MAKING SENSE OF A TECHNOLOGY -A study of how professionals use, understand and create a sense of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and what factor´s that might influence these processes

Abstract

The social media technology has during the last years been increasingly introduced into many professionals’ practices, which might place new demands on how individuals and organizations use, perceive, understand and structure this technology in relation to their professional practices. This paper aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of aspects that might influence professionals in their use of, capability to adapt to and ability to create a sense of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Previous research has partly been focused on how technology is created and why organizations who pose similar techniques use it differently. It has also been concentrated on how individuals might be affected by their accountabilities, which are also related to concepts such as corporate governance, measurability and technological errors. Less contextual research has been into how organizations use social media, especially which factors that might affect this usage and adoption. From a qualitative approach different professions in several organizations been questioned about their own usage and perceptions of these networks, a result which has been approached by Orlikowskis (1992) theory “the structuration model of technology” and Weicks (2001) theory of “sensemaking”. The results and analysis shows a scattered picture among the concerned actors, where aspects such as their own perception, social and organizational context as well as their own knowledge regarding these networks have influenced them in their processes. This paper contributes to a further understanding of issues that might influence individuals and organizations in their use of social media networks but could also illustrate, in a wider perspective, factors that might influence actors in their ability to implement new technology into their business.