- 2015-03-09 (x)
- Online social networks (x)
- Search results
Search results
Show moreTheories of technology product adoption and diffusion fail to adequately explain social contagion or viral growth. Additionally, the role of product design in users propensity to use and recommend products is both understudied and poorly understood. To address a vexing gap in knowledge about what explains viral growth, we conducted ethnographic interviews with technology executives and users of two social networking sites that have experienced dramatically different growth patterns. Our findings reveal that product co-production and user self identity- not product attributes fuel viral growth. Social networking products co-produced by users and providers, with meaning socially constructed by customers, permit users to more effectively establish and maintain their self-identities and are far more likely to result in social contagion than are engineering-centric products. User experiences with Facebook and Friendster and organizational responses to them demonstrate the role of self identity and in particular five specific selves on viral growth.
Doctorate of Management Programs
Show less
Show moreEntrepreneurs need creative ideas to develop innovative new products. We interviewed 32 technology entrepreneurs to generate a grounded theory about how technology entrepreneurs use social behaviors, techniques and cognitive processes to attain, develop, refine, validate and filter (for usefulness) creative ideas for successful new products, processes or services. The results reveal a complex, cyclical and recursive multi-level social process with emphasis on active and social experimentation. Greatest ideational productivity occurs when strong social ties interactively solve problems in an environment of trust -- in particular, when 'Trusted Partners' exchange and refine ideas through a form of shared cognition. Findings will be of great interest to researchers interested in entrepreneurship, social creativity and management team dynamics. Practitioners will benefit from this new insight into the methodologies and practices of successful entrepreneurs.
Doctorate of Management Programs
Show less