Activating the Tools of Social Media for Innovative Collaboration in the Enterprise

The use of social media tools in the enterprise is expanding rapidly and yet, firms are still unclear about the overall value of this activity and how best to facilitate useful outcomes. The focus of this book is, from a managerial standpoint, the control of information, the extent to which such tools can enhance employee satisfaction and how best to use social media tools to attain specific outcomes including innovative collaboration. As companies turn to IT solutions as substitutes for face-to-face engagements, an understanding of the social dynamics - how employees can best communicate, find and use information and generate motivation through computer-mediated activities is fundamental. Lingering questions relate to the strategic use of these tools; many large companies are using Facebook-like applications due to employee demand, but are not studying outcomes comprehensively or managing processes to create desired outcomes. This book fills this knowledge gap through examining the process and results of a controlled study in two companies, one in the US and the other in China. In each company "wiki challenges" were introduced to employees who were provided guidelines to produce goal-oriented outcomes. The book examine the results in each case and suggest guidelines for firms to achieve "wiki-readiness" to support innovation and co-creation.