Measuring the Success of Social Software Adoption in the Firm: Empirical Evidence and Model Design

1. Introduction

Recent studies have shown that social software is no longer just a trend topic, but is well established in many organizations (Ward, 2009). Furthermore, companies are continuing to invest in this area (Bughin, 2009; Keitt, 2010), and – according to forecasts – employees will extend their use of Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace (Herrell et al., 2010). The challenges resulting from this shift from a hype technology to a serious implementation in the corporate IT environment are multifaceted (McAfee, 2009). One of those challenges is to identify the impacts and benefits that the use of social software in organizations implies.

Assessing the success of organizations’ information systems (IS) is always an extensive challenge. Nevertheless, existing models can provide a relevant framework. However, when different IS are examined, adjustments and modifications might be required to obtain a valid and meaningful instrument. As we show in this paper, this is also true of social software, which crucially differs from traditional IS such as groupware or ERP systems (Table 1).