing with consumers, hobbyists and developers. At Nokia,crowdsourcing is regarded as a way to execute co-creation based open innovation inproduct, service and application development. One major benefit related to external ideacrowdsourcing is the fact that with the new application, ideas are stored and collected in onecentral place where data can be retrieved for, e.g. analysis purposes.

Despite the fact that crowdsourcing is related to open innovation and participationas well as to idea flows from and between the participants, there is a disciplinedprocess behind harvesting the intellect within crowdsourced knowledge. Ideas are notgenerated or collected by Nokia at random but through targeted idea competitions orchallenges related to specific application categories. Idea challenges are promotedthrough marketing efforts and by creating awareness within the Ideasproject.comcommunity, as well as within and across other online communities. As users startposting their ideas, the Ideasproject.com community manager is tasked withfacilitating the creation process by engaging in dialogue, coaching and responding touser comments and posts. The members can comment and build on others’ ideas andexpress their “likes”. To reduce the number of ideas, ideas with similar characteristicsare grouped and clustered. After harvesting, some 6-12 ideas out of the typically200-2,000 initial ideas are selected for the idea pitching process taking place in thecompany. Some of the selected ideas will be put into development and deliveredfree-of-charge via the company’s customer application service portal.

Considering knowledge harvesting and further dissemination in the company,Nokia uses advanced text-mining combined with clustering and regression analysis toanalyse the masses of collected data. In analysis, also neuron networks have beenutilised. Visualization has been found to be an excellent way to link similar ideas andcluster them according to themes. The end-result is a report which can be disseminatedinternally. Out of the visualized data, one can, for example, extract ideas related to acertain idea challenge originating from a specific region. In Nokia, the visualization ofdata has enabled the dissemination of crowdsourced knowledge in useful format,allowing spotting weak signals and megatrends. This type of intelligence can provideinput for example for the strategy process:

Internally crowdsourced ideas are used to validate future business scenarios [. . .]crowdsourced ideas are used as input for strategy and research and development work [. . .]we can [through external crowd-sourcing] gather a hundred external ideas related to some newconcept and product development issue and help them to pick the three most relevant ones.

Whilst Ideasproject.com is an example of open B2C crowd-sourcing activity, the companyis currently looking at ways to leverage the crowdsourcing method and related Web 2.0technologies with partners in the B2B environment. One initiative to further this goal is toestablish a service for the focal company and its downstream supply chain partners toform a close-knit partner community with increased reach, communication andcollaboration for idea creation and information sharing between the parties:

We should be closer [to our partners] [. . .] after we have conducted an [online] idea challengeand as a result we will have [built] an outstanding community.

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Another new initiative at Nokia within B2B is related to collaborating withdownstream supply chain partner to gain increased reach to developer communities.This is an example of B2B2C activity where Web 2.0 technologies fostering opencollaboration and participation are being implemented in a closed B2B context tosupport collaboration with external partners to ultimately form an extended enterprise.

5.4 Challenges related to using social media in a global corporationAs Nokia has implemented a substantial number of different social media applicationsinternally as well as externally, a need for new skills, competences and support hasbeen recognized. Accordingly, emphasis has been put on training and developingemployee competences related to the use of social media tools. As an example, Nokiahas published internal social media guidelines to instruct employees how to behave inan online environment as representatives of Nokia. This is an area where support isneeded since as a result of implementing social media tools, an increasing number ofemployees need to engage and participate in conversations with external stakeholders.In considering how to behave online, people need to be able to differentiate betweeninternal and external discussions. This is not a straight-forward task given thecomplexity and range of different social media tools currently in use.

Concerning external idea crowdsourcing, there is a challenge related to placing theprocess within the physical organizational structure since crowd-sourcing interfaceswith R&D, legal, intellectual property rights as well as business and marketintelligence issues. In addition, adding external ideas to existing implementation andinnovation roadmaps is a demanding task. At no point does Nokia claim that they ownthe idea: rather, the point is that the online community can take the ideas further,whereas Nokia offers the service to enable this. Internally, the service owner needs toconvince relevant business development persons of the value and related usefulness ofthe crowdsourced knowledge, which can take time. A part of this challenge is the factthat the company collects a huge amount of information with the help of social mediatools – a major issue here is how to actually exploit the knowledge as part of decisionmaking and planning:

The issue with data collection is the fact that we should have time to draw conclusions fromit all.

On a corporate level, the company needs to scan for new services and applications inthe social media sphere to remain informed of latest developments. This means alearning imperative for the Director of Idea Crowdsourcing:

I need to be involved in [social media] with my professional identity or avatar so that I canlearn what this all means [from a business perspective].

