In this paper, we examine the relation between social media use and the absorptive capacity of organisations. Over the past 10 years, many organisations have systematically adopted social media. Trade press and consulting companies often claim that the systematic use of social media increases the performance of organisations. However, such claims are typically neither empirically grounded nor theoretically examined. In this paper, based on key informant interviews at 20 organisations, we examine these claims empirically and theoretically. Firstly, we examine the ways in which social media are used by organisations. We identify five different social media use types that support different organisational purposes (broadcast, dialogue, collaboration, knowledge management and sociability). Secondly, we analyse how these five social media use types relate to organisations’ absorptive capacity. We find that particular social media use types (e.g., dialogue) support organisations’ absorptive capacity and, ultimately, their performance although others (e.g., sociability) do not.

中文翻译：

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组织如何以及为何使用社交媒体：五种使用类型及其与吸收能力的关系

在本文中，我们研究了社交媒体使用与组织吸收能力之间的关系。在过去的 10 年中，许多组织系统地采用了社交媒体。贸易媒体和咨询公司经常声称，系统地使用社交媒体可以提高组织的绩效。然而，此类声明通常既没有经验依据也没有理论上的检验。在本文中，基于对 20 家组织的关键知情人访谈，我们从经验和理论上检验了这些主张。首先，我们研究了组织使用社交媒体的方式。我们确定了五种支持不同组织目的（广播、对话、协作、知识管理和社交）的不同社交媒体使用类型。第二，我们分析了这五种社交媒体使用类型与组织吸收能力的关系。我们发现特定的社交媒体使用类型（例如对话）支持组织的吸收能力，并最终支持他们的绩效，而其他的（例如社交）则不然。