Social Networking Services for Enterprises are internal information systems used by organizations to increase connections and information sharing among their collaborators. These systems share the same features as social networking services but are used to low barriers inside organizations. They are intended to promote productivity by increasing information sharing. Usually, they are platforms that try to join features of Social Networking Services and knowledge repositories with Social Network Analysis. They give the managers and consultants the ability to access existing organization networks and hidden relationships and make decisions for reorganization based on what is really happening in the organization.
Published in Chapter:
Social Networks in Information Systems: Tools and Services
Hernâni Borges de Freitas (IST/INESC-ID, Portugal), Alexandre Barão (IST/INESC-ID, Portugal), and Alberto Rodrigues da Silva (IST/INESC-ID, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-650-1.ch020
Abstract
A social network represents a set of social entities that interact through relationships like friendship, co-working, or information exchange. Social Network Analysis studies the patterns of relationships among social entities and can be used to understand and improve group processes. The arrival of new communication tools and networking platforms, especially the Web 2.0 Social Networking Services, opened new opportunities to explore the power of social networks inside and outside organizations. This chapter surveys the basic concepts of social networks methods, approaches, tools, and services. In particular, this chapter analyzes state-of-the-art social networks, explaining how useful Social Network Analysis can be in different contexts and how social networks can be represented, extracted, and analyzed in information systems.