6. Discussion and conclusionsThe case company can be considered an active user of social media, having implemented arange of applications both internally and externally. The case data suggests that thecompany has a strong motivation to engage in online dialogue with customers, driven bythe social marketing strategy. The main driver is to “be present where the customers are”,and in this respect, listening to the consumers, learning and engaging in social marketinghave been main considerations in the deployment of social media. This echoes with


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Thackeray et al. (2008) who find that social media can be considered an essential element inreaching customers and enhancing promotional strategies and brand communications.Furthermore, our case data shows that the use of social media can be associated withcommunication, collaboration and connecting purposes (Vuori, 2011 for categorization ofsocial media), as shown in Table I. The applications can be separated into internallyfocused applications, directed at the company’s own employees, and externally focusedapplications that are directed towards customers and business partners (Andriole, 2010).Internal applications are accessible to all employees via the corporate intranet thatoperates as the access portal for both internal and external discussions. Externalapplications are accessible through the company web site or they can be built, marketedand promoted as stand-alone web sites, as in the case of Ideasproject.

The case data shows that knowledge management aspects have not been explicitlyconsidered by Nokia prior to the deployment of Web 2.0 technologies and social media.Knowledge management has, however, been achieved as a result of applying socialmedia tools in practice. An explicit finding in this respect was the fact that in the casecompany, the internal idea crowdsourcing service has replaced several stand-aloneinformation repositories and operates now as a centralized place to exchange ideas andstore information. This finding echoes with Levy (2009), who finds that the purposes ofWeb 2.0 enabled social media correspond with the goals of knowledge management.Moreover, the company has engaged in various knowledge management processeswhen learning, making predictions, analysing and making sense of the crowdsourceddata, as for example. The use of the internal idea crowdsourcing service as aknowledge repository corresponds to the structuralist view of innovation, facilitatingthe capture and transfer of knowledge. However, internal idea crowdsourcing can befound to contribute to the processual side of innovation in that it enables interactionbetween employees in an online environment, bridging boundaries betweendepartments and enhancing community-building (Swan et al., 2000; Newell et al.,2009). The exclusion of explicit knowledge management related goals may indicatethat in the case company, Web 2.0 technologies and related networking processes, suchas generating ideas and sharing knowledge as well as crossing departmentalboundaries, are regarded as essential parts of the everyday workflow and notsomething that require separate actions or IT tools. This corresponds to Chui et al.(2009), who suggest that participatory technologies, such as Web 2.0, have the highestpotential for success when they are incorporated into the daily workflow of people.

Whilst internal networking can be considered essential in fostering innovativeness,using social media to tap into external knowledge has become a central issue in knowledgecreation and innovation taking place in the networked business environment.As knowledge is increasingly dispersed both within as well as across organisations, itis a challenge for companies to create, share and manage knowledge and expertise in this

Internally focused applications Externally focused applications

Communication Blogs, discussion forums Blogs, microblogging, social networking, on-line broadcasting

Collaboration Internal idea crowdsourcing service External idea crowdsourcing serviceConnecting Internal networking site, corporate

wikisCustomer forums, on-line communities, virtualworlds

Table I.Case company uses ofWeb 2.0 and social mediain internal and externalcontexts

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distributed environment (Swan et al., 2000). The use of an external idea generationplatform corresponds to the notion of innovation being located at the “interstices” ofcollaborative groups and organizations (Carlile, 2002; Powell et al., 1996). At Nokia, we canobserve a shift in traditional company-centric and employee-based innovationmanagement towards managing external resources for innovations and newknowledge. Thus, engaging and leading conversations with consumers by listening,talking and observing what they are doing online have become increasingly importantmethods in fostering innovativeness.

In our case company, we can distinguish two types of external crowdsourcing aimed atidea generation and enhancing innovativeness by networking and tapping into thecompany external knowledge. First, the company is engaging crowds in an open networksetting through the public ideation service, Ideasproject. Second, the company is engagingbusiness partners in idea generation in a closed network setting. The latter is an exampleof implementing previously open collaboration practices facilitated by Web 2.0technologies in a closed network setting with a set of pre-defined business partners.Here, the case company aims to use idea crowdsourcing as an initial step leading towards aB2B community, fuelled by technology enabled forms of collaboration. It should be notedthat whilst the purpose of technology use is the same – idea generation, knowledgesharing and diffusion to enhance innovativeness – the context of application is different.The B2B environment is based on existing relationships, which are usually governed bycontracts. In public crowdsourcing, these elements are not present (Brabham, 2008).Different network contexts may have an impact on the quality and perceived usefulness ofthe crowdsourced ideas for innovation, as it has been claimed that strong ties based ontrust and reciprocity are associated with tacit knowledge, whereas weak ties are moreassociated with explicit knowledge (Hansen, 1999). The case company makes an effort torefine externally crowdsourced ideas (i.e. explicit knowledge) into intelligence throughdata visualization, which can be seen as an effort to capture the “implicit in the explicit”.

