Social Capacitance: Analyzing Social Media's Influence in Organizational Absorptive Capacity

摘要

A key issue for marketers resulting from increased popularity of social media is how to leverage external knowledge: (a) within organizations through internal social media networks; and (b) outside and across organizations with partners, collaborating firms and consumers through external social networks. Although there is an extensive body of research available on absorptive capacity in organizations, there is a dearth of research related to absorptive capacity in the context of social media. To address this research gap, this paper introduces a new construct of social capacitance, a term that refers to social media's role in an organization's absorptive capacity development which in turn leads to organizational innovation, long term success, and competitive advantage for the firm.