Understanding the effect of interactions in social networks on the performance and sustainability of organizations and online communities

Abstract

Communication technologies have allowed us to exchange information in social networks to create collective output. I have been interested in how people create collective output and what we need to do for performance and an organization’s survival. Thus, my research’s objective is to use network experiments to understand the effect of communication technology affordances on organization performance and the sustainability of online communities. To fulfill this objective, I examine (1) the effect of centralized communication network on organization adaptability when the environment changes, (2) the effect of sharing filters in social networks on the frequency distribution of shared events, and (3) the effect of audience size on individual participation in a synchronous online community. With the findings from the studies, I aim to extend our knowledge about the implementation of communication technologies in our workplace and society.