Assessing the Impact of Social Networks on Organisational Performance

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, , language: English, abstract: Companies are often slow to find the way to use a new technology without 'strangling' it through excessive control. In the first years of the Internet up to the late 1990s, many companies feared that workers would waste their time surfing aimlessly, so they tried to control their access to it. While some employees were surfing aimlessly indeed, many of them have found ways to exploit the power of the Internet to improve their work, and the Internet quickly evolved as a valuable source of information, an excellent research and competition monitoring tool. The latest technological innovation that occurred in the workplace is the social media - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning, Plaxo, Hi5 and Second Life - which they revolutionized the way we communicate, create networks and exchange information.

Born in Athens, Greece, I studied economics, agricultural policy analysis, marketing and communication with new technologies and human resources management (BSc, MSc, DProf). I am an author of more than 40 books specialized in economics, accountancy and management. I have been an MBA lecturer for 19 years and I have taught more than 800 students and seminar attendants. I have worked as a Manager at Microsoft and other IT and Telcom companies. I am a registered consultant on entrepreneurship and innovation of European Union for small and medium enterprises and certified by Chartered Institute of Marketing. An active blogger, I write about economics at mastroyanni.blogspot.com. My articles have been published at numerous magazines, newspapers and blogs. About me and my books you may read at my blog: http://mastroyanni.blogspot.gr/