Organizational Impacts and Social Shaping of Web Management Practice

Abstract

The extraordinary growth of individual and organizational use of the Internet, particularly the Web, during the past decade has led scholars to question the social impacts of this incredible technology diffusion. In this chapter, I discuss a currently under-explored aspect of the social impacts of Web usage–the impacts of ongoing Web information system management (Web management) on the organizations and employees that maintain commercial Web sites (Web managers). This chapter is organized in the following manner. In the first section, I describe how this chapter supports the book’s theme. I then introduce key principles of social informatics and my general research approach and discuss the objectives of the study. In the second section, I define key constructs, review relevant literature, introduce the study’s theoretical framework, and summarize the methodology. In the third section, I describe the research results. In the fourth section, I draw on the data to present a summary model of Web management, suggest specific improvements to Web management practice, and discuss future impacts of Web information systems (Web IS) and trends in Web management. I conclude the chapter with sections on future research and final comments.