Organizational Social Media around the GLOBE
Abstract
In this study, we analyze the impact of societal culture on organizational social media. We understand
organizational social medias as the use of social media by organizations. We use societal culture in the terms of
the model provided by the GLOBE study. Culture is generally considered a factor in the adoption of traditional
information systems. We assume that cultural impacts are especially strong in the case of social information
systems, such as social media, due to their open, transparent, and collaborative nature. We collect data from 500
firms regarding their use of organizational social media, i.e. blogs (e.g. blogger.com), microblogs (Twitter),
social networks (Facebook), video sharing (YouTube), picture sharing (Flickr), and presentation sharing (e.g.
Slideshare). Our findings indicate that societal culture is indeed a determinator of organizational social media.
The paper concludes with implication for IS researcher (such as that other level of culture need to be examined
as well) and IS practitioners (such as that culturally adapted social media strategies are required).