Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the lack of importance given to understanding the users’ behaviour and context when it comes to developing IS in organisations. To also point out the value of social network analysis (SNA) in the study of organisations and IS in general and give a critical review on SNA as a method. The significance of SNA was demonstrated with a case study which shows in a little detail how it can help in understanding user behaviour and organisational context. This is a paper that is based mainly on information systems (IS) in organisations, so it does not make any claims outside of this context, and while there are alternatives to SNA in understanding organisations, the paper focuses on SNA because of the insight it gives on the social environment of the organisation. The paper helps provide a general understanding of SNA as a tool in studying user behaviour in organisations with a view to IS development and evaluation, and also makes an effort to link and show the importance of the study of user behaviour to developing IS that is more suited to the user.
Recommended Citation
Mosindi, Osemeke and Sice, Petia, "Social Network Analysis And Information Systems In Organisations: Highlighting The Need To Understand Human Information Sharing Behaviour" (2011). UK Academy for Information Systems Conference Proceedings 2011. 34.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ukais2011/34