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In the majority of the cases (four out of six) the social software Table 6. Motivation
applications were well accepted by the users right from the Motivation Autohaus CSR Factline Greentube IQ mobile Winterheller
Lietz
beginning. One reason for the acceptance is probably that in all
Necessary for
cases, several accompanying measures were taken to support the the job 5 5 5
launch of the new system, team members were used to social Easy, intuitive
software and lastly, they had full and open access to content. use 5 5 5
However, after eliminating initial barriers (e.g. lack of social No access
5 5
barriers
software experience at CSR, limited access and limited content at
IQ mobile) users are willing to accept these new tools and Relevant content 5 5 5 5 5
appreciate working with them. If there are troubles and low rates Up-to-date
5 5 5 5
content
of acceptance right from the beginning, enterprises should analyze Amount of
usage behavior and identify barriers as soon as possible. As these content 5 5
two cases show, identifying the problem and taking Working faster 5 5 5 5
accompanying measures will often lead to success. Working easier 5 5 5 5
Central
4.3.2 Motivation information 5 5 5 5
access
In the cases of the research center CSR, Autohaus Lietz, and
New ways of
Winterheller, the team members were forced to use the social information 5 5 5 5
software application to be able to perform their daily business. In dissemination
the latter two cases, the social software application replaced Networking 5
another system. The team members of the IT department of Social presence /
reputation 5
Autohaus Lietz had to use the new application as this was the
only access point to the tasks they had to carry out. The wiki also
served as a repository for descriptions of processes and team The most important motivating factors that were encountered in
members could learn how to fulfill a task without having to ask the investigated SMEs (Table 6) are content related motivation
colleagues. (e.g. relevant/significant content, high quality, topicality), the
availability of a new way of information dissemination and
The project platform based on Ning for the research project at most importantly an increase in efficiency in daily work. The
CSR provided a much better overview of the relevant information high number of entries concerning working procedures (working
than the previously tested intranet solutions. A special easier/faster, central information access, new ways of information
requirement of CSR was that all written communication dissemination) in the cross-case analysis (Table 6) suggest that
(including email) had to be accomplished by means of the social software applications are likely to be well accepted by the
platform. Thus, it provided a central archive of all relevant employees if the systems efficiently support the daily work and
communication threads for all team members and the network of provide a clear benefit for the users. Therefore, social software
partner organizations was also maintained with the help of the implementations have to be easy and intuitive to use without
social network service. access barriers, but most importantly, they have to provide a
The most striking motivation factors of software developers at sufficient amount of relevant and up-to-date content.
Winterheller to use the wiki for documentation were significant
relief and improvements in the process of creating the software 4.4 Success Factors
documentation. Now, they were able to create the documentation Several authors address the topic of success factors of
collaboratively in a team and tasks could be shared. Therefore, implementing social software in (large-scale) enterprises [6][20].
writing was much easier, much faster and the output always up- Our cross-case analysis of case studies conducted in SMEs
to-date, with less effort. Besides, a new kind of creation process showed that the success factors for the social software
was set up and had to be followed. applications are promoters and management support. Promoters
were crucial for success of the task management wiki at Autohaus and the qualitative content analysis that was performed, allows for
Lietz. It was initiated by the head of the IT department, who also some deductions to social media utilization for team collaboration
assigned the tasks. Even though the wiki was easy to use, the in SMEs. According to Eisenhardt [23], we can use these results
training session definitely contributed to the success of the wiki, to shape new hypotheses.
too. Management support was crucial for the success of the wiki
First of all, in the six analyzed cases, top-down adoption
at Winterheller. Nevertheless, the ideas for further development of
strategies based on an initiative by management dominated. In
the wiki originated bottom-up from the team members. Another
comparison to large-scale enterprises where bottom-up adoption is
success factor mentioned in the Winterheller case and at IQ
quite common in SMEs, the leading role of top management
mobile was the availability of a contact person for assistance right
influences social media initiatives much stronger. This leads to
from the beginning. At IQ mobile, the allocation of a person in
the hypothesis that in SMEs top-down adoption is much more
charge, responsible for administration and keeping the content up-
frequently used than in large-scale enterprises.
