Social strategy to gain knowledge for innovation

Candi, Marina; Roberts, Deborah L.; Tucker, Marion; Barczak, Gloria

Abstract

Taking the knowledge-based view of the firm as its starting point, and acknowledging that knowledge can lie outside the firm, this research extends our understanding of how the growing social media trend can contribute to open innovation. We specifically focus on SMEs, which tend to be resource constrained and might benefit particularly from leveraging social media platforms. We bring forward the notion that people flock to social media because they are motivated by a desire for social interaction. Indeed, our findings suggest that SMEs that put effort into connecting customers on social media—which we refer to as having a social strategy—are likely to reap both customers’ involvement in innovation on social media and new knowledge of value for innovation. Examining differences between social media platforms used primarily for personal purposes and those used primarily for professional purposes, we find that a social strategy is more effective in the first category than the second. This likely reflects differences in the social identities that people adopt on these two types of social media platforms.

Citation

Candi, M., Roberts, D. L., Tucker, M., & Barczak, G. (2018). Social strategy to gain knowledge for innovation. British Journal of Management, 29(4), 731-749. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12280

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 14, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 29, 2018
• Publication Date: Oct 31, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 21, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 30, 2020
• Journal: British Journal of Management
• Print ISSN: 1045-3172
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-8551
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 731-749
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12280
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/907164
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12280/abstract
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Candi, M., Roberts, D. L., Marion, T. and Barczak, G. (2018), Social Strategy to Gain Knowledge for Innovation. Brit J Manage. doi:10.1111/1467-8551.12280, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12280/abstract. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
• Contract Date: Dec 21, 2017