By: Julia Mericle
Assistant News Editor
Dr. Carl J. Case, professor of business information systems and Darwin L. King, professor of accounting, recently published their paper entitled “Business Electronic Social Networking: Does Organization Size or Industry Sector Matter?” in the journal “Issues in Information Systems.”
According to Case, an increase in Web 2.0 usage among students and businesses sparked the interest for this paper, which is a follow-up to a prior study conducted by Case and King.
“It was surprising to see the fast and dramatic increase in social networking utilization at the largest firms in the U.S.,” Case said.
According to Case, electronic social networking is widely accepted in the business world.
“In an effort to better understand its utilization, this study was undertaken to comprehensively examine its usage at the largest firms, the Fortune 500,” Case said.
Research revealed that social networking is dominated by five main technologies: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogs.
According to Case, larger companies generally employ more social networking technologies. Industry sector is another determining factor.
In the nearly 15 years Case and King have been conducting research together, they have co-authored more than 60 published research articles. Case has had more than 100 research articles published in a wide range of academic journals.
“We plan to continue to expand the body of knowledge about social networking in an effort to help organizations, faculty, students and other stakeholders become more effective and responsible users of the technology,” Case said.
According to Case, their next project will be focused on an analysis of the privacy and security policies of the Fortune 500.
