A Conceptual Stages of Growth Model for Managing an Organization's Social Media Business Profile (SMBP)

Social media can have enormous benefits for organisations, but a failure to manage how these applications are used can have significant and unintended consequences. In this paper, the authors propose a conceptual Stages of Growth (SOG) Model for managing an organisation’s Social Media Business Profile (SMBP). Following extensive reviews of SOG models in the literature, social media practitioner reports and best practice guides, and industry reported cases of SMBP implementations, the authors propose a conceptual growth model consisting of five stages and the paths of evolution between stages. The authors also suggest 10 benchmark variables by which it is proposed the stages and their dominant problems can be measured and managed. The paper concludes with a discussion of its limitations and the field studies currently being undertaken in 40 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland to test the SMBP SOG model.

[1]  Adi Prananto,et al.  E-business maturity: the SOG-e model , 2000 .

[2]  Amy L. Ostrom,et al.  Complaining to the Masses: The Role of Protest Framing in Customer-Created Complaint Web Sites , 2006 .

[3]  Álvaro Rocha,et al.  Evolution of Information Systems and Technologies Maturity in Healthcare , 2011, Int. J. Heal. Inf. Syst. Informatics.

[4]  M. Piskorski,et al.  Social strategies that work. , 2011, Harvard business review.

[5]  Rens Scheepers,et al.  A Stage Model of Intranet Technology. Implementation and Management , 1999, ECIS.

[6]  Andrew Friedman,et al.  The stages model and the phases of the IS field , 1994, J. Inf. Technol..

[7]  A. Kaplan,et al.  Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media , 2010 .

[8]  R. Nolan,et al.  Maturity of electronic commerce : A review of the principal models , 2006 .

[9]  Thilini Ariyachandra,et al.  Data Warehousing Stages of Growth , 2001, Inf. Syst. Manag..

[10]  Param Vir Singh,et al.  Crowdsourcing "blockbuster" Ideas: a Dynamic Structural Model of Ideation , 2011, ICIS.

[11]  Finn de Brí.  An e-Government Stages of Growth Model Based on Research Within the Irish Revenue Offices , 2009 .

[12]  Param Vir Singh,et al.  Blog, Blogger, and the Firm: Can Negative Employee Posts Lead to Positive Outcomes? , 2012, Inf. Syst. Res..

[13]  Caroline Chan,et al.  B2B e-commerce stages of growth: the strategic imperatives , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.

[14]  A. Athos,et al.  The Art of Japanese Management , 1982 .

[15]  Michael J. Earl,et al.  Management Strategies for Information Technology , 1989 .

[16]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Introduction to E-Commerce , 2001 .

[17]  Robert D. Galliers,et al.  Information systems management and strategy formulation: the ‘stages of growth’ model revisited , 1991, Inf. Syst. J..

[18]  S. Subba Rao,et al.  Electronic commerce development in small and medium sized enterprises: A stage model and its implications , 2003, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[19]  Randy J. Hinrichs.  Intranets: What's the Bottom Line? , 1997 .

[20]  Param Vir Singh,et al.  Blog, Blogger and the Firm: Can Negative Posts by Employees Lead to Positive Outcomes? , 2010 .

[21]  Michael Rosemann,et al.  Understanding the Main Phases of Developing a Maturity Assessment Model , 2005 .

[22]  Michael J. Earl,et al.  Evolving the E-Business , 2000 .

[23]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  A critque of the stage hypothesis: theory and empirical evidence , 1984, CACM.

[24]  R. Nolan,et al.  Managing the Four Stages of EDP Growth , 1974 .

[25]  Keiichi Nakata,et al.  Evolving the social business: a look at stages of growth for Web 2.0 integration with business activities , 2010 .

[26]  Petter Gottschalk,et al.  The Modeling Process for Stage Models , 2010, J. Organ. Comput. Electron. Commer..

[27]  Patrick Finnegan,et al.  Managing empowerment and control in an intranet environment , 2003, Inf. Syst. J..

[28]  Kenneth L. Kraemer,et al.  Evolution and organizational information systems: an assessment of Nolan's stage model , 1984, CACM.

[29]  Marijn Janssen,et al.  Stages of Growth in e-Government : An Architectural Approach , 2006 .

[30]  Cathal M. Brugha,et al.  A Generic Change Management Decision Model: - Putting Galliers and Sutherland's 'Stages Of Growth' Model into a Broader Context , 1998 .