Out of the identified uses social media in our case company, crowdsourcingcan be described as the major new innovative practice, enabling a new way tocollect knowledge, internal as well as external, based on interaction and collaboration.Ideasproject represents an ideation technology-in-practice, facilitated byWeb 2.0 technology (Morrison, 2009). As argued by Orlikowski (2000), the use oftechnology is shaped by people’s experiences, knowledge, meanings, habits, powerrelations and norms. In addition, social structures, authority structures, culture andbehavioural norms bear an impact on technology use. Accordingly, people enact variousdifferent practices even with the same technology, since the uses are always situated andcontext-bound (Orlikowski, 2000). Having an idea crowdsourcing service in place does notas such contribute to enhanced innovativeness or knowledge creation in a company orbetween a company and its stakeholders. It is through the user involvement andinteraction, enabled by the technology, that knowledge creation and innovativeness areenacted in practice. For our case company, external idea crowdsourcing is a neworganizational practice for idea generation and collection enacted through Web 2.0technology. From the case data, we can identify factors that contribute to and shape theenactment of ideation in practice. Recognizing the power of collective intelligence in theexternal knowledge residing in developer and consumer communities and fosteringa strategy of open innovation and an innovation-oriented organizational culture can beregarded as the main organizational aspects. The practice is also shaped by technology


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features based on interactivity in the form of online commenting, voting and expressinglikes and dislikes; writing and sharing text and pictures; storing ideas for later use; and ingeneral the ability to add content and build on content added by other users. The ideationpractices are also shaped by norms related to sharing knowledge and creation of ideasacross organizational boundaries. Interpretive schemes also enable the enactment of theideation technology, including an understanding of the power of Web 2.0 technology as aninteractive service to engage external stakeholders in generating ideas, buildingcommunities and in interfacing with other online ideation platforms (Figure 1).

As suggested by Orlikowski (2000), there may be differences between the planned andactual uses of technology. Thus, for a successful enactment of ideation technology-in-practice, the planned use should align with the enacted use. In crowdsourcing, this meansthat there should be a critical mass of contributors taking part in idea generation and thatthe ideas generated are found useful. Furthermore, Nokia encourages the onlinecommunity to take ideas and develop them further. This collaboration possibility isembedded in the service; however it is for the participants to decide, whether they act uponthis opportunity or not.

7. Research limitations and opportunities for further researchThis study is based on a single case, and thus generalizations outside the scope of thecase company are to be done with caution. However, we believe that an in-depth casestudy allows explorative insight into a new and emerging research topic such as socialmedia, and thus our approach can be justified.

Figure 1.Enactment of ideationtechnology-in-practice inthe case company

Recognizing the power of collective intelligenceFostering strategy of open innovation

Building atmosphere where everyone can be an innovator

IDEATION TECHNOLOGY-IN-PRACTICE

Facilities:• Create content and build on content by others• Online commenting, voting; expressing likes and dislikes• Writing, entering, editing text and pictures• Storing ideasfor later use

Creation of new knowledge and bringing in external knowledgeby crowdsourcing

Norms:• Sharing of knowledge• Creating ideas together• Crossing organisational boundaries

Interpretive schemes:• Web 2.0t echnology deployed as an interactive service to engage external stakeholders in idea generation and building communities• Interfacing with other ideation services

Source: Framework based on Orlikowski (2000)

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As companies are exploring the various social media related applications andconsidering the related implications for their mainstream businesses, there are variousopportunities for further research. For example, our case data revealed thatWeb 2.0 technologies and social media can be deployed also with supply chainpartners, an area where transaction-focused technologies such as EDI and XML havetraditionally held a strong foothold. Deploying Web 2.0 technologies in a supply chaincontext is an area where cross-disciplinary research in the areas of operationsmanagement and information technology would be needed. Considering network-basedinnovation, the impact of crowdsourced knowledge on a company’s innovation processshould be investigated in closer detail. For example, crowdsourcing could be studiedfrom the perspective of facilitating strong vs weak ties since it has been suggested thatthe type of ties may bear a difference in terms of the nature of knowledge. In general,companies should develop their understanding of the potential implications of Web 2.0technologies and social media for the creation of competitive advantages. With thisstudy, we hope that we have been able to describe the essential uses of social media interms of communication, collaboration and connecting in a B2C and B2B context, andthus contributed to the discussion of potential benefits and value creation points inleveraging Web 2.0 technologies and social media as part of business operations.

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Further reading

Swan, J. and Scarbrough, H. (2005), “The politics of networked innovation”, Human Relations,Vol. 58 No. 7, pp. 913-43.

About the authorMervi Vuori is a PhD Candidate at the Aalto University BIT Research Centre working in theINSCO (Innovation for Sourcing Competencies) project. Her research interests include sourcingpractices, collaboration methods with suppliers, as well as new innovative practices in the area ofsupply management, including crowdsourcing and use of social media. Mervi Vuori can becontacted at: [email protected]

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