Why organization should adopt social media

The usage of social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, micro-blogs and wikis is accelerating at an incredible rate. Organizations are among the increasing users of the social media networks. The rationale for organizations to engage in these networks and platforms is to advance essential organizational processes that will lead towards a competitive advantage. Development of an organizational value is an essential organizational process with potential to give an organization a competitive advantage over other organizations. The improvement of organizational value is, arguable, a key reason for companies to engage in social media platforms.

For organization to gain a sustainable competitive advantage over its rivals, it has to employ its unique capabilities. The unique capabilities are derived from distinct resources or competences of an organization. Organizational values are among distinct capabilities, which give competitive advantage to organizations. Organizational values are the guiding principles and beliefs perceived to exist by organizational members as whole (Liedtka, 1991). Organizational values play an important role in the decision making process of an organization.

The advancement and prosperity of social media has made it an important resource for organization to express and execute their values. In the same way, organizations advance their missions and goals.  Social media as coined by Ted Leonsis is a place where consumers get entertained, communicate and engage in a social environment (Bercovici, 2010). The social media platform has been an instrumental stratagem for organization to advance their mission because social media technology provides organization with ability to accomplish their goals in a ways that were difficult or impossible before the entry of social media technology (Treem and Leornadi, 2012). Thus, it can be argued that the organizational competence to adapt and use social media is what counts for distinction, which results to a competitive advantage.

The nature of social media provides a fertile environment for instigating organizational values. Schein (1985) stresses that organizational values are achieved through culture in which is determined by “environment of values” in which the organization operates. Therefore a cultural change brings about the evolution of organizational value. It is an assumption that the entrenching popular tradition of using social media is consequently influencing the development of new organization values in particular those that are engaged in these platforms.

On another angle, social media enables organization to leverage their intellectual capital as means to reach their set objectives. The ability to transform business into intelligent organization is the challenge facing organizations, which desire to be key players in the market. Carmeli and Tishler (2004) contend that organizations are now realizing that their ability to create value does not depend on traditional tangible and financial assets but on the ownership and development of intellectual capital. Likewise, Antonio et al (2012) suggests that the successful organizations in the market are those that innovate, take advantage of new technology [social media] and employs skills and know-how and not those organizations that depend only on leveraging physical assets. For that reason, organization finds the importance of adapting social media due to its clear role in providing organizational value, which is key to facilitating a competitive advantage.

References

Antonio Lerro, Francesca A. Iacobone, Giovanni Schiuma, (2012). Knowledge assets assessment strategies: organizational value, processes, approaches and evaluation architectures, Journal of Knowledge Management, 16/4:563 – 575