to-date including in-depth support, in the course of an
organizational relaunch achieved sustained success. In order to encourage the utilization of the new tools, most
enterprises took two accompanying measures (Table 4). The
Personal support for users contributed to the success of the project
importance of support, especially personal support, is emphasized
platform at CSR, as well as the task tagging system at Factline. At
by our findings on the major success factors (Table 7). Thus, we
CSR, the project leader introduced the system to all team
can pose the hypothesis that social media initiatives for team
members and provided support. The new task tagging system at
collaboration will achieve sustained success if enterprises provide
Factline was introduced personally to every team member by the
key users and personal assistance to support users.
developer, who also provided support for using the new system.
The cross-case analysis identified two major success factors:
Greentube encountered two major success factors when starting
support of the social media activities by the companys
and running their corporate Greenwiki: simplicity and a broad
management as well as technical and operational support for users
mix of content of high relevance. Simplicity, ease of use and
as mentioned above. Again, as indicated by the predominance of
barrier-free access have been mentioned in several case studies,
top-down adoption in SMEs, the importance of management
but at Greentube simplicity is primarily responsible for success.
support as a primary success factor is obviously determined by
Table 7. Success Factors the leading role of top management, which is much more
Success factors Autohaus CSR Factline Greentube IQ mobile Winterheller
dominant in an SME than in a LE. Future work on this topic
Lietz might investigate whether the influence of management support
Promoters 5 on the success of social media initiatives is higher in SMEs than
Management in LEs.
support 5 5 5 5
Besides these success factors, social media implementations are
Simplicity 5
shaped by the motivation of the users to use the new tool. The
Promotion 5 most important motivating factors that we found in SMEs are
Training 5 associated with improvements in working procedures and
Support 5 5 5 5 processes, i.e. social media assist people to work more efficiently
User integration in their daily business. Team members in SMEs are highly
motivated to use social media if these applications provide a
significant amount of relevant and up-to-date content of high
The results in Table 7 indicate that the most important success
quality. Thus, especially in top-down initiatives like in SMEs,
factors for SMEs are support of the social media activities by
enterprises have to undertake activities that encourage users to
management and technical support for users. As the number of
augment the content, which in turn motivates other users to take
entries concerning technical support in Table 7 as well as the most
an active part. It is a precondition that the social media
important accompanying measures in Section 4.2.2 show,
application is easy to use and there are no access barriers.
accompanying personal support is highly appreciated by users and
increases chances of success significantly. Support of an initiative
by management is always important, but Table 7 clearly indicates 6. CONCLUSIONS
that due to the management-centric behavior of SMEs (see also Case-study research provides an appropriate method to analyze
Section 4.2.1) and the social and community-related complex phenomena regarding social media utilization in SMEs,
characteristic of social media, support by the top-level such as adoption strategies, user motivation, acceptance, and
management of an SME is vitally important. Interestingly, success factors. Since research on social media utilization is
another success factor commonly found in social media dominated by applications in large-scale enterprises, our work
initiatives, namely user integration, was not mentioned in any of focuses on small or medium-sized enterprises. High-quality case
the investigated case studies. studies on the application of social software for team
collaboration in SMEs are rare, and thus we chose a research
approach based on a qualitative content analysis applied to high-
5. RESULTS quality descriptive case studies following a standardized structure.
The cross-case analysis of six case studies conducted in European
Based on the findings of the cross-case analysis, we are able to
SMEs identified several indicators and influencing factors
form new hypotheses and could prove them for example in a
representing the specific situation of SMEs in the context of team
large-N cross-case analysis by investigating a much bigger set of
collaboration. The analyzed cases are quite heterogeneous in
case studies.
company size, applied social software tool, and problem statement
to be solved. However, the standardized structure of case studies
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